While the over performing government under the leadership of a workaholic Premier is setting out newer milestones on the pedestal of operational efficacy fulfilling one obligation after the other, it would be imperative on the part of the thinking tribe defending and defining the characteristic Indian view and approach which is assumed to be the ideological fountainhead of the ruling disposition.
The journey of the 1000 days gone by is indicative of the fact as to what all can be accomplished in the wake of sheer commitment to the cause of public service at large and exercising the same with unprecedented industriousness. Taking the national ship onward and forward pursuing the existing deck of policies, practices and philosophical foundations was an obligation which the incumbent Prime Minister chose to pursue for want of taking hold of the establishment before accentuating structural transformations beyond the ones limited to the confines of operational excellence alone.
Traces of the same have however got visible here and there across the board but for chalking out a path of building an insurmountable India all over again, disruptive transformations emanating out of the intrinsic soul of India would have to be invoked load, stock and barrel.
An attempt is thereby being made in this monograph to suggest some of these foundational precepts which have been central to the Indian worldview for ages.
Nowhere in the world is the institution of family so profound and penetrative as it is on the Indian Sub-Continent. It somehow accrues from the Indian philosophical vision of segmenting a human life into four stages of Brahmacharya, Grihasta, Vaanprastha and Sanyas whereby the stage of Grihasta has been endowed with a spree of self-ordained and socially venerated spectrum of regulations. The coming together of a man and woman for seeking carnal pleasure has also been ascended to the pedigree of an institutionalized ceremony in the form of “garbhadhaan sanskar” checking the complications of non-solemnized escapades. Leaving aside the post-modern libertarian notion of induced and imposed morality this serves as a key binding factor. Indian families have a much higher index of stability and longevity thereby easing up the role of Government to a great extent.
Recognizing a family as the key unit of governance can have a spectacular transformation in the domain of governance as this reduces the span of complexity by at least a factor of 4 (assuming 4 members of a family). Bankers on record have put their great appreciation to the strategy to treat family as the unit of focus leading to the spectacle of Jandhan overdrive. Rail Minister’s easing of the rules to allow the connected members of a family to travel on a ticket issued in the name of a relative is again an acknowledgement of this very constituent of governance. Several other social welfare schemes are reaping their operational expediency owing to this segmentation.
This informal recognition somehow needs a firm legal framework to induce and reap a spree of cascading benefits. While the modern declarations promising universal human rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness emanated from the individuality of human existence, the due recognition of a family as a natural social order in the eyes of the law shall embark a newer era of welfare and prosperity as the members of a family have a symbiotic relationship in place whereby the intangible facets of love, care and emotional support create an ecosystem of human development beyond the linear metric of economics alone.
The emotional interdependence of the constituents of a family emanating out of sheer biological process makes it an apt unit for governance ranging from the function of law & order to ensuring justice and fair play in providing opportunities for pursuing the due fulfillment of life alongside the increasing clamor of state sponsored social security.
This shall thereby need the creation of a ready-to-use and all pervasive identification of a family alongwith the treatment of family as the single unit of taxation factoring into the entire set of obligations not just towards the progeny but also towards the parents of both the spouses.
The reporting of the various human development indices can be well measured within the ambit of a family as it constitutes a set of closely related individuals which do share the similar socio-economic-educational profiling. The design of the various programs shall find an operational expediency.
The sustainable lattice of a family structure has been the latent social capital of Indian Civilization which needs expression in the post-modern motif and methods for its wide spread resuscitation and enrichment thereby reducing the undue burden on the state. The due legal acknowledgement of this intertwined social graph of a family superstructure is one such paradigm shift which would go down in the annals of Human History as one of the most transformational steps of sustainable Human Welfare.
At a time when Indians have started accepting a vast milieu of disruptive transformations, though inspired from the models of the west, they would be more than eager and willing to resurrect the essential spirit of their social spaces deeply anchored with their civilizational self.
A consultative committee to this effect can be constituted under the aegis of the NITI Aayog with inputs from the innumerable think tanks of the country enriching this discourse and delineating the operational details of the same.
