Har subah sirf utho mat Jaago Re TATA TEA

If you thought Twitter is a waste of time, think again. There are hundreds of meaningful tweets floating around. Depends on the kind of people you follow! Twitter is on its way to become the pulse of the planet. You could express yourself in just 140 characters—or add a picture or a video clip in your tweet to speak a thousand or a million words.  

More than 7 lakhs Indians are on Twitter — the popular social networking and micro-blogging platform. Here we’ve outlined five ways you could make your tweets meaningful and also use power of the social media tool to bring about a social change. Check out the Everyman's Guide to Twitter for Social Change:

Tweet:

Imagine a world without the Internet. A dark world where you’d have to think twice before you spoke up about anything because you don’t really know what is or what isn’t against the rule of the land.

New media has given you the freedom of expression. With such great freedom comes great responsibility. Use it. Tweet. Tweet to create a better world. Tweet to expose corrupt practices and mal-administration. Tweet to awaken the people by sharing inspiring and interesting stuff.

At the same time, don’t forget to exercise some control over your fingers. Twitter is like your tongue. Learn to hold it! When you tweet: “Be honest and positive. Don't be snarky. Follow Golden Rule: Tweet unto others as you'd have others Tweet unto you.”

Follow right people:

When you follow a person, his/her tweets appear on your home feed. If you don’t want to fill your home feed with endless chatter from the Twitterverse, follow the right people so that you get the right information. 

Twitter is a tool of mass distraction. You better make separate lists for friends, colleagues, news sites, etc so that you could find exactly what you’re looking for without getting distracted by other tweets.

You could find and follow a list of best people on listorious.com.

You could also follow Jaago Re! on Twitter.

Retweet (RT):

When you come across interesting media on the Web, give it a social media vote by retweeting it. Instead of retweeting celebrity tweets, you could try to retweet what the common man has to say about the same topic.

To get an idea of our twitter conversation, please go to http://twitter.com/JaagoRe.

You could communicate with us by using ‘@JaagoRe’ before your tweet or send us a direct message (DM) by writing ‘d Jaagore’.

Twitpic:               

Today every citizen is a reporter. Everyone could take a picture of any event or incident and ‘broadcast’ it to the world. When you see a pothole in the road, don’t ignore it. When you see a traffic cop taking bribe, click. Take a picture, upload it on Twitpic using your Twitter account and write what you must in less than 140 characters. The whole world will listen to you.

Twitvideo:

It’s ‘twitpic’ for videos! Use the built-in camera on your mobile set and share all your “Jaago Re!” moments with us.

Social media isn’t enough for social change. You could build an online movement about an important issue using ‘#’ hash tag but that doesn’t imply that you could do without offline activities. We still need strategic planning, coalition-building and creative social action if we want to do something after our tweets have woken up the nation. 

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Role of Digital Media for Social Change: Jaago Re! Tweetup

On Saturday, the 28^th of August 2010, we hosted our first ever Jaago Re! Tweet Up at Zenzi Mills, Mumbai where we invited social media experts, activists, volunteers, & tweeps who registered themselves for the event, to discuss the role of Digital Media for Social Change.

Our hope was that through the tweetup we’d find ideas & solutions to tackle the challenges that we all face while trying to awaken & inspire people through digital media & we’re really happy to say it was an incredible discussion full of passion & insight.

So for those of you who couldn’t attend, here is an overview of what we heard & what was shared!

The tweetup was moderated by Abhishek Thakore – a social change entrepreneur who’s been spearheading a youth organization called The Blue Ribbon movement for over a decade. We began by asking our panelists of their experience of trying to impact lives through digital media.

Harish Iyer (@hiyer), blogger and activist set a positive tone by expressing his pov on the issue, “If you do something good, share it with the whole world, so that someone somewhere can get inspired!” Others pitched in with their own experiences & the discussion soon veered towards the tremendous power of social media. “Social media breaks the thought that volunteering is restricted to people who are empowered!” – said Snigdha Manchanda, writer and Social Media consultant (@actionink). Dina Mehta, researcher, ethnographer and social media observer (@dina) shared her own experience of blogging to help Tsunami victims, which proved a great success. Mahafreed (@mahafreed)– journalist with Times of India brought to light the use of digital media to ‘expose’ corruption & wrong behavior in addition to inspiring people. She talked of her mother who’s an active whistleblower on drivers who flout traffic norms & how simple things like tweeting about it or putting up a picture could prove effective. 

Another Panelist, Bhairavi Sagar (@bhairavisagar), a volunteer with ‘World without Wars’ chipped in with a counter view, “We’re seeing Social Media as a medium of communication, not as a means of activism,” reminding us of the fact that a lot of NGO’s weren’t making the most of the opportunities of digital social media.

Which brought us to, why has social media worked for some social organizations and not for the others?

“Sometimes problems are logistical, NGOs don’t have the required resources or even a work force that has heard about Twitter or Facebook” said Chandni Parekh (@fundacause), social psychologist.

Priyanka (@priyankawriting) founder of digiwhirl & enthusiastic volunteer commented on the ‘NGO tone’ and how it would put people off online. Harish Iyer felt that influencers must help out like he does where he ‘spices up’ tweets of non-profits asking for help to ensure they get noticed. One of the many ‘quotes of the day’ came from Dina Mehta where she said, “For digital media to succeed as a tool of social change, technology too needs to be humanized & have a heart.”

