Ideals gone awry!

Students have the onus of restructuring the future society. If nothing else, they must change themselves and their families for the better, in thinking, in values, in ethics. This will make sure that we lay the foundation for a golden morrow. We all take steps, some conscious and some not, towards this objective.

Little things we do can have a large impact for our own future. If we stop giving alms to child beggars and instead donate generously to NGOs boosting child education and invest our efforts in making them reach their goal, we are helping mankind better. Everybody may not do this on the same scale, but if this thought is fostered in each of us, we are on our way! This is just an example, just a passing thought, probably a droplet in an ocean.

One such though appeared to be Lok Paritran, a political party floated by IIT graduates. They wanted to rebuild Indian politics, or so I assume. A piece on CNN-IBN about them shattered me recently. It reads:

Lok Paritran, the political party formed by a group of ex-IITians in 2005 witnessed a vertical split just ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls.

The breakaway faction is called Bharat Punarnirman Dal (BPD) and will take on Lok Paritran head on in the UP poll field.

Further, I was amused to read that both parties also involved in mud-slinging, derogatory and degenerating a la the run-of-the-mill political parties. The report says:

"We will contest the elections in the fifth, sixth and seventh phases in UP despite contemptuous act of spreading rumours against the party by some former party members, who have formed BPD," national president L P Tanmay Rajpurohit was quoted as saying.

The expectations from such a party founded by the so-called brightest minds of India, The IITians, would be to change the existing poor scenario. In case the party fails at doing it, one expects it to fare better than others on the ethics and responsibility part. If you cant change the herd, at least stand out. They started out to change the crowd, and turned to be just another addition to the crowd. This is definitely discouraging.

When does such a situation arise? Probably when the founders have surrogate intentions. It could be power, fame, money or anything, they must have claimed something and aimed for something else. Or they could have got their basics wrong. A successful Marketing Strategy works if the Marketer knows Why he is doing something and for what. If the why and want match, the strategy is successful. This match may not have been manifested properly in this case. I have nothing against the party or the founders or the members or anyone. It was just an example I cited. There are umpteen such out there in papers where people claim something and aim for something. They gain the initial momentum claiming lofty ideals, but end up with hollow promises. This case has been highlighted probably cos the stakeholders are from the esteemed IIT. Frankly, in my opinion, IIT is highly highly highly over-rated. There is nothing special about it. It is a completely personal opinion, though!

I have my reasons for it, too! For in this case, while we have the above mentioned party on one side, we have Bharat Uday Mission on the other side. This is a group of students (I dont want to call it a party) who have come together to make a difference to society and they definitely do it. They are passionate towards their job, and they are all students. There is some sincerity and passion in BUM which the others lack. Even BUM may have lots of IITians, but it doesn't use IIT to gain some momentum or mileage. Moreover, BUM serves at many places in India where there is no IIT and hence no IITians and it does a better job there. This clearly shows we don't need brands, but we need people with substance.

We don't need lofty ideals and promises, what we need is consciousness... Consciousness in each of us is they to the golden future we want to pave for ourselves. Students should definitely make some effort to better things. It need not be on a national scale, or it need not even affect one single person other than self. If every self takes care of the reform in the self, the society is taken care of.