ONE’S OWN RESPONSIBILITY

Developed Societies

DURING the Second World War, Sir Winston Churchill, Britain’s Prime Minister and popularly acclaimed military leader, gave to the people of Britain the motto: IT ALL DEPENDS ON ME.

The following incident of a training camp is a good illustration of this motto. It was in Chandigarh that a camp was to be inaugurated by an Indian minister, which had been arranged for the Principals of various polytechnic colleges. A British Professor had been invited to address the gathering. When the minister was about to start his inaugural address, the power suddenly went off and the loudspeakers went dead. There was no battery on hand as an alternative arrangement. However, there was a battery available in the polytechnic’s workshop.

The trainee Principals started looking around for an attendant who could be sent to the workshop to fetch the battery. But as soon as the British Professor realized what had happened, he himself dashed to the workshop, picked up the heavy battery and came running back to connect it to the loudspeaker system. The microphone immediately started functioning again.

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Genuine reform will come about only if the spirit of reform is generated among the people concerned.

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Such an attitude on the part of an individual, whatever his community, is the underlying cause of collective progress of the society to which he belongs. Similarly, at the national level, progress and development are directly correlated with the prevalence of this spirit among the people.

For any work which people want to take up to correct some wrong in the society or its improvement, they start with proposals for new laws by the government, or demand for changes to be made in the administration, so that the malady may be set right. But the legal system and the administration have their limits and, as such, are only partially effective. Genuine reform will come about only if the spirit of reform is generated among the people concerned.