Netra (@netra) who’s an avid networker as part of Pinstorm media - believes that the power of digital media extends to everyone - “Even if you’re not an NGO and you tweet about something you’re passionate about, someone is bound to take notice. If you’re popular, you’re surely going to mobilize people into taking some action!”

So if the platform has such obvious advantages, why is it that actionable social change is taking so long to catch up?

Harish Iyer responded by saying that - “We need to make activism much more sexy than it presently is, we need to market it well and make people see the awesome side of being a do-gooder!”

The other consensus was that individuals & NGOs need to simplify participation as well ensure that they come up with creative ways for people to get involved. Success of initiatives like the Wall Project and Pink Chaddi Campaign are testament to this.  

With these ideas filling the room, it was time for a quick chai break. Invigorated & refreshed we continued with Ankit Nandwani – who volunteered with Open Space through jaagore.com – sharing his amazing experience. The evening ended with a short film by MovieMala by director Ajit Sawant called ‘Life Drops’ based on saving water.

Great conversations, inspiring ideas and a roomful of new friends – that’s what we hope everyone got from the Jaago Re! tweetup. Look forward for more events from Jaago Re! in the future and share your questions or comments with us.

List of folks who attended :

Recommended Articles:

The Importance of Social Media for Nonprofits: An Interview with Sanjukta Basu
Your 'clicks' matter: Welcome to the Era of Online Activism 
Eve teasing: Lessons from the Bangalore Intervention
India -- What does it take to trigger your conscience?

How do you change the world? The answer is simple. Keep doing what you do, only, do it better! If you’re a sportsman, become a good sportsman. If you’re a good sportsman, become a great one. The idea is to empower yourself first—only then can you empower others.

Pursuing Excellence: A 'moment' in the master blaster's life when he surpassed West Indian gun Brian Lara’s tally of 11,953 runs and became the leading Test run-scorer in 2008. 

Here are five more ideas for social change:  

Coach children for Team India:

Are you passionate about outdoor sports? Are you a good sportsman? Why not turn your passion into a tool for social change? Many outdoor sports training centers are always in need of volunteers. You could begin here. You could also coach children at a local sports club in your area. If there isn’t one, why don’t you set up one to groom the local talents? Who knows? One of your kids might go on to lead Team India!

Start a ‘Sunday Internet Workshop’ for Adults:

How many adult citizens are familiar with the Internet? Not many. Why don’t you start a Sunday Internet Workshop for people who wish to learn to use the Internet for various purposes? Propose this idea to your computer teacher or community leader, or the principal at your school/college. If they don’t help, go to a cyber café in your area and try to convince its owner. Tell him that it’s a lifetime chance for him to turn these people into new customers. Come up with creative explanations and get started. You could also ask the same people who want to train for help. We’re sure those who like the idea would be willing to help.

Organise a fun event for the Elderly:

The life of the elderly in India can often be quite boring. Why not organize a fun event for the senior citizens in your community? You don’t have to wait for Parents’ Day to show that you care about them. You could also throw a party for old folks in senior citizens facilities, write a play and perform it in an old-age home, or just visit them with a bunch of your friends. It’s sure to make them more than happy. Check out five more ways to help make a better country for the elderly.

Spread the Word about Jaago Re! Blog:

Have you introduced your friends to your Jaago Re! blog? Do they know that they could volunteer with an NGO through our web platform? Help us awaken more people by asking them to join us here or on Facebook and Twitter. You could initiate/take part in the ongoing discussion or post a relevant picture/video about different issues that affect us through all these social media platforms. You could also maintain your own web log here.

Volunteer to Write/Maintain an NGO blog:

There are many nonprofit organisations which are actually making a difference in society by empowering people in various ways. Yet they don’t have sufficient resources or people with necessary skills to cover their activities or maintain their blog. Why don’t you help them start a blog? You could also spread the word about your favorite NGOs by writing about them on your own blog or here on Jaagore.com. You could also ask them to post their volunteer requirements here.

Need more ideas? Check out:

25 Ideas to Change the World- I
The Beginner’s Guide to Writing A Great Book
The True Path to Freedom: Swami Vivekananda
Ideas for A Changing India: Nandan Nilekani
Spread the ‘I CAN’ Bug

“In the '60s and '70s we thought of people as a burden. We thought of people as a liability. Today we talk of people as an asset. We talk of people as human capital. And I believe that this change in the mindset of looking at people as something of a burden, to human capital, has been one of the fundamental changes in the Indian mindset.

Only if the people have education, they have good health, they have infrastructure, they have roads to go to work, they have lights to study at night –only in those cases can you really get the benefit of a demographic dividend. In other words, if you don't really invest in the human capital, the same demographic dividend can be a demographic disaster,” says Nandan Nilekani, the the visionary co-founder of outsourcing pioneer Infosys.

His book Imagining India asks big questions: How can India –which made such leaps in the past two decades –maintain its demographic advantage? How can democracy and education be promoted? How, in the midst of such growth, can the environment be protected for the next generations?
 

