(An invited talk given to
students and faculty of IIT
Director
Nimbkar
Agricultural Research Institute (NARI)
Phaltan,
E-mail: anilrajvanshi@gmail.com
Good evening friends,
Standing here and talking to you in this
Lecture Hall 4 brings back 35 years old memory of my student days when I spent
countless hours listening to lectures in this very hall. Today I am going to
talk about how you can help build better
All life forms want a comfortable and happy
life. In case of human beings it is a sum of two things, personal happiness and
better environment.
Personal happiness can be obtained by a
variety of ways. One becomes happy when one is contented or at peace with
oneself. We will talk about how to become happy and contented later on.
Environmental happiness is what I call nation
building. It is the environment which makes you feel happy to live in, work in
and just be a part of it. This environmental happiness also gives us a sense of
belonging, makes us feel proud of our surroundings and gives us a sense of
ownership. If we create a happy environment for our work and living than we
will make this country a great place to live. Each one of us should work on
improving our immediate environment so that it becomes nice and cheerful. Then
we will be genuinely proud to be a part of it.
For environmental happiness and nation
building we need excellent young people like you.
How can youth participate in nation
building (personal work)?
First accept that whatever we are today is
because of the country and society. Hence we should give something back to the
society. Gratitude is the essence of being human. I believe that the whole
purpose of our existence is to increase personal and societal infrastructure.
Personal infrastructure includes health, happiness and general well being. By
improving our personal "infrastructure" we become better human beings
and it helps in our evolution. By giving back to the society so that its
"infrastructure" increases we help in mankind’s evolution. Both these
activities when done simultaneously give us a great joy and satisfaction.
One should keep aside half an hour per day
(only 2% of the time) for society work. It is almost 200 hours/year. This is
substantial time for society and the work can add up year after year.
For nation building you can work on anything
in which you interact with the surrounding and can help make it better. Thus
work of helping needy students, cleaning the surroundings, energy saving etc.
can all be part of your work for society.
Just trying to conserve energy in whatever
way you can will be a great way of helping society. Keep a daily log of the
energy consumed and how you can save it. Even thinking about improving your
surroundings, writing about it and telling others is society work. Follow the
mantra "act locally think nationally" and you will help in societal
improvement.
However in all these things be very active
and this activity will give you a positive frame of mind. Develop a "can
do" approach. Everything is possible with a strong will and a good
aptitude. At young age the mind is very active and hence you should be bubbling
with ideas. Best ideas are the maximum ideas. The more ideas you have the
higher is the chance of producing a great idea.
Be positive in your approach. Rise above the
negative things and make them irrelevant. This is how nature works. It evolves
by branching out and only that branch, which interacts properly with the
environment, survives and evolves. The other branch, which does not, withers
away. Thus nature never suppresses the other branch – it becomes automatically
irrelevant. This is a higher mode of development where the whole system is
upgraded and lifted up. Learn to follow nature in everything you do. It has
evolved though millions of years and hence has great design templates to copy
and emulate.
Don’t worry about the outcome. Positive
things will happen if you are honest and conscientious in your work. You are
doing the society work for your benefit namely discipline and discovery.
Besides you will also feel tremendous satisfaction in helping others. Every
work you do will help you learn new things and will help in increasing your
"infrastructure". If you have this attitude then any work you do
becomes enjoyable. Never say "what is in it for me". That is a
negative attitude.
How can you help the society
(institutional effort)?
Around 60% of our rural population live in
very primitive conditions. They have no electricity and their lives are in
darkness. They use inefficient kerosene lanterns for light and primitive and
ancient biomass cook stoves for cooking. Modern technology somehow has not
touched their lives. Besides the poor quality of end product, the devices used
by them create tremendous household pollution. Thus there are estimates that
around 1.5 million deaths per year in rural areas are attributable to inhaling smoke
from the inefficient and primitive biomass stoves.
Without these people getting into the
mainstream, environment cannot be improved. Around 54% of
I am sure you will all go and become
important people in your own enterprises, in corporate, Government and other
sectors. In whichever sector you go use your considerable clout to help the
rural population increase their quality of life. Even if you go abroad think
how you can create conditions to improve the lives of these people. This is
your contribution to the society.
In order that you understand what rural
population needs and how they can be helped it is necessary that you spend some
time in becoming familiar with their plight. The best way to do so is to spend
a year or so with rural based NGOs. By spending time with NGOs you will achieve
two things. Firstly you will understand the problem of rural
You all are in the age group of 20-25 years.
Spending one or two years in rural areas will hardly be noticed by you later
but the experience will be extremely rewarding and it will attach you firmly to
the roots of the society. This time spent in rural areas is also your
contribution to the society because I am sure that young and bright students
like you will think very hard on the problems that you will encounter during
your stay. And I do hope that these experiences will stay with you the rest of
your life so that when you have the resources and a chance you will do
something about them.
Thus for some of you who will go in the
corporate area think how you can help in creating rural enterprises by creating
venture funds. For some of you who will go into R&D think about how you can
develop technologies to create better devices for rural areas and for some of
you who might go in Government service the whole range of activities will be
open to you for helping the rural population.
How to create personal Happiness?
However for an individual to work for the
society it is necessary that he should be secure and happy. And now I will
discuss about happiness.
Happiness is a state of mind. You start
feeling happy when you become internally secure. Deep thought or Sanyam helps
in creating internal calmness and security. When you become honest with
yourself and try to understand yourself or the spirit you start becoming
internally secure. Deep thought, Sanyam or Yoga helps you focus on a particular
subject for a long time. This concentration helps the mind get calm and makes
it extremely powerful. A powerful mind can move mountains.
This internal security also helps us become
less greedy for materials and resources. This is the genesis of spirituality
and sustainability. With the reduction or removal of greed the individual
becomes happy. A happy individual can then give back to society both knowledge
and resources. This is the essence of nation building.
Thus if we all work together for creating
happiness in our personal lives and for nation building then India can teach
the world a new way towards sustainable living.
Thank you.
(An expanded version of this talk and similar ones I
have given at different IITs and technological Institutes are at this site.)