Let’s Inspire Bihar !
The Inspiration, the Concept and the Message !
Whenever I think very deeply about the past, present and future of India, a strong feeling that emanates from within the core of my heart is that the land of Bihar, which once in the Historical times, for quite a few centuries, led the Indian Subcontinent towards esteemed glory, still retains a lot of inherent elements which can actually positively transform and inspire the emerging story of New India. This inherent optimism originates not only from my passion for learning important lessons from History, but, also due to my having actually experienced the potential that Heritage contains for positively impacting the status of the present and the future, even in the wake of possible circumstantial adversities. When I look back at the past of Bihar, it is always a pleasure to recall that right since the most ancient times known, the land was truly regarded for its spirit of knowledge, political and military might, administrative prowess and a unique zeal for entrepreneurship. Bihar, which once served as the political centre of an Indian Empire, that stretched beyond Afghanistan in the west and went upto Assam in the East apart from Kashmir in the North to the sea coast in the south of the subcontinent, does contain a strong message of inspiration. The descendants can surely be proud of their illustrious ancestors, who, with their extraordinary zeal and motivation, could craft such an empire in a time when the means of communication were dismal, roads and routes not as developed like the present day and with a technology that left much to be desired. But, apart from the associated pride, which is natural, the descendants should also brainstorm upon the qualities, which, if not anything else, should still be there within by mere virtue of heredity, that once made the past great and thus could still have the potential for making the future very promising, if understood in the proper spirit.
My Fascination with Heritage and Encounters with the realities of Bihar !
The Heritage of Bihar, with its message for the present and the future, has always inspired me right from the days of my early childhood. As the journey has continued, I have had several unpleasant and difficult encounters as well with the ugly side of the present picture of Bihar, but, in all such circumstances, whenever I have attempted to look beyond, the overall optimism emanating from heritage has always prevailed and assured that things will definitely change for the better if we continue to keep moving in the right direction. Before sharing my concept of “Let’s Inspire Bihar !”, it seems appropriate to share, as a backgrounder, some bits from my story so far and how heritage motivated me into entering the police service instead of living the life of a technocrat charged with a degree from IIT, Kanpur in some remote developed foreign land. My fascination with heritage had started quite early and in fact I have also narrated as to how it inspired me towards the civil services as early as 1992, in my earlier blog (Link) on Pandavsthan (Panr). As I mentioned in my talk (Link) at TEDxVikramshila, I often remember my first visit, on 7th February, 1993, to the remains of Nalanda University, during the period when my father was posted as a Senior Engineering Executive in Barauni Refinery and I was still studying for my 8th standard. At that time, I often used to wonder about the status of education in Bihar in the past since my experience had been quite dismal whenever I happened to interact with students in my village or my mother’s native village, where I visited regularly during vacations.
During interactions with village students, studying mostly for the Bihar Education Board, I often noticed that the standard of education was trickling down from the earlier days, when my parents or grandparents were in their student lives, as gathered from the stories they used to narrate. I used to feel sad to see that students were making efforts and gradually getting used to practicing unfair means in order to clear examinations as they were studying not for the sake of knowledge but only to clear examinations by whatsoever means in order to earn degrees that could enable them for jobs, which again were often attempted to be acquired through illicit gratification or other dishonest means. At Nalanda, however, I was exposed to a very different picture of Bihar in the remote past. I learnt that despite the lack of all travel infrastructure such as roads or proper vehicles and even in the absence of any means of communication or modern technology, students used to undertake painstaking and life threatening journeys to travel from far-off foreign lands in order to reach Bihar for the sake of knowledge. As I read further about the History of Bihar, I felt really inspired by the fact that many of the Upanishads, the most evolved and intellectual part of the Vedic literature, like the Brihadaranyak and others had references of philosophical discourses in Ancient Mithila. I gathered that the tradition of learning and knowledge in Bihar was thus a very ancient one and it was thus that here sprang up several philosophies including but not limited to Vedanta, Buddhism, Jainism, Ajivikas and others. With the continuing spirit of knowledge, a plethora of smaller institutions developed and some sites gradually evolved into larger universities like those at Nalanda and Vikramshila. Comparing the past with the present, I felt that there was a serious disconnect and that there was enough in the past which could inspire the youth of the present generation towards education in the spirit of learning and knowledge and not just to pass examinations.