In his talk at TED, he explains four brands of ideas that will determine whether India can continue its recent breakneck progress. Check out:

A guest post from Jamghat:

When you were a child, what was the first thing that you wanted to become? A scientist? An astronaut? An artist? Now imagine a child without such lofty dreams—a child who just wants to, but can’t, go to a school. A child who cannot play with friends because s/he has to work at a traffic signal from morning to night. One who sleeps on a different road every night and who can’t understand why his father beats him or why his mother refuses to love him.

Now imagine all such children coming together and uniting their strengths, experiences and determinations with the guidance of well meaning individuals, to try and lead a life that will give them, if not their childhood, at least an empowered adulthood!

You have just thought of ‘Jamghat.’

In 2003, Action Aid India forwarded a grant to design a play about life on the streets. Fourteen street children came together with theatre artists Amit Sinha and Lokesh Jain. The play, which was performed for Prince Charles, was a big success. The company toured India and abroad for the next 3 months. And, the tour changed their lives forever.

After the tour, the children realized they need not remain in the margins of our society. They decided to do what it takes not to return to the streets. They didn’t have money but that couldn’t stop them from living together to continue spreading awareness through theatre. Jamghat, a lively gathering, was born.

From this unplanned beginning, Jamghat has grown into a bigger, more ambitious group today. Where there are few opportunities for the children to leave the streets, be educated or receive vocational training, Jamghat is trying its best to rehabilitate these children with the help of a group of young adult professionals and volunteers. It organizes a monthly ‘Night Walks,’ a free 4-hour walk that aims to sensitize the public to the needs, dangers, and fun of being a street child. Jamghat guides a group of 25 people through Old Delhi from 8 pm— midnight, walking through the streets, visiting shelters, and providing experiential learning about life on the streets. The walk is conducted in the commercial localities of Jama Masjid, Lal Quila, Kodia Pul and Fountain Chowk, which form homes to thousands of homeless children.  

Jamghat is trying to build respect for the street children within society so that their ‘street’ identity wouldn’t prevent them from becoming active participants in a world that is largely indifferent to them.

The young volunteers with Jamghat prefer to communicate and motivate these kids by telling good stories with good examples. While doing so, Jamghat has found out that these children don’t lack talent. Some of them are very good at acting, dancing, mimicry, drawing and Shayari telling. But they don’t have a platform. All their talents are vanishing behind the curtain of addiction. Jamghat is trying to collect these unprivileged kids from streets and send them to Jamghat outdoor centre for their education.  Many of them are found with failing health, so Jamghat tries to help them as much as it could with their medical treatment.

Jamghat also uses the art form that awakened them to create awaken others. Using street plays, stage plays and theatre workshops, it works to generate awareness about social issues as well as funds for organizational support, while building awareness of self within these issues.

If you want to help rehabilitate these street children and give them confidence to take part in society, while educating society to allow their growth, please give your spare time to volunteer with Jamghat.  Here are three ways you could help Jamghat rehabilitate street children. Check out:

Volunteer for Outdoor Program - Day Care Center

Volunteers for Indoor Program - Teaching Street Children

Volunteers for Theatre

Sanjukta Basu was among the few early women who started expressing themselves on the Web. Also a TED India fellow, Basu was also one of the firsts to realise that the digital media could help bring about a change. She worked as the community outreach and internet program coordinator for Breakthrough, the nonprofit behind the Bell Bajao campaign. In this interview with Jaago Re, she tries to explain the winning idea behind Bell Bajao—which just got Cannes Lions award for its social advertising— and how social media could enable us to empower women.

Sanjukta Basu, Photograph: Jace

Check out excerpts from the interview:

Q. You've been on TED INDIA. How was it? Please share some of your experience.

A. Yes, I am a TED India fellow.  It was great and a different kind of experience watching all those videos online and actually being there with the crowd. The speeches and conferences online are very motivating and everybody is very friendly there. The fellows get a lot of attention.

I have quit my job and now I am a freelancer. I am trying to be a social entrepreneur. My focus is going to be social communication for nonprofit.

Q. So how did all this start?

A. It all started when I began writing my blog five years back. At that time blogging was new in India. I just took it up as a casual thing and did not think that it would do anything great. I noticed that a lot of people were reading my blog which I had not expected. It was a personal blog where I vented my feelings. I wrote about personal matters like my relationship with men, sex and other such topics which women are not supposed to talk about openly. People really liked my writing and a lot of female readers said that they liked my boldness. They said that they wanted to talk about such issues but could not. I realised that with this communication platform I had created for myself I was also motivating others to come out of the closet and ending this divide between personal and political as a lot of issues related to women do not come out because they are not willing to talk about it. Blog gave me a platform to reach out to the people without using a radio or TV.

Q. Your generation started blogging to express themselves. Has it grown up now? Is it the first to realise that this digital media could really bring about a social change?

A. In the urban areas digital media is being used in very interesting manner but there are many who are just using social media for being there. They don’t want to bring about any change in the society. But that is fine because everybody doesn’t have to change the world. It is a huge achievement that so many people are expressing themselves on social media because we live in a repressed and suppressed society. We are told not to speak up against elders or in school so Facebook and Twitter have brought a change in that and also our relationships and I see it as a positive change in the society.

