Students speak....

Janasamwaad is about dialogue with people on the most vital issues.  Now who decides what is vital?  Each one of us feels strongly about some issues or the other.  We have conversations around those issues and if some of us want to do something about it and others join in, those issues are vital to us at that point of time.  There does not have to be a list of issues for all people for all times to be termed as vital.  That list would be listless.  We need to have issues which are full of life. 

The other day I was going with my nephew, Bhargav, to Akshar Dham temple complex.  Bhargav was visiting us during his vacation from the second year BE course in Pune.  He got used to the traffic here in the NCR region.  Yet he could not but comment on the highway driving habits of the people here.  On his own he said, " we need to have basic education of traffic rules and traffic sense in India."  I probed his opinion a little more.  He said that as a young driver, nobody anywhere taught him the basic discipline of traffic.  He had to think and pick it up himself.  This is the story with most of us.  So how do we learn?  We learn by observing others and picking up what suits us most.  The end result is that we get into each other's way and hair.  The road is the best exhibition ground of our civic sense.

I asked him,"But isn't this taught to you in the Civics section of social sciences?"  He replied in the negative.  What is taught under Civics is about the state and its organs down to local self government.  Well that is useful no doubt.  But could we not start with those every day experiences that children have?  One could start with traffic, then move on to police, courts and law.  We could have another strand starting with Water supply and drainage, taxes and municipal administration.  Then one could move on to elections and democracy and as students gain sufficient familiarity with public affairs, they could then be taught the basics of Indian constitution.

This is the way I have understood the basic thrust of Janasamwaad which Suhas Tapaswi and his colleagues are painstakingly trying to convey to the rest of us.  What was significant to me was the self-reflective comment of Bhargav that nobody had taken the trouble to explain the traffic discipline to him.  We then moved on to Akshar Dham, where hundreds of volunteers were organizing thousands of visitors through well defined channels.  There was wave after wave of crowd coming in but there was no chaos.  People were constantly guided and instructed till they entered the temple precincts.  After that they were free to move around as they pleased.  The boundary conditions were held tightly by the volunteer force.  But the discipline was not draconian at all.  We can do it in a disciplined way.  That was the confidence one could get from the Akshardham experience.