The first computer of the world was powered to run by water. That was a time when it was not convenient to bring a computer and water within the control of each individual, hence, the needy walked to these resources. With technological advancement, we moved towards making smaller, lighter, smarter computers and more easily accessible water reservoirs, i.e. a public water tank. Now we are in an age, where water reservoirs are being made as per individual need and computers are customised as per the life of each individual. There is hardly any regulation on any individual about the amount of ground water they can extract and spend and the same applies to the purchase, use and rejection of computers.
This means that individuals have been given extreme control of the presence, utilisation and transfer of these resources. The same is with many resources like vehicles, mobile phones, houses, clothes, thoughts, books and many other things on which our life depends. For all these radical changes in access to resources after the existence of the public system, it is not only due to technological intervention, rather, it is fuelled by the aspiration of establishing democracy in each sense and in every aspect of the system. The disruptive change in the scale of accessibility of information and resources underlines the push of democratisation.
The circumstances which we are living in is really a unique situation which has come never before in the history of the human race. On one hand, when the democratisation of resources and information is rapidly challenging the status quo of lordship/heretical prosperity, we are also rapidly moving towards creating devastating problems. We are on the verge of being a permanently warmer planet, we are increasing our population and pollution daily, we are decreasing the magnitude of oxygen daily and we are increasingly generating waste each hour.
I don’t mean to say here that the status quo or meritocracy or autocracy was good or should be cherished, but we may not disagree with the problem of increased consumer base and inappropriate contributor base.
The planet is facing numerous problems, city life is completely packed with the consideration that employees are always on the job and there is hardly any effort for changing the work culture, which is contaminating the environment, visible in our metropolitan cities. We have made our national and economic capitals to be nothing less than gas-chambers. There is nothing wrong if a person is aspirational for their personal growth and capitalises the resources available, but the issue is how are they capitalising and what about the recharge of resources utilised? Are they being judicious while consuming? Are they managing to get the resources recharged for somebody else? Or, are they engrossed in the habit of ‘consume and move?’
NITI Aayog published a report which says that most of the Indian cities will run out of the water by next decade. The simple question which comes into mind is: why are we running out of water? What will this huge population do without water? Is there any place which may supply water to these places? Do we have surplus water anywhere? Most of the answers will come in the negative. The same will happen when we try to analyse the other natural resources like trees, mountains, fuels, crops, cattle and other wild animals. These have all decreased in presence and availability. The one thing that has consistently increased is the population of human beings.
I have observed in almost all parts of India that those who know how to mobilise people, attain aggression against scarcity or isolation from decision making or social benefits or other interests. We underline our ‘government-ship’ only when we are somehow kept aloof from the consumption of resources, but we hardly take the same ‘government-ship’ while recharging the resources.
There is so much hue and cry about global warming, about terrorism, about social evils like rape, corruption and so on, but we are hardly focusing on the basic civic responsibilities which each and every person should bear and perform accordingly. It is a unanimous belief that we need to be an educated, compassionate and aware society to make this world a better place, but at the same time, there is hardly anybody who goes to the School Management Committee meeting organised by government schools, almost nobody has time to go to gram sabhas to take part in decision making, mohalla sabhas are completely empty in towns and cities are full of people who consume its resources but are not voters who can participate and care to contribute for its recharge.
We are living in an age where there is a huge chunk of population which is not at the place where it can vote and is not casting its vote where it lives. This brings a short vision of human life and brings in the culture of ‘consume and move.’
With this situation, we are partially able to
1) Regulate our education system keeping citizens at the centre;
2) Regulate our natural resources keeping the poorest at the centre;
3) Regulate our law and order keeping the weakest at the centre;
4) Regulate our institutions keeping the fundamental need of the society.
When India is all set to leave China behind in terms of population in just one decade, we have hardly anytime left to bring a balance between resource reserves and potential consumers. Having scarcity in an aspirational society like India, it is almost equivalent to an internal security threat.
We need to keep the foot on emergency gear and take charge of our motherland rather than getting into the room of the paying guest, switching on the AC and calling upon someone to bring water, Swiggy to bring food and think that the world is what is projected on the laptop screen by Netflix. We need to reflect and be aware of the results of our action, we need to be proactive in recharging the natural resources, performing our duties as citizens and facilitating the poorest to be able to contribute more.
The need of the hour is the democratisation of civic duties and responsibilities and of the understanding that citizens are the government. The coming years are perhaps the only opportunity to think, act and hand over a better world to the future generations.