Q. People say that the digital media is empowering those who are already empowered.

A. Yes there are a lot of people who do not have internet access but they are slowly opening up to this media and I think that the gap can be filled. I am myself working with nonprofit organisations at grass root level and bringing it on the digital medium. So, people need to go out and understand how nonprofit organisations and social entrepreneurs are working in the rural areas and bring these stories online rather than just talking about films and gadgets. For example, if you have a blog you can write about an auto rickshaw driver or a taxi driver and other such people, who cannot take their stories to the internet as they don’t have time for blogging while struggling for their two square meals. But those who have time and the means they can bring out these voices and the stories.

Q. What were the challenges that you faced during Bell Bajao’s initial days?

A.  Bell Bajao had a website and we were also present on Twitter and Facebook but the challenge was that nobody wanted to take interest in it as NGO’s are perceived as boring and working for some agenda by the youth. Also, domestic violence is a sensitive issue and people did not want to talk about it.

However, the reason that Bell Bajao became a success was that we were not communicating in the typical NGO language; we talked about day to day things like regressive TV serials etc. We used more friendly language. We also partnered with TV serials and brought that on Facebook and Twitter. Through our social media we were talking about the work that we were doing and we were also sharing and listening to the people. We were more conversational and getting into a dialogue. We replied to all the links and comments and had discussions on Twitter. We invited people to write on the blog and comment. The website today as it stands every piece is about taking some action like upload a video or write a blog. So all this motivated people towards the cause.  

Q. What were your goals for the campaign? Were you chasing any numbers?

A. We were not chasing numbers as they don’t matter on social media as you can have quality followers or thousands of followers who are not even listening to you. We realised that we needed quality followers who were genuinely interested in the cause so that they will participate and spread a word about the cause. For example, Save The Tiger campaign has got a lot of followers but that is not helping the cause of saving the tigers. So you need genuine and constructive participation. 

 Q. But isn’t it a challenge to engage people?

A. Yes, it is difficult as they have a very short attention span. They are more self engrossed but the youth is very enthusiastic. If you tell them that they can make a change and motivate them that they are important and in that way the Tata Tea Jaago Re campaign has been very successful.

Q. What motivates you every morning?

A. I feel that enough has not been done and I should do whatever little I can do and not miss out on any opportunity to make a difference. Every morning I think we can reach out to more people and more people should have access to this technology. If you open the newspaper, you read the violence against women or any human rights violation I cannot go on with a normal day. I feel that even a lifetime is not enough for working on these issues. So all this motivates me everyday.

Q. Are women safer in rural or urban areas?

A. It really cannot be said as sometimes they are not even safe in their own home. It depends upon what kind of people they live with, what kind of society they live in, whether women are respected in that place or not. So living in a city or a village does not make a difference.

Q. What do you think is the main hurdle in women empowerment?

A. There are many hurdles but the main would be the gender roles that we have assigned to women by the society like they are house makers, care givers and they are more suitable to stay at home while men have to work. But women can go out and work and men can take care of children, they can also cry and be more sensitive. This mindset of what is appropriate for man and woman and what is not needs to be changed. Everybody should be accepted the way they are. I also believe in homosexual rights, it’s a personal choice and society should not have a say in this.

Q. So you are enjoying your work?   

A. I am not working right now but yes, I am happy with what I have done so far as I did on my own calling and no one helped me. I did it without any self interest. I keep meeting people from various NGOs and ask them if they want any help with social media. But there is still much more to achieve as I want to use social communication for nonprofit organisation and help in bridging the gap between urban and rural and digital and non-digital.

Also check out:
Your ‘clicks’ matter: Welcome to the Era of Online Activism
Bell Bajao Blog - A Platform For Woman Who Face Violence To Speak Out

“Every uneducated foreigner who comes in globetrotting, takes a vanishing railway view of India, and lectures most learnedly on the awful evils in India. We admit it. Everybody can show what evil is, but he is the friend of mankind who finds a way out of the difficulty. Like the drowning boy who cried to the philosopher, when the philosopher was lecturing him “Take me out of the water first,” so our people cry, “We have had lectures enough, societies enough, papers enough, where is the man who lends us a hand to drag us out? Where is the man who loves us really? Where is the man that has sympathy with us?” Aye, that man is wanted. That is where I differ entirely from these reform movements. A hundred years they have been here. What good has been done excepting the creation of a most vituperative, a most condemnatory literature?”

Swami Vivekananda delivered this lecture on ‘My Plan of Campaign’ in Madras. It was published as ‘The True Method of Social Reform’ in the collected Speeches and Writings of Swami Vivekananda in 1899. His ideas about social reform are part of our own heritage rather than borrowed from the West. On this Independence Day, let’s try to find clues to India's failure to make greater reforms time and again.

The youth leader of his day,Swami Vivekananda was very critical of the so-called leaders of the masses who are but completely out of touch with the reality of the people whom they claim to represent:

 “Boys, moustached babies, who never went out of Madras, standing up and wanting to dictate laws to three hundred millions of people with thousands of traditions at their back! Are you not ashamed? Stand back from such blasphemy and learn first your lessons! Irreverent boys, simply because you can scrawl a few lines upon a paper and get some fool to publish it for you, you think you are the educators of the world, you think you are the public opinion of India! Is it so? Therefore, this I have to tell to the social reformers of Madras, that I have the greatest respect and love for them. I love them for their great hearts and their love for their country, for the poor, for the oppressed. But what I would tell them with a brother’s love is that their method is not right. It has been tried these hundred years and has failed. Let us try some new method, and that is all."