After sometime, in August, 1993, when my father was transferred to Bhopal, I took admission in Kendriya Vidyalaya, Bhopal and it was there that I had my encounters with several students hailing from other states who often jokingly addressed me as a “Bihari”. Initially, I did not feel much about it but gradually as I learnt that the term was being used for me in a derogatory sense, I did feel a bit shocked about the reasons for such discriminatory behaviour. However, even after such understanding, to being with, I never reacted outwardly or never expressed any sense of anguish in public, but, in fact only studied harder in order to academically be the class topper and thus make my classmates understand the real worth and intellectual capacity of whom they addressed as a “Bihari". I was sure that they would realise it soon since I had already started feeling proud about the past of Bihar and such confidence was emanating due to deeper knowledge of Bihar's past Heritage. My academic results in the 9th standard made my beliefs gain firmer ground and I even started looking upon myself as a brand ambassador for proving what a “Bihari” stood for. As time passed, my father got transferred to Delhi and I kept on excelling academically and obtained good marks in the 10th Board Examinations and thereafter secured admission to Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, one of the most prestigious schools of Delhi for my 11th and 12th standards.
But, for me, encounters with the unwanted and ugly side of Bihar were to continue further. After school, I wanted to secure for myself a seat in one of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) so as to experience the best in terms of education that India of the day had to offer. In May, 1997, after tremendous preparation, I appeared for the Joint Entrance Examination i.e. IITJEE'97. After a fantastic performance at the JEE, I felt very relaxed and had slept very peacefully till I was woken up by my mother on the next morning with the heartbreaking news that the papers of the examination had been leaked and that the centre of the leak had been Patna in Bihar. This was a big jolt to me and I still remember the words that I had then penned in my personal diary as “A battle which was won so well, is yet to be won !”. I somehow accepted the sudden shock, prepared again for some time and appeared in the re-examination held in July, 1997 and thereafter entered IIT Kanpur in September, 1997 to study for 4 years for a degree in Mechanical Engineering. After I entered IIT Kanpur, my father got posted back to Barauni Refinery and I soon had another encounter with the ground realities in Bihar, when, at the end of the first year, all my friends were preparing to go home for the summer vacation and I was being forced by my father not to come home since I had become an eligible bachelor for the locality of Begusarai and Mokamehghat, which in those days was witnessing kidnappings for forced marriages.
I could visit home only after the end of the marriage season. In this summer vacation, i.e. the summer of 1998, I spent time reading and delved deeper into the History of Bihar. All that I gathered only further inspired me to the core. After I returned back to IITK, I had another encounter with the mindset that even very talented youth of Bihar could display, when I discovered that one of my close friends at IITK was being wanted by the police. Quite a brilliant student, hailing from Samastipur district in Bihar, he had fallen into the trap of some mafia elements and in the greed for earning money very fast, had become what was known in not very uncommon parlance as a "Scholar", i.e. one who impersonated on behalf of others and answered examination papers. This almost served as the final breaking point and made me feel that I must contribute in some way, however small it may be, towards inspiring positive change in Bihar.
My Resolve to Contribute !
When I looked at my friends around in IIT, I noticed that most of them had big dreams and wanted to earn money by serving some big multinational companies or by establishing their own companies in the future and that some of them also had an inclination for academic research, but again only with the end of earning a lot of money from it in their minds. On the contrary, I, however, felt that if I served some corporate firm, I would definitely be earning a good living and have a fantastic lifestyle, but, whenever I would ever come back to Bihar, even for short visits, which I surely would be doing since my bonds with my land were very strong, then if I would still see the state of affairs in despair, a question which would forever haunt my mind would be as to what was my personal contribution towards changing the scheme of things. I felt that it was often very easy to criticise the system and escape from the real problem. But if I really wanted to offer some contribution however minuscule or minimal it may actually be, then I would have to enter the system and face the problems that it reflected head on. As I looked at the opportunities available in front of me at that age, I was inspired to appear for the civil services examination since it enabled one to enter into the frame of a civil servant, who could start serving society from a very early age with every significant decision affecting the fate of millions in some way and thus providing the scope for leadership by example.
