“Those who can do something, do it, those who cannot, simply talk about it.”
Much in the spirit of Goethe’s dictum ‘life is action, not contemplation’. Late Jawaharlal Nehru coined the slogan ‘Aaram Haram Hal’ because he knew the typical Indian’s penchant for inactivity, or worse, substituting ‘talk’ in place of ‘work’. Whether his slogan had the desired effect or not can be seen from the fact that after twenty seven years of independence, India still is not fully self-sufficient in food grains despite its being a predominantly agricultural country.
That a country like India needs more work and less talk is beyond doubt. But the people and their leaders cannot be expected to turn into eager beavers overnight. It is a slow process which needs a lot of time and coaxing. But before any vital breakthrough in this field is achieved, one has to understand the basic causes of the Indian’s apathy to work. One has also to understand why the leaders and the politicians did perpetually talk. Only then can a rational approach be adopted replacing the age-old habit of empty talk.
The most important aspect of this problem is the common man’s gospel of stagnation. It derives its essential character from excessive religiosity. It can be summed up in a few words: that man’s greatest destiny is to achieve ‘Moksha’ which means freedom from the circle of life arid death. This further presupposes a progress from action to inaction. The common man who neither reads scriptures nor has the power of critical analysis developed within him, easily surrenders this initiative and adopts a life of inaction. There are countless people in this country who just lie low, waiting for something to happen and also waiting for someone to give their food and succor. They believe that since they are also God’s creatures, the Almighty Himself would provide them the various means of subsistence. Such people indulge in even greater self-deception.
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When renunciation is the greatest ideal to be pursued for spiritual development, when life itself is looked upon as a product of our past sins; when all happiness is considered finding a place in the other world, heaven; when money is the cause of sins and evils, no one is expected to exert himself Little wonder, our contribution to material prosperity is so small.
This disastrous drift towards salvation has to stop before the country harnesses itself to more productive work. Happiness, people have to be told, stems from action, not inaction. That the greatest of thinkers (not spiritualists) have recommended work as unfailing antidote to unhappiness. ‘Work is worship’ is an old but meaningful maxim.
The famous philosopher, Bertrand Russel says, “The habit of viewing life as a whole is an essential part both of wisdom and of morality, and is one of the things which ought to be encouraged in education. Consistent purpose is an indispensable condition of a happy life. And consistent purpose embodies itself mainly in work”.
A positive attitude to work, linking it with happiness and as a powerful means to produce wealth is absolutely essential to put India on the onward march, and to free her from the crippling impact of poisonous, pseudo-spiritual theories. The nation needs less and less of religiosity and more of constructive effort in all walks of life. It needs more and liberal doses of modern thought which act as powerful incentives of productive effort.
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India needs more work. Therefore, it is essential seriously to review the holiday-structure of the country. At present, our holidays are far too numerous and frequent. We have a large variety of holidays. Any excuse is good enough for a holiday. Even a tennis or a cricket match is a ground enough to bring the official work in a State to a halt. Death of a politician is another excuse. Judging from our penchant for holidays, we are a nation on a perpetual holiday. The dead in our country are honored at the cost of the living. The death of an important personage is invariably condoled by closing down of all offices, industrial establishments and schools, colleges, universities. The entire nation comes to a grinding halt. We lose the man and hundreds of crores of rupees in the bargain.
Most Indians have no idea how to spend holidays. The importance of freshening the mind and to get rid of the week’s stress and strain, is virtually unknown to the multitudes of people. They fail to use holidays to change the pace of life. Holidays in the names of great heroes or leaders are an utter waste, as none has them in mind when the day is spent in irritating or unproductive rituals and chores. The entire holiday structure needs to be re-examined to avoid to useless talk, and to divert the national energy to useful productive work.
There is much talk of Indians imitating the West But one thing which we should imitate to our great advantage is the habit of hard work of the American and the German, even of the Japanese. They are rich because of their hard work. India is a rich country inhabited by the poor. It simply means we have rich resources which remain unexploited because of our proverbial sloth and indolence.
India has to step out of its ruts of stagnation, apathy and the deep-seated habit of substituting talk in place of work. That is the crying need of the hour.