Skip to content Skip to navigation

Nation forgets Gandhi’s wishes

Mahatma Gandhi had expressed his clear view on the importance of ‘healthy work culture’ in the Harijan newspaper of 15th October, 1938, emphasizing on hard work by the people of the country, for attaining the goal of freedom. He dared to declare as ‘declaring my birthday as a holiday should be treated as a cognizable offence’. This was a clear indication that the “Great Soul’ was confident of the might of his people, which later on succeeded in bringing freedom to the country. His experiments on Swadeshi movement brought good results. But the present situation has completely changed the whole thing and his dreams are shattered.


Unfortunately, with his assassination in 1948, his ideals and teaching were thrown in the wilderness. His followers used his name, teachings and ideals for making wealth and playing politics. His soul might have felt tremendous pain on the day the Government of India declared his birthday, the 2nd October, as a National Holiday. This decision ignoring his wishes was a great ‘dishonor’ to him. From there the ruling parties in the country started distancing from his ideals. No doubt they kept crying for Gandhian philosophy and remembering his ideals at all critical times.


Ignoring his sentiments and ideals for long sixty years, efforts are on to underplay his teachings and increasing holidays from time to time, with intention to make the people idle by reducing their working capability. It is only in India, where maximum holidays are allowed. The practice of demanding more and more holidays in the industries and offices are continuing regularly. It is unfortunate, when the country needs more work for development and prosperity, our people demand more holidays. More holidays means reduction in working capability of our people.


On the one hand, when there is necessity of hard work due to economic globalization to, counter the challenges of multinational organizations, our country prefers reducing working ability of our people. Whereas there is necessity of increasing ‘work culture’ to bring the country at par with developed nations, the tradition of increasing holidays at work places leads to reducing working capabilities of our people. Politicians and trade unionists are equally responsible for this sort of affairs. Mere slogans cannot lead the nation on the path of progress. It needs hard work and foresightedness in planning. Development needs more work and fewer holidays. Developed nations increase production by reducing holidays and increasing working hours to increase per capita working capability. In Indian politics there is a ‘conspiracy’ going on to reduce capability of our people. Power hungry politicians having interest in multinational companies are busy to get the benefit out of this practice. On the other hand our trade union leaders mislead the workforce over various issues demanding to keep their leadership alive. It is unfortunate, these leaders demand more holidays and other benefits instead of encouraging the workers to increase production, so that the industry may be compelled to pay them more. Due to high illiteracy and lack of right understanding, exploitation of workforce is continuing. Working force fail to understand whether their prosperity depends on more work or holidays.


Government of India has adopted the policy of five days working in a week, which ultimately leads to delaying disposal of works. Not only this, out of 365 days of year, about 25 national, 104 Sundays and Saturdays, besides 65 privilege leaves, casual and medical leaves, provisions are already there. By this way about 2oo days of the year a worker enjoys as holidays. The state governments on the other hand declare local and festival holidays in addition to all these. Another fact that Bandh culture has spread in the country at large scale now a days. On various issues and petty matters any organization declares bandh and it is found that the people give good response to that and enjoy extra holidays. As much misuse and negligence of human resources is done in India, nowhere in the world one can find. Several small nations have attained their position in the developed countries because of proper use of human resources and India is lagging behind even after 60 years of independence.. It is not enough to pay homage to the Great Soul by putting flowers on his Samadhi from time to time. It is time to follow his ideals and make the country self sufficient in the fields of agriculture and industries, which can provide work for all and prosperity for the country.

Comments

Pallavi Barua's picture

One thing which baffles me is that why has the INC (Indian National Congress) become the domain of only the descendents of Jawaharlal Nehru? Where have the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren of great leaders like Dadabhai Naoroji, Lokmanya Tilak, Subhash Chandra Bose, Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabbhai Patel, Lal Bahadur Shastri etc. gone? A few of the above mentioned personalities were the founder members of the INC, what we call as 'Congress' today.

Pages

Add new comment

Random Stories

Inter College Quiz Competition at Dispur College

20 Sep 2011 - 1:38pm | editor
Dispur College organised an All Guwahati Inter College quiz competition on 16th September. This competition has been started in 2009 and this year it was for second time which was attended by...

Ray of hope for BVFCL

14 Feb 2018 - 11:54am | Akshaya Pranab Kalita
NAMRUP: Flashing a ray of hope for the fourth proposed unit of the BVFCL, Union minister of state for chemical and fertilizer Rao Inderjit Singh held a crucial meeting with Chairman cum Managing...

Demand for Product Managers in IT Companies

13 Jun 2007 - 5:30am | editor
If you are a techie looking to enter management, product management may be right up your alley. Product management is a new role that is gaining in importance with the mushrooming of software product...

PCDR to thwart BPF rule in BTC

23 Sep 2014 - 9:08am | Jayanta Kumar Das
The new political developments in BTC are likely to pose a big threat to ruling BPF. The newly formed Peoples Coordination for Democratic Rights (PCDR) organizing massive political activities in BTC...