The Police Service and successive encounters with Heritage as a Cop !
I prepared hard and joined the Indian Police Service in 2003, being fortunate enough to be selected for the Bihar cadre, thus enabling me further to make some effort and live upto some of my dreams. The law and order situation in Bihar at that time had its own share of complexities and problems and thus provided the scope to work hard and contribute towards change. And so I did, wherever I got posted and especially in the toughest of charges as a district Superintendent of Police. As a young SP in Bihar, I served in Patna as City SP and later as SSP and also in the districts of West Champaran, Rohtas and Darbhanga apart from having served in the National Investigation Agency (NIA) at its headquarters in New Delhi.
Whenever I talk about how heritage can impact the present and the future, I often quote examples from my tenures as the SP of crime and naxal infested Bagaha Police district and later in severely Maoist affected Rohtas district, where inspiring the community with examples from our shared ancient heritage worked wonders. I was posted in Bagaha way back in December, 2006. At that point of time Bagaha had a long history of crimes. Dacoit gangs used to operate in the area which had become infamous as Mini Chambal. I tried to do something new. For the first, I found that these gangs were not vagabonds. They were, in fact, living a very organized life and, had in fact occupied large tracts of land on which they were cultivating sugarcane. So, the first thing I did apart from the regular police operations was towards shattering the economic backbone. Their illegal sugarcane crops were seized and deposited into the government treasury after being declared as unclaimed property. This indeed hit the gangs very badly, but, I knew for myself that even this, coupled with the raids that were going on (some got killed) was not going to solve the problem permanently.
I thus started on the next initiative, i.e. connecting the community with history. Bagaha had a history of remembering Valmiki. The jungles of Valmiki Nagar were supposed to have been home to a sage, who once was a bandit, by the name of Ratnakar. We appealed to the families of all the criminals in the area that if Ratnakar had remained as Ratnakar, he would soon have faded from collective memory and the world would never have known Valmiki. They should try to think about the future they wanted to deliver to their children and try to motivate their relatives who had been misguided and had left the mainstream of society by entering into organised crime. The inspiration from History worked and the scheme of affairs did change. Twenty-six of them surrendered, with one of them having more than 135 cases registered against in different parts of Bihar and UP. Bagaha changed since 2007. Kidnappings used to be in 100s, 50s, like. I remember, in 2008, the figure had come down to zero, with an intervention connecting with history.
In August, 2008, my next posting was in Rohtas. At that point of time, Rohtas was in turmoil. Quite recently, two Police Stations in the fields of Rohtas had been razed by Maoists in which several Policemen had lost their lives. In an incident in 2006, the Sub-Divisional Police Officer of Bikramganj, just about 2 hours drive from the state capital at Patna had lost his life in an encounter right in the plains of Rohtas during a routine raid. The things had been continuing like that since long as the struggle for dominance between the Maoists and the forces went on. Again, when I looked at the Heritage of Rohtas, I was reminded of the Rohtas Fort. I found that the people of Rohtas and especially the tribals living there right within and around the fort upon the hills in severely affected naxal territory, the Oraons, the Kharwars, always connected themselves with their heritage, with the fort, considering it as their point of origin. After a series of operations including one in which I barely escaped being hit by a bullet from very close quarters in a village named as Soli, I decided that all such routine policing would actually not solve the problem.
The problem needed a different and a holistic approach. I felt that the problem could be solved, if, people connected back with their heritage and made efforts to contribute towards establishing peace in their areas in order to see that the fruits of modern development percolated downwards. And, we started organizing community policing camps, and, in all those areas without naming the Naxalites, we would talk of the history of the region, how illustrious their ancestors were, and how the present was so perplexed, and, what such descendants of such illustrious ancestors should do, or could do, to change the present. Things changed ! On 26th January, 2009, we were able to hoist the tricolour on the top of the Rohtas Fort, which earlier witnessed black flags on national festivals and this happened perhaps for the first time after India’s independence, with participation of the local people. Earlier, no one used to dare, or care, about the Rohtas fort. But people’s participation resulted in a gradual transformation. The Maoists were forced to surrender, and, they surrendered in large numbers. Rohtas, since, has changed for the better and is now peaceful in terms of Maoist activities.