Here's the complete text of the lecture:

To the reformers I will point out, I am a greater reformer than any one of them. They want to reform only little bits. I want root and branch reform. Where we differ is exactly in the method. Theirs is the method of destruction, mine is that of construction. I do not believe in reform; I believe in growth. I do not dare to put myself in the position of God and dictate unto our society. This way you shall move and not that way. I simply want to do my humble work, like the squirrel in the case of the building of Rama’s bridge which was quite content to put on the bridge his little quota of sand dust. This is my position. This wonderful national machine has worked through ages ; this wonderful river of national life is flowing before us. Who knows and dares say whether it is good, and how it shall move ? Thousands of circumstances are crowding around it, giving it a special impulse, making it dull at times, and quicker at others. Who dares command its motion? Ours is only to work, as the Gita says, and stand by contented. Feed it with the fuel it wants, but the growth is its own ; none can dictate its growth to it.

Evils there are plentiful in our society. So are there evils in every other society, too. Here the earth is soaked sometimes with widows tears; there, in the West, the air is poisoned with the breath of the sobs of the unmarried. Here poverty is the great bane of life; there the life-weariness of luxury is the great bane that is upon the race. Here men want to commit suicide because they have nothing & eat. There they commit suicide because they have so much to eat. Evil is everywhere, like rheumatism. Drive it from the foot, it goes to the head drive it from there, it goes somewhere else. It is a question of chasing it from place to place; that is all. Aye, children, to remedy evil is the true way. Our philosophy teaches that evil and good are eternally conjoined, the obverse and the reverse of the same metal. Have one, you have to get the other; "make one billow in the ocean, it must be at the cost of some hollow somewhere. Nay, all life is evil. No breath can be breathed without killing some one else; not a morsel of food can be eaten without depriving somebody of it. This is the law. This is philosophy. Therefore, the only thing we can do is to understand that all this work against evil is more subjective than objective. The work against evil is more educational than actual, however big men may talk. Aye, this is the first of all the idea to be realised with respect to work against evil, and this ought to make us calmer, this ought to take fanaticism out of our blood ; and then the history of the world teaches us that wherever there have been fanatical reforms the only result was that they defeated their own ends. No greater upheaval for the establishment of right and liberty can be imagined than the war for the abolition of slavery in America. You all know about it. And what has been its result? The slaves are a hundred times worse to-day than they were before the abolition. Before the abolition these poor negroes were the property of somebody, and, as properties, they had to be looked after so that they might not deteriorate. Today they are the property of nobody. Their lives are of no value ; they are burnt alive on mere pretences. They are shot down ; no law for their murderers ; for they are niggers, they are not human beings, they are not even animals, and that is the effect of such a violent taking away of evil by law or by fanaticism. Such is the testimony of history against every fanatical movement, even for doing good. I have seen that. My own experience has taught me that. Therefore, I cannot join any one of these condemning societies. Why condemn? There are evils in every society ; everybody knows it ; every child of to-day knows it ; he can stand upon a platform and give us a harangue on the evils in Hindu society.

Every uneducated foreigner who comes in globetrotting, takes a vanishing railway view of India, and lectures most learnedly on the awful evils in India. We admit it. Everybody can show what evil is, but he is the friend of mankind who finds a way out of the difficulty. Like the drowning boy who cried to the philosopher, when the philosopher was lecturing him “Take me out of the water first,” so our people cry, “We have had lectures enough, societies enough, papers enough, where is the man who lends us a hand to drag us out? Where is the man who loves us really? Where is the man that has sympathy with us?” Aye, that man is wanted. That is where I differ entirely from these reform movements. A hundred years they have been here. What good has been done excepting the creation of a most vituperative, a most condemnatory literature? Would to God it was not there! They have criticised, condemned, abused the orthodox until the orthodox have caught their one, and paid them in their own coin, and the result is the creation of a literature in every vernacular which is the shame of the race, the shame of the country. Is this reform? Is this leading the nation to glory ? Whose fault is this? There is, then, another great consideration. Here, in India, we have always been governed by kings ; kings have made all our laws ; now the kings are gone and there is none left to take their place. The Government dares not ; it has to fashion its ways according to the growth of public opinion. It takes time, quite a long time, to make a healthy, strong, public opinion which will solve its own problems, and in the interim we shall have to wait. The whole problem of social reform, therefore, resolves itself into this: where are those who want reform? Make them first. Where are the people? The tyranny of the minority is the worst tyranny that the world ever sees. A few men who think that certain things are evil will not make a nation move. Why does not the nation move ? First educate the nation, create your legislative body, and then the law will be forthcoming. First create the power, the sanction from which the law will spring. The kings are .gone ; where is the new sanction, the new power of the people ? Bring it up. Therefore, even for social reform, the first duty is to educate the people, and you have to wait till that time comes. Most of the reforms that have been agitated for during the last century have been ornamental. Every one of these reforms only touches the first two castes, and no other. The question of widow marriage would not touch seventy per cent, of the Indian women, find all such questions only reach the higher classes of Indian people who are educated, mark you, at the expense of the masses. Every effort of these classes has been spent in cleaning their own houses, making themselves nice and looking pretty before foreigners. That is no reformation. You must go down to the basis of the thing, to the very roots. That is what I call radical reformation. Put the fire there and let it burn upwards and make an Indian nation. And the problem is not so easy. It is a, big and a vast problem before us. Be not in a hurry, and, mark my words, the problem has been known these several hundred years.

