The Ideal Citizen of My Dream

(1) A citizen who thinks independent of party politics :

Why ?

Because a citizen is not a member of a political party. And so not bound and blinded by any particular ideology. It is not necessary for him to follow party line.

The main aim and objective of political parties is to gain seat of power. To achieve this aim, political parties may resort to any tactics that may be harmful to our national interests.

The aim and objective of citizens is to choose a right dispensation for governance which can run affairs of nation and state for the common good of the people in general.

This can be possible only if citizens think independently, scientifically and rationally. Even one of the fundamental duties enlisted in article 51-A(g) of our constitution enjoins upon us, the citizens, to develop a scientific temper, humanism and spirit of inquiry and reform.

(2) A citizen who explicitly expresses his displeasure to the harmful acts of politicians such as personal derogatory remarks for each other.

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(3) A citizen who encourages genuine appreciation of a rival by a rival where it is required. Scientific temper and the spirit of inquiry are the instruments in the hands of citizens to judge such things.

Why ?

Because these two things will promote magnanimity and help reduce enmity and hatred. Members belonging to different political parties are all Indians and in that sense, brothers and sisters. Where is the need to spew venom? They do it because we, the citizens, clap thunderously, when they, the politicians say venomous one liners to arouse our base feelings

(4) A citizen who explicitly expresses his displeasure to the vices communalism, castism and parochialism etc.

Why ?

The era in which world is flat and has been reduced to a global village, these three vices will take us back to the dark age in human history.

But the core question is, just the expression of displeasure by the citizens can bring the politician back to the right track ?

Emphatic YES my citizen friends, because all politicians are highly sensitive to the fragrance of VOTE. And that fragrance of vote emanates from our body language.

SMS from Inner Self

When I go for walk in the morning, number of ideas on variety of subjects come to my mind. With the grace of Ma Saraswati, it also comes to my mind that I should record these ideas. I pondered over the title under which I should write these ideas ? Number of titles blinked on the screen of my mind and ultimately I liked to save “SMS from inner self” out of those titles.

Today when I went for a walk, a question came to my mind. How the mother nature establishes principle of co-existence? Immediately my sight moved on the trees around me on the road. I found all the trees full of green leaves. However, on careful observation, I realized that though the trees were full of green leaves on it, they were also sprinkled with different colours of flowers and fruits! Think over it and mother nature’s message becomes very clear. Green, though chosen to be the principal colour in the world of vegetation, it engenders and preserves variety of other colours in the form of flowers and fruits. Otherwise, why a tree laden with full of green leaves should produce a red or orange flower or a fruit of a colour other than the green?

Now if we, the human beings think of us as only human beings, accommodating or adjusting with different religious/social beliefs and living together with all the differences will never be a problem. If we think of us as human beings, concept of majority and minority also becomes irrelevant. Since compartmentalization in different races, casts, creeds etc., is not doing us any good, we need to refresh our style of looking at ourselves. Globalization and compartmentalization is a mismatch. We need to learn a lesson from the plant kingdom. As the majority of green leaves allow different colour of flowers and fruits to grow and prosper gracefully with them and aid each other in enhancing grace and grandeur of the tree, we, the human beings also should live aiding and enhancing beauty of humanity with all our differences.

Common man's responsibility

In a democracy like India, the common man-aam admi is in a dual roll. Since the people themselves are the masters in a democracy, the common man is a master. But at the same time self sufficiency and self responsibility are the key conditions for a success of a democracy, the master himself has to play the roll of a servant also.

We frequently hear about people indulging in violence and sabotage. This leads to criticism of the administration and law enforcement agencies. I am not against criticism of the administration and police in such conditions. While appreciating people's right to give vent to their anger in a peaceful manner, their indulgence in violence and sabotage should be strongly criticized by the media and public leaders. I have never seen this happening. Reporting of this type of incidents are carried in such a manner that directly or indirectly, behavior of the people seems to be justified. Media may have their business interests and political leaders may have their political interests. But what about the masters of democracy themselves ? Should we, the masters of our own beloved democracy wait for some one else's criticism of our unbecoming behaviour?

Think about our attitude. We keep throwing rubbish anywhere we like and think of a municipality that should maintain an army of sweepers or costly sweeping equipments but at the same time do not like taxes. To give vent to our anger, we burn buses, trains and damage other public and private property. To stop us doing this we expect government to maintain a large law enforcement machinery. If these law enforcement officers resort to lathi charge or firing to control our violent outbursts, we call it atrocity on innocent people. If they keep leniency, we call them weak, biased and held them responsible for our misbehaviour. Every one of us thinks that it wasn't me yaar! There are few miscreants followed by gullible spectators. These gullible spectators are the masters. At least, as a responsible citizen, if these gullible spectators can stop inadvertent mingling with the miscreants, it will be a great service to the nation and will help law enforcement agencies to do their work in a more people friendly manner.