Spreading the Inspiration of Heritage further !
The problems that these two districts had earlier been known for totally disappeared with the police serving as a medium to transform the thinking of society. Having experienced the potential of heritage and positive thinking, whenever I look at a sense of despair emerging when one is confronted with problems that seem unassailable to the mind, I feel that it is the right time to inspire and motivate all I interact with towards positivity and resolution reminding them with examples of their own potential, being the descendants of such illustrious and zealous ancestors. Having taken conscious decision to serve the state and make a positive contribution in all possible manners, all over the years since I joined the Police Service, I have also been interacting quite frequently with the youth whenever I have been able to find out some time from my usually busy schedule. Most of the time, such interactions have either centred on the “Principles of Success”, that every student can imbibe and practice or upon the “Role of Youth in Nation Building”. Personally for me, such interactions with the youth have always been a source of great positivity and inspiration, often reminding me of my initial days when dreams were sky high and optimism was at its best. I have always tried to keep the same initial spirit alive despite any or all adversities in the circumstances around and one of the best ways to maintain the same has been to interact with sources of positivity, not only physically but also through all available virtual media.
Apart from the physical interactions, I have also been quite active on the social media since early 2004, right from the days of Orkut and have continued the journey through other media as well. Being a traveller by nature with a deep interest in archaeology and with a passion to know more and more about our history, I gradually happened to gather a lot of information over the years along with very rare photographs and thus to extensively share my experiences, lest they end with me, I started blogging since March, 2013 with the title as “Silent Pages”. Since 2016, I also started blogging stories from the field as a Cop in Bihar and also on topics related to education and intellectual traditions. Apart from the blogs, I have regularly been sharing from my experiences quite actively on my social media profiles and it is heartening to note that a large number of co-travellers in the journey called “Life” are also connected on these different media where mutual sharing has always been a pleasure. All connected with me may also have thus felt various shades of my personality apart from the expected dedication towards regular official duties, since I have often shared thoughts reflecting my passion for history and travelling apart from those displaying a penchant for interacting with the youth and the general community at large. I have also shared the reasons for my inspiration and how heritage transformed me from a technocrat into a police officer apart from sharing several of my innermost thoughts in Hindi as “Yatri Man”. Physical interactions over time have only affirmed that most of these posts have been received quite positively by a large section of the youth and have inspired me to carry the mission further and in a more organised and focussed manner for maximising the overall social impact.
Interactions with the Youth !
Concern over creeping pessimism and reflecting upon the solutions !
A common theme of all my physical interactions so far with the youth has been the attempt to motivate them to work hard with full dedication and determination to achieve their desired goals. Interacting regularly over the years, I have also understood how best to motivate and inspire them towards making some positive contribution in their lives not only for their own selfish interests, which are important for getting established and earning a decent livelihood, but also in some way for the society at large and towards the overall development of the nation. However, during my recent interactions with the youth in different parts of Bihar, whenever I have tried to ascertain their views and thinking about the future prospects and potential of Bihar, I have been sensing that a general sense of pessimism seems to be creeping within and is gradually even getting firmly established within the spaces of the young minds. The reasons for such creeping pessimism are not far to seek when the problems and complexities of the present day one is often confronted with, seem to be unassailable. It is seen that youth often get demotivated from working hard when they encounter that most around them are looking for shortcuts and unfair means to achieve success. Deep-rooted caste based identities hamper the holistic growth of society and the problem has permeated not just into politics, which is the most visible aspect, but also into all walks and dimensions of social life resulting in overall discriminatory behaviours and preferences.