Today it is the fashion to talk of Buddhism, and Buddhist agnosticism, especially in the South. Little do they dream that this degradation which we have in our hands to-day has been left by Buddhism. This is the legacy which Buddhism left in our hands. You read in books written by men who had never studied the rise and fall of Buddhism that the spread of Buddhism was owing to the wonderful ethics and the wonderful personality of Gautama Buddha. I have every respect and veneration for Lord Buddha, but mark my words, the spread of Buddhism is less coring to the doctrines, less owing to the personality of the great preacher and more owing to the temples that were built, the idols that were erected and the gorgeous ceremonies that were put before the nation. Thus Buddhism progressed. The little fire-place in the houses in which were poured the libations was not strong enough to hold its own against these gorgeous temples and ceremonies, and later on the whole thing degenerated. It became a mass of filth of which I cannot speak before this audience, but those who want to know it may look into those big temples, full of sculptures, in Southern India, and this is all the inheritance we have from the Buddhists. Then arose the great reformer, Sankaracharya and his followers, and all these hundreds of years, since his rising to the present day, has been the slow bringing back of the Indian masses to the pristine purity of the Vedantic religion. These reformers knew well the evils which existed, yet they did not condemn. They did not say, ‘All that you have is wrong, and you must throw it out.’ It could never be so. Today I read that my friend, Dr. Barrows, says that in 30 years Christianity overthrew the Roman and Greek religious influences. That is not the word from a man who has seen Europe, and Greece, and Rome. The influence of Roman and Greek religions is all there, even in Protestant countries, only with changed nairies, old gods coming in a new fashion. They change their names; the goddesses become Marys and the gods become saints, and the ceremonials become new ; even the old title of Pontifex Maximus is there. So these wholesale changes cannot be. They are not so easy, and Sankaracharya knew it. So did Ramanuja. These changes cannot be. The only other way left to them was slowly to bring up the masses to the highest ideal of the existing religion. If they had sought to apply the other method they would have been hypocrites, for the very fundamental doctrine of their religion is evolution, the ;soul going up towards the highest goal, through all these various stages and phases, and all these stages and phases, therefore, are necessary and helpful, and who dares condemn them?

It has become a trite saying, and every man swallows it at the present time without questioning, that idolatry is wrong. Aye, I once thought so, and for the penalty of that I had to learn my lesson sitting at the feet of a man who got his everything from idols ; I allude to Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. Hindus, if such Ramakrishna Paramahamsas are produced by idol worship, what will you have the reformer’s creed or any number of idols? I want an answer. Take a thousand idols more if you can. Produce % Ramakrishna Paramahamsas through idol worship. God speed you! Produce such noble creatures by any means you have. And idolatry is condemned. Why ? Nobody knows, except that some hundreds of years ago some man of Jewish blood happened to condemn it, that is, he happened to condemn everybody else’s idols except his own. If God is represented in any beautiful form, 6b any symbolic form, said the Jew, it was awfully bad ; it was sin. But if He was represented in the form of a chest, with two angels sitting on each stile, and a cloud hanging over it, it was the Holy of Holies. If God conies in the form of a dove, it is the Holy of Holies, but if He comes in the form of a cow it is heathen superstition ; condemn it. That is how the world goes. That is why the poet says, "What fools we mortals are!" That is why it is difficult to look through each other’s eyes, and that is the bane of humanity. That is the basis of hatred and jealousy, of quarrel and of fight.

“Boys, moustached babies, who never went out of Madras, standing up and wanting to dictate laws to three hundred millions of people with thousands of traditions at their back! Are you not ashamed? Stand back from such blasphemy and learn first your lessons! Irreverent boys, simply because you can scrawl a few lines upon a paper and get some fool to publish it for you, you think you are the educators of the world, you think you are the public opinion of India! Is it so? Therefore, this I have to tell to the social reformers of Madras, that I have the greatest respect and love for them. I love them for their great hearts and their love for their country, for the poor, for the oppressed. But what I would tell them with a brother’s love is that their method is not right. It has been tried these hundred years and has failed. Let us try some new method, and that is all. Did India want reformers ever? Do you read the history of India? Who was Ramanuja? Who was Sankara? Who was Nanak ? Who was Chitanya? Who was Kabir? Who was Dadu? Who were all these great preachers, one following the other, a galaxy of stars of the first magnitude? Did not Ramanuja feel for the lower classes? "Did not he try all his life to admit even the Pariah to his community ? Did he not try to admit even Mahomedans to his own fold ? Did not Nanak confer with Hindus and Mahomedans, and try to bring about a new stage of things? They all tried, and their work is going on. The difference is this. They had not the fanfaronade of the reformers o today ; they had not the curses on their tips the modern reformers have. Their lips pronounced only blessings. They never condemned. They said unto the people that the race must always grow. They locked back and they said, "O Hindus, what you have done is good, but my brothers let us do better." They did not say, "You have been wicked, now let us be good." They said, "You have been good, but let us now be better." That makes a whole world of difference. We must grow according to our natural growth. Vain it is to attempt the lines of action foreign societies have engrafted upon us. Impossible it is. Glory unto God that it is impossible, that we cannot be twisted and tortured into the shape of other nations. I do not condemn the institutions of other races; they are good for them, but not for us. What is meat for them may be poison for us. This is the first lesson to learn. With other sciences, other institutions and other traditions behind them, they have got their present systems. We with our traditions, with thousands of years of karma behind us, naturally, we can only follow our own bent, run in our own grooves, and that we shall have to do.

by Swati Randev-Verma

As I sit at my desk to give you a humble account of the last 26.99 years of my life, I am amazed to note that I cannot.

