Development is constant positive movement towards a definite end, it is progress made towards an integrated system till a total integrity is reached and can by inherent internal checks and balances be sustained. Integrity is not the ability not to pick the neighbors pocket; if that was so 95% of the humanity would have been constituted of honest and integrated men. Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea. The ability to stand by an idea pre-supposes the ability to think. Thinking is an act anterior to all constructive actions and it is something which one cannot borrow or pawn.

It is only at great moments that advances and developments become visual and/or come before the eyes of the public at large and go down in history, but between these great moments there is first a contented movement on a path made smooth by established rights, then those rights fired by the passions of people made dangerous by their ignorance. These actions lead either to loss of liberty or restoration of freedom depending upon the integrity or disintegrity achieved during the intermediate period, by individuals who lead these moments.

  India was a Golden Bird in the 11th Century. Mohammedans came to India in 1526. The East India Company started dealing with India since 1599. First Indian Revolution broke out in 1857. The Indian National Congress was formed in 1885. Independence was proclaimed in 1919, but we won independence only in 1947.

The need at this transitional period is the education of individuals so as to equip them with mettle and mind which will sustain them during historical moments. By education is meant, the imparting of a training by which the current of expressions is brought under control and is made fruitful by positive constructive action. It is a process by which awareness is brought into individuals so that they speak in behalf of our nation, become cultured, public-spirited persons and not those who are lost in petty, personal local caste and communal squabbles. Education is the instrument for social, economic and cultural change.

The evil to be attacked today is not merely sin, suffering, greed, monopoly, or any other consequence of religion, but ignorance and poverty. The greatest poverty is the inability to understand and express oneself fully and be active positively. Education gives expression, meaning and action to your thoughts and feelings; it gives us the ability to think positively.

 

Aruneshwar Gupta

Published in the magazine of Indian Youth Congress

01.05.1984