On comparing the past with the present, one is bewildered to notice the state of despair originating in young minds and feels that something needs to be done to change the present state of thinking and to groom young minds to think positively towards changing the state of affairs drawing inspiration from their own past and from the deeds of own ancestors. One needs to think about ways and means of transforming the present thinking of the youth towards positivity and inspired contribution, for achieving not only their personal desired goals but also for transforming the potential future of Bihar and its contribution towards the emerging story of New India.
With such an illustrious past, if one does not seem to be moving coherently in the right direction towards the future, then one must reflect upon the main reasons that have kept Bihar away from regaining its ancient glory. To shortly summarise the reasons behind the apparent decadence, I would mention it as “Growth of Narrow-mindedness as against the Broad-Mindedness and Spirt of Entrepreneurship that defined us in the ancient times”. For a region which took the lead to unite several kingdoms over the length and breadth of India into one administrative unit and that too in a time when the means of transport and communication were so undeveloped, one will need to understand the themes which inspired such ancient zeal and compare it with what is lacking in the present scheme of things. On comparing our present mindset and as it evolved over the years since the times when we were known the world over as a land of knowledge, military might and entrepreneurship, one thing that definitely strikes as a blatant contrast is the narrowness in thinking and approach to all issues as compared to the broad-mindedness and evolved thinking that marked us even in the most ancient times. A land that was once known for students who would acquire knowledge through hard work stands witness to students and general society looking for shortcuts only to pass examinations, with all possible unfair means as well. A land that was once known for transgressing the caste system even for the ruling classes as best exemplified by the emergence of Magadha as the most powerful Mahajanpada of the times and gradually as the centre of the Ancient Indian Empire, and which preached the essential oneness of humanity as in Vedantic, Buddhist, Jaina and others thoughts, is now being seen as struggling with discriminatory caste based identities which are highly divisive in nature and do not allow a holistic development of society. If we compare the ancient entrepreneurial zeal with the present day, undue lethargy seems to have shadowed the mindsets which do not want to work hard and take risks for gaining something worth. If one looks at the meritorious students, the only aim seems to somehow obtain a secure job anywhere in the government sector. We come across examples of highly qualified professionals, who could be very successful job-creators settling down for something as less as clerical jobs or even such as of technicians or railway gang-men, fully underutilising the potential they have within.
Message to the Youth !
I wish to make the youth think about the reasons as to how our ancestors could achieve what they did in the past. If one thinks about our ancestors of Bihar, we can see that their curiosity went deeper than gaining knowledge only for material worldly pursuits and in their desire to garner true knowledge not just about the scheme of existence but also into the metaphysical mysteries of existence and thus led to the composition of the literature contained in the Upanishads, one of the most illuminated and intellectual source of human thought. The same broadness of thought reflected itself in garnering a tradition of knowledge that resulted in Universities like Nalanda and Vikramshila. The same broadness in thinking was the reason for the prominence of Magadha which saw rulers not only from the ruling classes but even from the non-ruling classes emerging and gaining acceptance from the society at large as Emperors including such as Mahapadmananda and even Chandragupta Maurya, based upon their actual potential and skills and not just due to their birthright. The spirit of entrepreneurship led to the impact of Bihar in lands far and wide with not just cities adopting the names of towns in Bihar and India, but perhaps even entire nations like Vietnam, having once been known as Champa, which once existed near present Bhagalpur city in Bihar, being a prominent trade centre of the ancient world.
My Vision of the 3Es !
