Youth will have a critical role in Swachh Bharat 2.0 as their personal habits and value systems will help the world become cleaner and greener
The Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) was launched by our Prime Minister in 2014 and on October 2, 2019 as it concludes, it will set in motion the 150th birth anniversary celebrations of Mahatma Gandhi, world leader sans pareil. This is an appropriate time for us to look back at the mission’s objectives and its future. Without a doubt, it was the future of our youth, that impelled Narendra Modi to launch the SBM. For five years, the Government strained its resources to create a clean and green India, hoping that it would pave the way for a better future. You can read the SBM statistics and decide, or you can look around your own habitation and gauge its success. Now, we all must ask ourselves, how can we take it to the next level? The SBM brought a change from outside but now, as we move ahead, the change must come from within.
The India we live in today is a prosperous one. My father’s generation had to walk miles to go to school. During his time there were famines and because there were not enough jobs, he moved from his native State to another, where there was scope for learning, growth and development. My own growing up years saw better transportation, accessible schools and we never heard of famine in India. The present generation is way ahead of both our generations. That steady progress was achieved through the choices that were made. And what do we have today? A better world, largely. Diseases have been conquered; technology has brought us closer; there is a larger amount of wealth in circulation than what was available 30 years ago. And the flip side? More natural disasters, less water for the world, toxic garbage contaminating the world, corruption contaminating our souls and more horrific, man-made conflicts.
It is against such a backdrop that I send out this plea to the youth. India has the largest number of young people in the world today and that translates into a very powerful force. What an opportunity to do good! What an opportunity to influence the rest of the world! Like Gandhi did in his lifetime and after. Use the many opportunities that come your way well. You are the future. Make that future a bright one. Opportunities come to you in several ways — as an individual in your community, as a technologically-connected community, as a global citizen. Use them all and use them well. The future you have before you is not the future my father’s generation had; that was largely local, perhaps even national. Your future is a global one. Think big. Let your choices have a bearing on your larger, global future.
I will urge you, the youth, to do one thing. Choose wisely and begin with yourself. Your personal habits, your value system and the sharing of what you think and have, will help the world become cleaner, greener and better. Like the quote which is attributed to the Mahatma, “Change must begin with oneself.” Let your conscience be your guide to wise choices.
How do you make wise choices? You can learn from the past. You can listen to the voice of experience, shared so easily now though accessible technology. You can, as you read history, see the mistakes that were made and choose not to repeat them.
You must exercise the inner voice of your conscience. For that you need to know yourself. If you do not, then you will not be able to hear your conscience. One way to know yourself a little better is to get yourself educated. A good education gives young people an insight into who and what they are and what they want to do with their lives. We must encourage our students to excel and to share that excellence if they want to succeed in the truest sense of that word. Wise choices determine a person’s life and success.
Choices imply exclusion. And when we choose, whether we like it or not, we are excluding several other things because that is the nature of a choice. We cannot have it all. We must choose and in making a choice we must be able to separate the chaff from the grain. That is wisdom. That is what an education helps us do — choose wisely. A degree is not an education. The ability to make wise choices, on the other hand, is indeed an education. Knowledge coupled with experience, an awareness of one’s own self and needs and the ability to let all these converge into a timely and appropriate decision — making sure that what we finally do is morally right — is true education.
Look at the world around us. In several areas of our daily life there are opportunities for us to choose wisely. Even undo some bad decisions of the past. The writing is on the wall for all to see. We can choose to ignore it, pretend that all is well and compound misery for future generations. We can choose to see it and decide wisely. The choice lies before us. It is already late in some areas. There are however, opportunities every day. So, we must choose wisely. Every day and every time.
(The writer is Principal, St Stephen’s College, Delhi University)
