Scams in the land of spiritualism

Sudhansu R Das

It is an irony that an ancient civilisation like India where highest human values like universal love, environment worship, Nara-Naryana (God in every human being), charity, kindness, bravery and forgiveness was taught; where a hungry child fondly shares a loaf of bread with a street dog, has produced a self-centred and greed infested society. The societal behaviour change to lead a lavish lifestyle contributes to the growth of scamstars like Harshad Mehta, Ramalinga Raju, Ketan Parekh, P S Subramanium of UTI scam, Bhansali, Sanjay Agrawal, Rastogi, Telgi, Dalmia and Goyal who plundered more than Rs 16,000 crore from Indian public. The 2 G scam of Rs 1.74 lakh crore size has paralysed the winter session of parliament. Scams are popping from time to time. Fodder scam, mining scam, Noida land scam, Adarsh Housing Society scam, LIC Housing finance scam, MFI scam and the list is getting longer. It seems there is something terribly wrong in our family, schools, educational institutions and organisational culture which have sown the seeds of greed and negligence in the minds of our youth. It is not the means but the ends to acquire wealth becomes the governing principle.

Middlemen

The majority of Indian politicians right from panchayat level irrespective of political parties work as middlemen to serve business men, traders and general public for a commission. In the process they amass huge wealth to lead a lavish lifestyle and force bureaucrats to satisfy their passion for wealth.  Right from the day one the Indian bureaucrats face two option: first option satisfy politico-business boss and live in luxury; the second option to show honesty and face punishment. Majority choose the first option and the small percentage go for the tough second. Britishers doled out stipends and luxury goods to Indian kings and nobles to keep mom in administrative affair and enjoy life. Those who did not listen were hunted down as rebels.

History repeats itself even today. The age old symbiotic relationship between politicians, traders and corrupt people in governance mechanism nurtures scams of huge proportion. A substantial part of the demographic dividend ends up in politico-middlemen-traders’ net. As a result demographic dividends fail to create the right infrastructure for the majority of people to increase their productivity hours. If an artisan does not get electricity supply he cannot add value to the product. Similarly adulterated food increases the health budget and erodes people’s surplus. There is a huge sensitivity loss due to ill gotten money which triggers a societal behaviour change for lavish lifestyle. How to stop the animalisation of the society is the biggest challenge before the economists, politicians and social scientists. US President Barack Obama in his presidential address said greed is one of the reasons for global recession. animalisation of economic models overlooks the sustainability part and creates human misery.

The best possible solution is to treat the greed virus with spiritual tools. The change for a better human life is happening in the west and in a faster pace due to their dedicated research and conviction.

The new MBA oath for the graduates of Harvard Business School reads “the goal of a business manager is to serve the greater good.” Indian yoga is found to be an elixir for health, happiness and a better civic society. Today around 71,000 yoga teachers in North America teach yoga to an estimated 34 million people. In USA, the Corporate yoga classes are growing faster than shopping malls. Government organisations, police departments, military bases, therapists both mental and physical, school teachers and media people, etc become the main target groups.

Fortunately India has two renowned yoga gurus Sri Sri Ravishankar and Swami Ramdev who have contributed immensely to increase the productivity hours and happiness level of billions of people across the world. Swami Ramdev’s Patanjali Yoga Peeth in Haridwar is one of the unique institutions in the world which do dedicated research on Indian Ayurveda and various therapeutic uses of yoga. Similarly, Sri Ravishankar has brought visible change in the society through his millions of followers whom he tells to do five selfless services in a day. Changes happen when educated people, professional and students take time to complete the five sevas in a day. Both the spiritual gurus can address India’s HR crisis in an effective manner.

Recently communist China for the first time has invited Sri Ravishankar for a religious meeting and satsang near Beijing. The irony is that India is sitting on a treasure trove of spiritual material and contemplating.