We have to take lessons from the past, but that does not mean that we have to imbibe the past. We have to think about the present, that, how things are, and then have aspirations for the future. I feel that having such a thinking at the pan-Bihar level will also result in a significant change, something perhaps undreamt of and unheard. This spirt of positivity inspired by the past Heritage of Bihar and the personal experience regarding its potential in transforming the present and the future is in crux the motivation and thinking behind “Let’s Inspire Bihar !”. I have a strong feeling that inspiring the youth properly and guiding them under proper mentorship will definitely make Bihar being known once again for what it stood in History. My vision is to inspire the Youth towards inculcating the “3Es” and motivate them towards emerging as agents of change with a fully positive mindset after understanding their own potential fully. I often quote from the Upanishads that one’s potential is infinite and that if one really wishes to achieve one’s goals, the mediums and means of approach present themselves automatically. What is required to be successful is the successive “3Ds” of Desire, Dedication and Determination. Of the “3Es” that the youth need to focus upon in order to inspire everyone towards positive change, the first of them is to focus on proper “Education”, in the Spirit of “Knowledge”. We will have to energize our youth who are looking for shortcuts, not to look for shortcuts, but to work very hard, work hard like our ancestors Ashtavakra, Yagyavalkya, Chanakya, Aryabhatta and many others, who in their days, inspired the whole generation of the time. They have inspired me. I named my son as Yagyavalkya, just to remind the present generation, and to inspire my son. The next “E”, which is very important for Bihar is a sense of “Egalitarianism”. In Bihar, the youth are seen as divided and are mentally diverted to inculcate from deemed role models, who are criminals, mostly since they come from a particular caste or community. Everything is divided with every action or inaction, being attributed to someone due to his being, from some particular caste. Such division is not going to solve any problems, however so much we may wish or keep trying. We will need to get rid of it if we are to progress ahead and that would need inspiration and of course - “Leadership, by example !”. If we want to derive lessons from the past for an illustrious future, such things will definitely have to change. In all our interactions, in our behaviour, in our thinking, will have to make a fundamental change of egalitarianism.
The last, but, the most important “E”, is working towards developing a sense of “Entrepreneurship”. It is something that was our forte in the ancient times, when we had cities like Champa and Patliputra, which were centres of trade for the ancient world. In those years when technology and communication were still undeveloped, we could physically control such vast tracts in the subcontinent and were able to make influence in places and nations far wide, even in such distant places like Korea, Thailand and others in South East Asia. That spirit of entrepreneurship seems to have been somewhere lost over the years and it is thus that we hear of students graduating with double degrees from IIT and becoming Railway gang-men, only supposedly for the security offered by a government job, no matter whatsoever the skill set may be required for such. The youth need to develop the spirit of entrepreneurship and do something which is innovative. The youth will have to think of solutions and solve the current impasse and lead themselves towards building a better future.
The Power of Youth !
The stage of Youth is full of positive energy and optimism. If you talk to someone at a later stage of life about the solutions to most problems that one is confronted with in daily life, the approach of most seems to be edging towards pessimism. However, the sparkle and promise that is inherently held within the minds of the youth, if properly channelised and positively inspired with the examples that one can relate to and understand is surely going to lead them towards creating solutions to the present problems without getting deviated midway in the wake of adverse circumstances. Having seen and experienced how heritage connects, I am sure that even if some of the youth get inspired and take it upon themselves to change the scheme of things for the better with selflessness, the future shall be beyond anything that anyone would have ever imagined. India in the past has seen how the potential of a single inspired man like Chanakya could actually holistically craft even an empire in the most adverse of times. The future of a land that once produced Chanakya is certainly promising and thus without doubting much about the results, I think it is time to make everyone aware about our own potential and inspire everyone to strive for positive change and to contribute towards it in whatever manner howsoever small that one deems as appropriate.
The concept of “Let’s Inspire Bihar” !
With this background, when I started conceptualising the mission of “Let’s Inspire Bihar !”, the foremost intention was only to think about organised ways and means to further motivate the youth towards working really hard with full sincerity, dedication and determination in order to achieve their desired goals and to inspire them towards adopting a positive outlook in life towards all problems and complexities being confronted with or to be confronted with and thus gradually contribute in some way, however minuscule it may seem, towards solving concurrent problems for a better present and a glorious future. It was with this in mind that I started journeying outside Patna since the beginning of 2021 for increasing my real interactions with the youth connected through such networks but physically residing in remote areas of Bihar. To increase the outreach in a more focussed manner, I started sharing some of my posts with the message of “Let’s Inspire Bihar” along with the hashtag as #LetsInspireBihar since this “Bihar Diwas” on 22nd March, 2021. Thereafter, apart from appreciation in general, I have also been receiving several queries especially from those who want to join and contribute towards the visualised mission and thus want to know more details about the concept, underlying themes and as to what further can be done. To clarify several queries about what my message was for the youth in general, I had shared a detailed post in Hindi on my Facebook Page on 3rd April, 2021, but a blog on the subject was still a desideratum. It was thus that I felt like penning down some of my thoughts and hence share for the benefit of all who are more curious about the conception behind “Let’s Inspire Bihar !”. I hope that thoughts that I am penning down in this blog would be able to clarify several doubts and actually add to the inspiration behind the idea.
