India celebrates its 76th Republic Day on January 26. All of those who are attached to the story of India are very much interested in seeing this great country become a holistic and happy country and recover its past glory.  It is therefore worth pondering on what type of future we would like to see for our country.

Personally I feel it should grow in a certain direction. That direction naturally is a product of personal taste and there will be as many directions suggested as there are people but generally, we want the country to grow in a way so that all its citizens are happy and lead a fulfilling life based on the model of sustainable development.

In modern times the first to write about what type of India should be, was Mahatma Gandhi who in the early 1920s wrote “India of my dreams”. Since then thousands of books and booklets have been produced by different authors detailing what and how they want to see a future India.

Most of them use the template of USA or China development models and try to show how India can progress by following them and even outcompete them in future. I feel both the American and Chinese experiments have partially failed since they are heavily based on greed and ever-increasing resource consumption and hence have resulted in all round unsustainable development; increasing chasm between rich and poor leading to discontent; and all-round unhappiness.   

We therefore need an out of box thinking and a new model of development which will help in the evolution of India and the world towards a holistic and sustainable society. I feel the new model of development for India should be based on the combination of its spiritual thought and modern high technology. Spirituality makes us smarter, more empathetic and gives us wisdom to develop innovative technologies and use them for greater good. 

Developing technologies for sustainable rural development 

I have invested a major portion of my life thinking and working on these issues. Basically it has been on developing technologies for sustainable rural development and interpretation of ancient Indian philosophical thought in the light of modern science and technology. I feel the  combination of these may provide a sustainable model for India.

This is an attempt to provide a roadmap of India based upon this model and also show a possible way to achieve it. So what follows is a distillation of all that I have done and thought about these issues.

The Drivers

People: Our greatest resource is our people. We are the most populous country in the world. More than 1/6th of mankind lives in India. We have overtaken China in terms of population since the last couple of years.

Our population is also the youngest in the world. Around 65% of our population is below 35 years of age. This young population should be the engine of growth for the betterment of India. That can only happen when youngsters are inspired to do great things and be good human beings. Higher goals are worth following, not by force but by inspiration.

In my interactions with large number of youngsters in various colleges, IITs and universities  I have found they want to do something useful with their lives and achieve certain meaningful goals  but do not know how to go about doing it since they have not been guided and given proper directions. Without that they gravitate towards earning maximum money since society is geared towards that and forces them to follow this path. 

If they are guided properly with high expectation goals of achieving more for the common good, they will deliver it. Smart kids want challenges. They rise to it. And higher goals will give them a purpose in life.   

These goals should not be geared only towards materialistic living since this model of ever-increasing greed and consumerism has failed in most of the countries and has led to runaway pollution; unsustainable living; economic disparity and general corruption.

I also feel that once we create these highly motivated individuals who think deeply about higher things and how to make this country great, then we should give them freedom to follow their dreams.  When talented individuals are given freedom, they produce wonderful inventions and solutions to problems they perceive.

Inspirational Leaders

During our independence movement, Gandhi ji showed us that if we strive for higher goals and thinking, masses can be moved to achieve them. He inspired Indians through love and non-violence and that is the goal worth emulating.

The whole country followed him with youth in the forefront of his movement. They left their careers and future for his cause. My father who was 24 years old and was doing his Ph.D. in Hindi literature from Allahabad University, left a very lucrative professional career and went to jail in the 1942 quit India movement. Similarly thousands of youth left their careers to help Gandhi ji’s cause. 

Sometimes even evil people can raise the conscience of the masses to follow higher goals.  For example Mao in China for nation building after their independence in 1950s; and to a lesser degree Stalin in Russia for nation saving against Hitler’s onslaught in the 1940s ! The citizens of both China and Russia were wary and afraid of their ruthless leaders yet when the call came for saving the country they rose to the occasion.

A leader therefore can inspire people to achieve the impossible. However both Mao and Stalin were ruthless leaders, and their methods extracted a huge price from their citizens. There are estimates that their methods killed about 50 million citizens of their countries, though the exact number will never be known. Compared to this was the superior method of non-violence of Gandhi ji which gave us freedom with hardly any bloodshed.

We need teachers and leaders to inspire the youth on how to become good human beings; teach them about nation building and new inventions in all different fields. For this we will need leaders and teachers of very high moral fiber and character.

Where do we get teachers and leaders to guide youngsters?