Cannot give you a 'humble' account, that is. I am oh-so-extraordinary that there is nothing humble about how I have lived or what I have done in my life thus far!

Did I mention humility is one of my most privileged assets?

I was born in Mumbai (thankfully!) and brought up around the world. My father, now a retired diplomat (from the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi) has been on several postings across the globe, and I as a privileged child have gone along with my family everywhere.

I’ve studied in countries like Germany, Kuwait and Thailand and have worked in various fields in Hungary and UAE. Oh, what a life! What a life I’ve had!

Global nomads. That’s what we call us ‘young members of diplomatic families’. That and DiploBrats. But hey, who’s judging? I’m often asked – “How does it feel to have moved around the world so much, to have never lived in one place for longer than 3 years of your life? Must be odd?”

My answer to these people is always in the form of another question: “How does it feel to have lived in one place all your life? Never moved around in your life? Having had the same set of friends, having grown up in the same environment for 18 / 20 / 25 / 50 years of your life?” When I get a confused look as an answer, I answer for them: You don’t know, do you? When you’ve lived life a certain way, you know of no other way to live. I cannot tell you how I feel about having moved around all my life as opposed to lived in one place since I’ve never done the latter. I do not have a basis for comparison. I do, however, have immense gratitude for the life I have been exposed to. Immense joy and gratitude.

Gratitude towards whom? Towards my family? Of course! If it weren’t for my father’s job and my mother’s dedication, my brother and I wouldn’t have been brought up the way we were. But more than that, I hold my head high and salute my country. For if it wasn’t for them, we would’ve never got the kind of education we did, we would’ve never travelled to these exotic locations and we would’ve never known of life the way we do now. The best schools in the world, the best education one can have, the highest form of respect (being young members of the diplomatic community) and immense amount of pride. That is how I have grown up. That is what my country has done for me.

What have I done for the country? Nothing. I’ve done so little for my country, that I have done nothing. My head hangs in shame when I think of what I can do and what I am doing. I see a path in front of me – a path that I will soon take. A path that I have been working towards, a change that I have dreamt of ever since I was a child. I dream to serve my country.

My dream was to do so as a combat soldier in the Indian National Army, but this dream was shattered the day I found out that as a woman, I cannot be a combat soldier for my nation. I took that with a pinch of salt, but pledged that day forward to do my bit every single day towards the change that I want to see.

I have been given many nicknames over the years because of this passion of mine – desh-premi, paagal and patriot are mere examples. The list goes on and on. But there are two nicknames that are extremely close to my heart: kooradaan (dustbin) and don (goon).

Of course there’s a catch behind me liking these names. And you’re shaking your head, smiling and saying to yourself: I’m going to have to read the stories behind these two nicknames – might as well light that cigarette. Go right ahead. This might take a little while.

Kooradaan. Trashcan. Dustbin. Yep, one of my favorite nicknames for me. There have been a number of occasions where my friends have dug into my bag to find a certain something and come up with a million items that, had it been them, would’ve found their way on the streets. Toffee wrappers, chocolate boxes, scrap paper, used tissues, broken pens and many other things have always found home in my bag / purse because I refuse to trash the streets. Now, if there were dustbins / trashcans on the roads in India, I wouldn’t need to do so. But that’s an entirely different discussion. Moving on with kooradaan: I have pledged not to litter the streets of my nation and I stand by that pledge. If that means that my handbag / purse is overflowing with garbage, so be it!

“Swati, you are in Bangalore, not Boston” followed by uncontrollable laughter – one of the reactions I have received when I’ve outright refused to let those around me litter and volunteered to stuff my bag with their trash too. My response is always the same: If you want Bangalore to turn into Boston, then start behaving as you would in Boston. Else, stop criticizing the government for everything.

Of course, this is followed by further fits of laughter. At this stage when I join in the laughter these people don’t seem to get that I am not laughing with them, but at them.

Alas! Such as the ways of the wise. Them thinking they’re wise, that is. I am no more than a fool. A privileged one, but a fool, by their standards. Such is life, and shall always be.

I want to say “that leads us to my second favorite nickname”, but unfortunately I can’t find a decent way to link the two together. So let’s pretend that I’ve made some ridiculously intelligent connection between the two nicknames. Here goes…

And that, my friend, leads us to my second favorite nickname: Don. Yes, this five and a half foot tall, 47 kg heavy girl has had this name associated with her for a while now. (Daymn, how’d I get into this third person mode?)