Other Contents by Author

It was really a mockery of foundation stone laying ceremony by the Chief Minister of Assam one day ahead of announcement of Lok Sabha polls in the country by the Election Commission of India on 5th March 2014. As soon as on March 4, the news spread that the election dates would be announced on 5th March, Mr. S. Vishwanathan, Commissioner, Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC), Mayor, Abir Patra of GMC along with other GMC officials approached the office bearers of the Ulubari Bazar Committee with information that the foundation stone laying ceremony would be done by the Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, the following day i.e. on 5th March at 11 a.m. They ordered dismantling of about two dozens of...
The Society for Socio-Economic-Development in the Region (SSEDR), a city based NGO, has raised a question mark on the initiative taken by the Assam Government with Pollution Control Board (PCB), Assam for conservation of Bharalu and Kalang rivers. It said that the State holder consultation workshop held on December 18, 2013, was mainly attended by the officers of various level of State and Central governments and representatives of Louis Berger Group (LBG) and DHI (India). The draft minutes of meeting has shown very unsatisfactory presence of non-biased technical expert and public representatives. This has raised a question regarding the sincerity and transparency of the whole process.The...
Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati established first ever Arya Samaj Mandir in Mumbai in the year 1875. Arya Samaj Guwahati chapter is one among such institutions spread all over India in 1932-35, when two Vedic scholars, Late Parmeswar Kakati and Late Robindra Nobis, first attempted to promote Vedic philosophy among the people of Northeast region. Finally, in 1964-65, the Guwahati Arya Samaj was established at Dr B Baruah Road, with active participation of various persons of the society like Late Sushil Das, Late RR Taneja, Late NR Taneja, Late Dr Narain Das, Late Om Prakash Anand, Shri B L Saboo, HR Arya, SC Arya and others took great efforts to build and help in growth of this institution....
With an idea to get rapid development of the Northeastern region, the Union government constituted a separate directorate, namely, the Directorate of North Eastern Region (DoNER), which has now turned to ‘do nothing in entire region’. This can be judged by the activities going on in the two major paper mills in the state of Assam, which are facing a threat of closure at any time. These paper mills, the units of Hindustan Paper Corporation Ltd, the Nagaon Paper Mills, Jagiroad in Morigaon district and the Cachar Paper Mill, in Panchgram of Barak valley, are suffering from acute shortage of raw materials for several years. The production in both mills have been badly affected and workers have...
Industrial development in India has ever been dependent on the political will of leadership since independence. It was because of the fact that no ‘fair policy’ could be framed by the Union Government for ‘equal development’ of all the regions of the country simultaneously. That is why some of the areas remained completely neglected and others developed beyond limit. Besides the metropolis and a few industrial cities, where opportunities were ample for industrial growth, there have been vast disparity in the growth of industries. The industrialization of a particular area depends fully on the degree of political influence in its favor.A few industries in the country have been setup on the...
Emergency imposed by former prime minister,  Indira Gandhi in the year 1975, was no doubt a bad thing for democracy, but in no way it was harmful to make the nation disciplined. That is the reason even some of her staunch critics had appreciated the steps taken by her at that crucial juncture.Democracy is for the disciplined people and unless the people are disciplined, the democracy has no meaning. A wrong notion is prevailing in our country about democracy now-a-days. The simple interpretation of democracy i.e. equal rights in society, is taken as freedom of speech, freedom of work, freedom to abuse or commit nuisance, freedom to live as per one’s life-style. It is because of this...
The Govt of Assam along with GVK EMRI launched 102 National Ambulance Service (NAS) on September1,2013 by Union health  and family welfare minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad in presence of Assam Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi and state health and family welfare minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma and distinguished guests from state government; NRHM and GVK EMRI, Assam. It has now completed 120 days of operation, according to a press release issued by the organization. 102 NAS is the first of its kind in the country to serve Inter Facility Transfer (IFT). The service is for referred patient from a lower hospital to higher hospital. NAS in its 120 days journey has got a fleet strength of 279 vehicles out...
Snehalaya, a social service programme of Don Bosco Society for the care, protection and ultimate social reintegration of children in distress completed thirteen years of its existence. To mark the completion of thirteen years of relentless Services to children in need of special care and protection ‘Snehalaya Day’ was observed on January 4, 2014, at Don Bosco Higher Secondary School auditorium in Guwahati, where a number of dignitary participated in the function. Assam Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi inaugurated the function.Snehalaya became operational on January 1, 2001. it was a millennium gift for the homeless and destitute children. On that day Fr Lukose Cheruvalel, the founder director of...
It was a turning point in my life at the end of year 1981, when I decided to go for a change after a successful 20 years of marketing experience. The reason behind the idea was the fatigue of the long travelling experiences, the growing age and stable family life.A small piece of advertisement in the English daily 'The Assam Tribune' on November 14, 1981, requiring sub editors for an upcoming English daily news paper attracted my attention and I did not make a second thought and applied for the same. Within a month the entire formalities were completed and out of 42 candidates, who appeared for the written test and interviews, six were selected for the job including myself.On 16th December...
India’s partition in the year 1947 on the basis of religion was a great mistake. It was a part of conspiracy planted by the British rulers, who succeeded in managing Muslim League leader, Mohammad Ali Jinnah to be rigid on his stand for a homeland and independent nation for the followers of Islam dividing India between the Muslim majority and other communities dominated areas. Despite all efforts made by Mahatma Gandhi to keep the country united, the result was not conducive due to sticky stand of both the Indian National Congress (INC) and the Muslim League (ML) leaders, which led to the danger of chaotic situation in the country. The situation could have resulted in long stay of the...