Leaders and teachers are not produced in a vacuum. They are creations of environmental conditions and situations requiring solutions. These leaders can be thought of as high-quality structures that emerge from chaos. In chaos theory when a system becomes very unsustainable and far from equilibrium, dissipative structures are formed. It can be conjectured that all great leaders are dissipative structures and a product of chaotic conditions occurring at a particular time. They also have the capabilities to lead and influence events.

In the history of mankind leaders like Buddha, Christ, Adi Shankaracharya, Mohammed, Newton, Mahatma Gandhi, Einstein, etc. are prime examples of dissipative structures. These were few and far between. In India there are a good number of teachers in different parts of the country who inspire their students to be ethical and do great things. What we need is to identify them and connect them through  a good network. I feel this network may grow to become a movement for the betterment of India.

So what are the conditions and issues which might give rise to such structures?

The issues that youngsters presently perceive and talk about in India are : General lack of confidence in the future of India.  Their parents and peers always stress on money as the ultimate goal in life and with the perception of less opportunities in India they want to leave it at the earliest opportunity.

Poor infrastructure in cities and towns. With an exploding population, the pressures on resources and every aspect of life is tremendous, leading to corruption; general breakdown of law and order; and overall feeling of uneasiness in the country.

Very divisive narratives are being created in the country with a strong possibility of the situation flaring up and leading to breakdown of law and order.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. There will be as many reasons for discontent as there are people. Nevertheless by and large these conditions have negatively impacted the confidence of youngsters in the country with the result that they want to leave it and do not see their future in this country. The fact also remains that India exports the largest manpower of any country in the world.

One of the greatest crises in a country happens when its citizens lose confidence in its governance. This loss of confidence brings despair, loss of creativity and general moroseness. Only when citizens and youngsters feel confident can they move ahead, be creative and produce a bright future. 

I think youth can be inspired and their confidence increased if we could sensitize them on these basic issues - 

- How to reduce greed.

- Increase their thirst for knowledge.

- their sense of empathy.

- Make them aware of the advantages of doing hard physical work.

If we could somehow get these values in the DNA of the youngsters, then we will be on the path of creating a great India. This is a tall order, but I feel it is a doable goal.

Way Forward

All the above things have to be taught to the youngsters in schools. It is a slow process, but it has to start now. These should be taught with positivity and not by criticizing or showing the present scenario in bad light. Nature evolves by branching into a better design and making the previous design irrelevant – and not by pulling it down. That is the approach we should follow in teaching all these virtues to the youngsters. It raises the whole system up. So the children should be taught in schools the following.

Moral science and ethics of work with powerful examples from the lives of great people from all occupations. India has a long and rich history of people who have given to the world great spiritual thought; mathematics; astronomy; great artistic creations like sculptures, paintings, etc. Inspirational stories about these great people will instill pride in our children about our great traditions and help them emulate their examples in modern settings.

Should be encouraged to ask questions and not be afraid. We need to reduce fear and increase the curiosity factor in children. This is the first step towards creating innovators and inventors.

There should be a major focus on teaching yoga, pranayama and meditation in the schools. Meditation helps in focusing on a single thought for a long time. This helps in increasing concentration, is beneficial for both body and mind and the ability to think deeply about subjects is the genesis of spirituality. Greed reduction takes place when we become spiritual.

Should be made to read as many books as possible,  specially on Indian classics. Strict control on social media should be enforced in the schools so that students should spend their time on creative activities and discussions.

Should be made to do physical work which should include school cleaning; making projects for the school like furniture, equipment, etc.,  even growing vegetables in the school compound for midday meals. Children should be exposed to short films on the virtues of hard work. All these activities will make the students learn different trades like carpentry, metal working, agriculture, etc. Besides, hard physical work is good for health and also keeps the mind occupied in creative pursuits.

Teaching all these things is not easy and we need good and dedicated teachers to instruct children. I also feel that all of us should take part in teaching now and then. Children will be inspired when people who have done well in life come and give lectures to them in schools and colleges.

Finally, we should realize that when the nation produces bright and brave citizens, and they are given freedom to achieve their potential, they can solve almost all the problems properly. Then nothing is impossible for such a nation.

(The writer, an IIT and US-educated Indian engineer,  a 2022 Padma Shri award winner, is the Director, Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute, Phaltan, Maharashtra. He can be reached at anilrajvanshi50@gmail.com.  His podcasts can be accessed at  https://anilrajvanshi50.podbean.com and his books at https://nariphaltan.org/publications/akrbooks.htm)