On the lines of the American Peace Corps!
This magazine in its original avatar was founded by an American Peace Corps volunteer!
It was meant to be a newsletter of a rural school founded by me way back in the year 1962 and it evolved over the years in its present form.
Just now I read about the reviving of the fortunes of the American Peace Corps under the new President Barack Obama. Obama reminds many the old John Kennedy mystique of soaring idealism and a romantic view of the world as a peaceful haven for the most civilised form of living for everyone, irrespective of the race and economics and social opportunities.
How beautiful the world will be if such idealism gets translated into workable social and economic policies and a political landscape marked by co-operative and less greedy and less power-hungry politicians!
Now, the budget for the American Peace Corps volunteers is to be doubled and it is hoped that under Obama the world would see much people to people co-operation and fellowship of living harmoniously.
The though came to me suddenly, more so, in the current elections and electioneering that is marked by small minds and talking small and silly things.
What Lalu Prasad and Deve Gowda have in common? Nothing just lust for power! What Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi have in common? Nothing but simple greed for power and with the fear both of them avoid the bigger thoughts, bigger picture of India as a great nation in the world. So, they have avoided all interaction with the big minds, big ideas and big visions. No big moral impulses either!
See the PM a very sorry picture of all contradictions, now at the fag end of the elections he appears before the TV screen, also his hapless(or helpless?)family members to give the man some humanity of look!
Sonia Gandhi feels secure in isolation, all her allies deserted her, now she is lonely and also advice less and poor advisers who advise her all wrongly, when it comes to men and talents.
Even the most aged and most loyal of her servants, Arjun Singh, the HRD minister, is left to weep and wipe out his tears at this age, when his daughter and son are denied Congress tickets, when Sonia rewards blatant party hoppers, she acts in total desperation, no vision or conviction or has he ever cultivated any principles-based loyalty.
All her present men and women are there for the simple livelihood, it sees.
What she loses if she just gives the pleading, the tears-laded poor Arjun Singh the two seats he desperately seeks for his own dynasty!
All in bad tastes and bad form and there are no leaders who seem or capable of lifting India’s vision to a higher level or leading the country to some worthy cause.
It is time Manmohan Singh vacates the high office and thereby upholds the sanctity of the high office of the Prime Minister of India.
We need men and leaders of a higher calibre. This is possible only when the leaders adopt some parliamentary procedures.
What is the UPA now, except loud talking ambitious individuals who all seem to be losing their moral claims to aspire for the higher offices?
India needs visionary leaders.
There are so many challenges.
The regional and separatist parties that aspire to decide the Prime Minister are just unworthy to be political parties.
India needs a unity of purpose, India needs a strong core.
This national integration can be brought about only by imaginative policies like starting an Indian version of the Peace Corps.
Ideally, an Indian Peace Corps must have an international wing and must carry the message of Mahatma Gandhi of peace and non-violence to the strife- torn parts of the world.
The home based Peace Corps volunteers must be deployed to troubled regions within the country itself. North Indian students serve in the South; Southern students serve in the Northern India.
One year of social service, with minimum pay, must be given credits for seeking a variety of concessions and admissions and even in government selection for jobs.
This is the core. The details can vary and we can design varied job profiles for varied talents. Any young man or woman can join the one-year social service assignments.
After a gap year, as they call it in the West even these practical experience must be counted for admissions to professional colleges, as engineers and doctors these people would surely would turn out to be more broad-minded and would become assets in their professions.
An all India outlook for young men and women would ideally suit the DMK/Shiv Sena trained narrow minds and would broaden the young minds.
John Kennedy said that the Peace Corps “do represent the best foreign diplomacy you can get”
Why not Indians become the new generation peace crops diplomats in other states and in other countries, in the distant and neighbouring countries.
An allocation of Rs.100 cores as the initial corpus fund can kick off this new initiative.
Image Source: smh.com.au