21-06-2013
Individuality in Potential
When a Revolution breaks out, historians later discover its historical roots in the earlier decades. Nothing comes to the surface of a sudden, as it is not possible. Its emergence can be a slow positive process of growth. Or the forces may have been gathering negatively for some time and emerge in a directly opposite mood. The rural population that embraced the emerging wave of education in the seventies had the joy of stiffly rejecting it a decade earlier. Individuality is a psychological product of the Society, the most valuable and hence the most difficult to achieve. Development programmes in comparison with that are simpler.
When India attained Freedom in 1947, there was a great expectation of prosperity to follow. Being the decade of vast population increase to maintain the existing levels, the country was to double its production. The Indian experience was unique. Nehru found no example to follow as concepts to consider. After two decades of frustrating experiences when the national leadership was to face a series of elections, FAO sounded its dire warning of an impending famine. The nation did show an alertness to benefit by such a crisis. The alert response revealed an aspiration that is alive below the surface. The coming century will reveal whether it was a mere national aspiration or a soul of the nation that had awakened.
In all great accomplishments, the perceptive observer will never fail to see the presence of essential ingredients of success. Transfer of Power to India became a knotty problem and one of its aspects was the right viceroy. When found, the first thing he asked for was two small items: 1) he would not be under the Secretary of State for India and 2) a private plane. In my view, these made him accomplish. As the Food Department was refused by all senior ministers, Subramaniam who was willing asked for two such things 1) Prime Minister’s total support to him in the Parliament and 2) a floor price. In my view, these two aspects were the lifeline, ஜீவநாடி, for its later success. On reviewing the success of the Green Revolution after a decade, it seems unconsciously Subramaniam had commissioned several creative policies into action. In India, then, the only agency to implement any development programme was the Government, an ill-fitted organisation. Perhaps by a subconscious awareness Food Corporation was relieved of the bureaucratic oppressiveness by being constituted as a quasi-government Organisation. Thereby the minister, the leader avoided an existent major impediment. He resorted to the principle of availing of the latent facilities in terms of seed, fertilizers, methods of production. He was shown how sorely the agriculture scientists were being neglected in compensation. He had the common sense to raise their pay commensurate with the other prestigious departments. Still the agricultural department of the country had a vast reservoir of experience and expertise. The Minister commissioned their service and put them under the administrative control of the new organisation. The rightness of a vast national endeavour is indicated by wider life endorsing such an effort. The Mexican hybrid seed was then on the horizon. Its importance was so great that in the later years it was spoken of as the one cause of the success.
Positive encouraging quick results from the rural fields were flooding in. Contrary to the previous efforts of the government, the success rate was substantial. Again a programme is sound if its principle makes an impression outside its field or outside the nation. Both happened. Inside in India milk production responded to a similar organised effort. Outside India Green Revolution was taken note of for imitation. Actually the Programme’s success crossed the usual levels of popularity and touched the fringes of glamour. It was at this time a US Agriculture Department official was inspired to coin the phrase Green Revolution.
In my view, this sparkling programme of food production has deeper roots in the national Psyche. To see its market results is easier than describing its philosophic significance. One immediate result was the proliferation of rural bank branches and the bank credit to agriculture. It was more than a revolution as nationalisation of the banks was stiffly opposed and banks lending to rural villages was a dread. Our own token effort in 1969 and its total success personally witnessed by the Chairman of the Banks Association was a direct contributing cause for this development.
The success of this Programme is essentially made possible by the employment of organisational resources. Usually an effort like this will be left to fend for itself in the wider national context. The programme will be stalled by one small bottleneck somewhere in the scheme of things as the US national electrical grid saw. Putting each input such as seeds, fertilizers, storage, etc. in its own independent organisation prevented all the usual pitfalls. After a decade food grains became a surplus not having storage space. In Punjab wheat was stored on the road for want of space. The success of this programme in India against a background of twenty years of dismal failures, as well as scores of programmes becoming a non-starter or a great fiasco, is noteworthy.
To me it signals the awakening of the Individual in rural India.
As the incipient sprouting of the invisible individuality expresses itself in these multidimensional successes, my theme is organising other fields of life such as education, industry, market, sport, transport, communication, the hinterland for the banks, courts, politics, etc. will vastly foster the growth of individuality. Individuality is the acme of the psychological organisation of the society. Starting from manners which are a great organisation of an individual’s public behaviour, the journey passes through three further stages. If manners fit the man into the society in a civilised form, behaviour is a talent that makes him eligible to live successfully in the society of stable security. It is character of the individual that ultimately determines the character of the nation. We sorely see the dismal difference of the absence and presence of character when we compare ourselves to any western nation. Character is an asset to any individual as well as to the nation.
Personality is the psychological flavour of a nation which is not found in a tangible measure in any country. Individuality like the Supermind is a further concept and a further reality. Still, we see all over the world the distant micro symptoms of Personality and Individuality. The present crisis of four or five-fold dimensions will need one person or the one organisation that is capable of Personality, if not Individuality. To conceive of the future Individuality itself is an inspiring vision and will make one’s personality creative.
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