Efforts for “Let’s Inspire Bihar” !
Moving ahead in the direction as mentioned, I gradually started organising my interactions further with the central theme of “Let’s Inspire Bihar” and “Yuva-Samvad” i.e. Youth Dialogue. In 2021, after being posted as a Special Secretary in the Home Department, I planned to use my time in a better manner whenever I happened to be free during the weekend holidays, after seeking official permission to travel outside Patna, to interact with the youth in small gatherings in different districts of Bihar. In several programmes held on weekends, I got the opportunity to address the youth in several districts of Bihar including West and East Champaran, Nalanda, Begusarai, Vaishali, Muzaffarpur and Bhagalpur apart from Barh, Bihta, Fatuha and other venues in Patna city. This also resulted in several motivated youth coming over to Patna and expressing their desire to join the inspiration and spread it further amongst the youth in their districts by forming district-wise chapters of inspired youth. The process commenced well and continued full steam till March after which my travels and actual physical interactions have however been temporarily stalled due to the onset and continuance of the second phase of COVID19. But, being sure that the phase is only temporary and that better times lie ahead, I am looking positively towards the future and thus as times change for the better, I wish to further increase my interactions with the youth at large and to share with them the basic principles of success and to inspire them with the stories from our own shared past.
Nuclei of Inspiration - District wise Chapters !
I wish to inspire the youth by impressing upon their minds that the potential to create the desired change lies very much within them. The youth should firstly voluntarily understand their own past and the themes which once motivated our ancestors. An inspired individual will then act as a centre of inspiration for others and thus set in a chain reaction which will transcend further and further. To organise such youth for collective thinking upon ways and means towards contributing for a better future, as suggested by several youth I have interacted with, I wish to see them organising themselves into district wise and profession wise chapters, which will fuel the process further working as nuclei of spreading the inspiration. In fact some inspired members from the youth have already taken it upon themselves to carry forward the inspiration and have started forming district wise chapters which are also now having their presence on the social media. But, the overall scheme at present is largely fluid with only the main theme in mind and may need to or may get more organised and result oriented in the times to come as the numbers add up. A small beginning has been made and the theme in my mind is quite clear. I am looking forward to the future and towards sparing more time for spreading this inspiration from our heritage, whenever I can afford to have some free time apart from the discharge of my official duties.
Spreading the Inspiration Ahead !
This is not a political movement, but one that is based upon sharing the inspiration and motivating each other in the wake of difficult times to prepare with faith, grit and determination for the future. Even though it surely is bound to have result in modifying the way the youth could look at things in a positive manner, I don’t see this as something that should be implemented by the government since it then has the danger of ending as just another government initiative and may not deliver the perceived outcomes. As I can see it, this is a pure voluntary effort by those who get inspired to further inspire others and thus setting in a chain reaction with nuclei of inspiration in the whole serving towards contributing for a better future of us all. I am very optimistic about the outcomes, however small they may seem to be. The reason for my optimism stems from what we could achieve in those ancient times, must have been deemed as unthinkable to start with even then. Thus even as one encounters adversities, the optimism should not diminish and then charged with an enlightened pool of knowledge and with technologies like the present day, the hope for creation of a promising future will rest upon just spreading the inspiration that has the potential to nurture positive change further. Even if the whole idea inspires a few, I am sure that the inspired souls will carry the inspiration further. So my appeal to all would be to join our hands, make our contributions and “Let’s Inspire Bihar !”.
P.S. All interested in joining or contributing towards spreading the inspiration may send an email at letsinspirebihar@gmail.com mentioning their 1. Name, 2. Age, 3. Address including District, 4. Mobile Number for other volunteers to get you connected digitally.
