On educating myself, blogs and reclaiming India
While reading Shekhar Gupta’s thought-provoking edit, “Our Singapore fantasy” earlier last month, I stumbled on these lines (highlighted for emphasis):
Yes, there are problems with our politics and governance and both need reform.
That reform…needs imagination, patience and persistence. It needs better education for the voter, not contempt for the voting classes.
As some of you would remember, this is eerily similar to what Sri Sri Ravishankar said recently (to Shekhar Gupta, actually) and for all I know, SG may well have been inspired by Sri Sri while writing this…Regardless, the lines resonated strongly with me…
This learning and helping generate awareness is why I continue to find some time for the blog, why I started the facebook page about 18 months ago and why I’m increasing the  focus on outreach efforts. “..education for the voter” is the reason why initiatives such as Takshashila are important, not to mention numerous other blogs such as Atanu Dey’s excellent Deeshaa.org And this is also why I’m going to ask Sanjeev to reconsider his decision to reduce his blogging frequency..
The sentiment of course, chimes with my own humble effort at “Reclaiming India – One Step at a Time“. Jai Hind, Jai Bharat!
P.S. I’m on a mini-blogging break until next week. During the next few days, there is likely to be a delay in responding to and/or moderating comments on the blog. Â In the meantime, please have a look through the “Archives” (right-hand sidebar) and/or the various “Categories” of posts ranging from “Ancient Indian History” to “Women in Hinduism“. Thank you for your patience and support as always. Happy Reading.
An example of the challenge we face: Even if people don’t know what the Lokpal Bill is, they say, “We don’t know about this, but Anna ji is doing a good thing.”
From CNN-IBN news-report titled, “Anna starts door-to-door referendum for Lokpal”
Costant blogging stems the flow of learning and shut the doors for new thoughts. In the age of blogging and micro blogging where people are ‘learning’ in piecemeal via hyperlinks without any individual quest for TRUE KNOWLEDGE and understanding the underlying causes is only adding the numbers to the argumentative breed who doesn’t know the meaning of reaching towards logical conclusions.
Shantanu, I would like to draw your attention again towards few points raised on the topic ‘Hindutva and liberalism’ as well. Ta.
“That reform needs .. imagination, patience and persistence..” sums up the challenge facing those who want to create a better System. So now that we have agreed that reform is required, one would need to define the objectives and the means of achieveing them.A detailed action plan with a time frame would be required. Most people, worldwide ‘go with the flow’. In order to change a System which has been let to rot, almost to the core, needs stupendous effort. Having too much patience would also be a hindrance.
So for the few who want to initiate the creation of a better System , and want to eradicate the ills that are now deeply entrenched in the System, the task is huge.The waters have been so muddied that things are not white and black, it’s all turned rather grey and dirty.The resistance that they, we, would face is huge and could well be demoralising.
Nonetheless… soldier on we must.
And Bhuvan is right..microblogging is not going to achieve much..we need a larger common platform and need to preach to the uninitiated, as well as the converted.
Reclaim Bharath, India has no values