Sarvodaya ideas in the modern society
It was a pleasant Sunday morning on 17th of April when a workshop had
been arranged by the VIT Sarvodaya Chapter. The workshop was conducted
by Sri Sarvodaya Prasad (from Andhra Pradesh Sarvodaya Mandal) and Sri
D.K Oza. Although only 10 students turned up for the workshop,
Prasadji pointed out that atleast these people were enthusiastic and
focused to bring a change. The session started and what followed was 3
hours of introspection, thought-provoking questions and overwhelming
facts and figures.
What was most astonishing was that Prasadji applied Gandhian
principles smoothly into the modern society and he was able to solve
many problems.
1. Starting with Corruption, he stated that corruption is not the work
of one man, and it cannot be eradicated unless man can remove the
basic feeling of “greed”. Thus, he advised that whether we dream of
earning 8 lacs or 10 lacs a month, we should stick to that and not try
to amass more wealth. If we dream of having a Benz and a BMW car, we
should be contended when we earn these two.
2. Then telling us about how to earn wealth, he said that there are 2
ways. One is hard-working, another is capturing the wealth of others.
He said capturing the wealth of others can be done by various methods
like stealing, robbery, adulteration of goods, gambling, hacking,
cheating, and other scams. Then telling us about scams, he said that
today, for a scam to be famous it has to be worth about some thousand
lac crores, such is the level of “greed” in society. Thus he advised
us to do hard work to earn money.
3. Then talking about villages, he said that about Rs.125,00,00,00,000
worth of money is squeezed by foreign commercial companies from the
poor villagers. A girl may not have enough money to drink milk, but
she can be applying ‘fair and lovely’cream. A family which cannot
afford 2 square meals is having 'coka-cola' and brushing with
‘colgate’. Thus Prasadji said that India should aim to be
self-sufficient and rely on indigenous or “swadeshi” products. Instead
of brushing with expensive ‘colgate’ a villager can brush with
‘goamrit’ toothpowder, a really good herbal toothpowder.
4. Then saying the media advertisements are a bane for the society.
Nowdays T.V is available in almost every household. And the moment we
here “washing powder Nirma” advertisement, we are tempted to buy
“Nirma”. This is also the case with tea and coffee. Modern man has
become so dependant on it, that he cannot even go to toilet in the
morning without having tea. All this is addiction and the media is
mostly responsible for it.
5. He said all these advertisements, cosmetics, events like IPL,
costly tea & coffee, foreign clothes..are a part of “LOOT” system. But
Sarvodaya propogates “Anti-Loot” system. Sarvodaya means “prosperity
of all” and this is possible by anti-loot only.He advised that we
should definitely try to be on the “Anti-loot” side. If we all join
the anti-loot side, the corrupt government will collapse.
6. Lastly, he pointed out that “Khadi” is the symbol of Indian and a
national pride. It symbolizes self-sustainance of India.
He ended the meeting with informal interaction with the students. Sri
D.K Oza-ji also gave his advice and point of view. He told us students
that we have “option” to do anything in life unlike other
auto-drivers, bus-drivers, security guards, maids etc who can only do
that work. So he told us to think about the society and be more
sensitive to the people like stone-quarry workers, coal mine workers,
sewage cleaning people etc. He told us to think how to alleviate their
poverty.
Thus, it was a wonderful and extremely rich experience of interacting with such
great leaders. We students got to learn so much. We also came to know
how sarvodaya ideas and ideas of Gandhi can be applied to the modern
life. Thus understanding the concepts of Sarvodaya is very important
to lead a healthy life.
Thank-you
-Ayan Datta
VIT University
Dear Ayan,
I have to thank you profusely for summarizing the discussions in the workshop. You have done it so well and captured the essence.
By way of fine-tuning, I would suggest some changes that you may bring into your writing:
People's greed will not find a limit. If someone thought of having say, Rs. 10 lakhs as his annual income today, he would look for a higher amount next year. The wants, desires are so unending and the possibilities are too many that any amount of wealth would not satisfy a man. Same is the case with expensive cars and other possessions. It is this selfishness, greed and desire for unlimited accumulations that forces a man into theft, corruption etc. This will invariably deprives others of what is their normal due. Hence Gandhi's advise: live simply so that others may simply live. Hence he undertook voluntary poverty.
My suggestion was that each individual should understand the limits of his existence and relate with other human beings in a responsible way. In this process he would impose a voluntary ceiling on his wants and the standard of living. Today's desire level of an individual is not a standard for him to reach. I did not suggest that if they think/dream of 10 lakh mark or a Benz Car they should get it and stay at that level. These are purely individual choices.
We do continue further on these and you are welcome to share these with other friends that participated.
Best Wishes,
Prasad.
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