Known for picking fights with anyone and everyone, I have always stood for what I believe in. Be it the fact that chocolates should become tax free, or that corruption needs to be eradicated at the grass root level, I practice my beliefs and hold tight to the stand(s) I take in life.

As a fresher in college I have stood by my juniors, refusing to allow any kind of ragging; as a citizen I have refused to pay 10 rupees to the peon who wanted to get my papers signed by the Principal – I’m quite capable of standing in line for 2 hours, thank you very much.

I have also flagged – or tried to – those individuals who have approached me with leaked papers. Needless to say, I got nothing but apathy from the authorities. I did not stop talking about it, nor did I stop openly declaring who these people were. From frail threats to open arguments to potential fist fights – I’ve been a part of it all. And proudly so.

When I walk the streets of my country, I walk with my head held high, for I know that I am making a difference. Out of a hundred people who have seen me fight for a cause or who have seen me smile while putting away a wrapper in my bag, at least one will think before handing that money to a peon ‘under the table’ or before chucking that scrap piece of paper on the road.

That’s what I am doing for my country. That’s how I am trying to make a difference. Is that enough, you ask? It may not be enough, but is one thing: a beginning.

I was recently asked to send my details for a city-wide contest that was happening in India. Whilst I do not reside back home, home will always be home. The self-nomination resulted in this lengthy monologue and I ended up extracting bits and pieces from it for this blog entry. However, I never did get to hear back from the guys about the nomination. I suppose this last bit of my write up / letter is the reason – they probably never figured out where to place me:

I will not be able to tell you which city I am from. Originally a Punjabi from Amritsar with ancestors hailing from Lahore (now Pakistan) and Sialkot; born in Bombay (now Mumbai); lived briefly in New Delhi in between postings; moved to NOIDA and lived there between postings; and finally lived in Bangalore (the only city I can call home) for 5 years, while currently living in the UAE.

Where am I from, you ask?

India.

Live @ Wagah Border: Keeping hatred alive?

Not so long ago, the then ruling party of India launched an election campaign by projecting the idea of a changing India through doctored portraits of a glamorous, happy India. Behind the façade of the shining India, one-third of the world’s poor languished for the promised pariwartan, the Change. The people in streets our cities and bazars of our villages, who would later exercise their franchise, weren’t the real heroes of this campaign. That’s exactly where it missed the boat and the ruling party lost the election.

If you’ve noticed, you’ll hardly find any difference between the attitude of the so-called people’s leaders who were behind the election campaign and the general attitude of the (dumb) people of India. We go into a state of denial whenever it comes to actually doing something about the issues that affect us and couldn’t be solved by rhetoric alone. Take for example, the visual spectacle that accompanies our national anthem in some of our multiplexes today. Before every movie, these theatres play Jana Gana Mana, the feel-great movie, which exalts the courage of the unflinching, fully-geared Indian soldiers in uninhabited snowy mountains. Our pride swells at the sight of thundering helicopters of the Indian Army. As the new patriotic pastiche comes to an end,  we the (dumb) Indians prepare for the coming show in the area of darkness, content with the vivid images of the fabricated glory and false reassurance that has been just been sold to us. And, we the general public is always willing to buy such entertainment —it provides a great escape from the ugly truths of their existence.

All forms of art have been exploited by those in power to serve their own self-interests and to assert their personal visions of the world, no matter how flawed. Cinema, in comparison to other art forms, has proved to be the most potent tool in captivating and influencing the minds of the greatest number of people. Even Adolf Hitler, the Nazi dictator, effectively used films to fob the people. Cinema, for this reason alone, suffers from far more restrictions and censorship issues than all major art forms.

As the nation prepares for another triumphant show of nationalism, for the 63 years of Independence, we can’t help asking ourselves: What good is such patriotism if it only fuels the bogus pride but falls short of inspiring people to actually take it upon themselves to fight the serious maladies of our times? In what ways is it different from the above-mentioned pompous show that accompanies our magnificent national anthem in the theatres today? How could we mould the youth of this generation into responsible leaders if we refuse to participate in the day to day governance?

Patriotism can’t be the final spiritual shelter of our great nation if we don’t adhere to humanity. One of the founding fathers of the nation, Rabindranath Tagore said: “My refuge is humanity. I will not buy glass for the price of diamonds, and I will never allow patriotism to triumph over humanity as long as I live.” We have turned blind to the words of these wise men—because we fear to be ridiculed. We think it’s unfashionable to quote Tagore or Gandhi today. No? We believe in pleasing people— to fulfil our own agenda. Anybody, who is passionate enough to do something for their country and the people, is shown the door. Our darkness is dear to us, and our denial is a must. So we let the narrow creed of patriotism to triumph over humanity over and again.

Today, we’re looking for a new breed of patriots who could face the truth about our times and that of our forefathers and who could rejuvenate the work towards that idea of a great Indian nation.

Is there anybody out there?

“It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.” — Voltaire

 “Nationalism, especially when it urges us to fight for freedom, is noble and life-giving. But often it becomes a narrow creed, and limits and encompasses its votaries and makes them forget the many-sidedness of life.” —Jawaharlal Nehru

“The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?” —Pablo Casals

”Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!... Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind." — Albert Einstein

Show your patriotism in a meaningful way.  Jaago Re!

Guys, 'What's your idea to change India?'