Five Bharat Ratnas in the year. Karpuri Thakur, Lal Krishna Advani, PV Narasimha Rao, MS Swaminathan, Charan Singh. Taking the tally to 49. When will be the turn of Verghese Kurien, NTR, Jyothi Rao Phule? More heroes are around. Charan Singh – Chief Minister and Prime Minister. LK Advani – Bharat rathayaatri, ‘margadarshak’. Karpuri Thakur – Jananaayak, Chief Minister and Mentor to nextgen leaders.
PV was instrumental in the seeding of my three alma maters – Residential School, Sarvail – first of its kind in India – today there are 1000+ residential schools in Telugu states, and 600+ Navodaya Schools in the country; Residential Junior College, Nagarjuna Sagar – first in the list; NIT (REC), Warangal – first in the list. Polyglot (17 languages!), Scholar, Farmer, Advocate, Chief Minister and Prime Minister, PV is the true education crusader, land reforms, true Indian Economy Liberalization/reforms leader, dismantleer of licence raj, father of nuclear program. He held: HR, Home Affairs, Defence, External Affairs, before becoming PM. Accidental Prime Minister, Monumental contributions.
Green, Evergreen Revolution MSS convocated me into ‘rural management’. 84 doctorates. 60+ awards. Fellow in 30 academies. Main architect of Green Revolution in India, along with another Bharat Ratna – C Subramaniam. Father of Economic Ecology. World Food Prize Winner. ICAR Head, Principal Secretary in Government of India, International Rice Research Institute Head. MS Swaminathan Foundation remains his legacy.
Chief Minister, Prime Minister Charan Singh was a peasant champion. Land reforms.
Loha purush Margadarshak Advani was rathayatri – Ram, Janaadesh, Swarna Jayanthi, Bharat Uday, Bhaart Suraksha, Jan Chetna; Vajpayee’s Arjuna.
Teacher, Jananaayak Karpuri Thakur is the champion of the poor and marginalized. Strongman of Bihar. Mentor to active and successful nextgen leaders.
Climate crisis is looming large. Multiple crises, poly crises with interconnected challenges are facing the world. Can we actually mitigate these? Can we postpone them? Do we have the big picture before us? Do our political, bureaucratic, philanthropic, non-profit, business, technical, academic, media, and policy masters have it before them? Do the intersection workers have it? Can we listen to the communities? Can we see interconnections, intersections, relationships, and relationship overlaps? Can we see-hear the ‘butterfly flutters’, and ‘camera shutters’? Can we see the systems work and can we change the way they work? Can we have dialogues for this? Can we reach out, with this agenda to the world that needs changes? Can we change first and take the agenda forward? Can we move from lip services to body, panchendriya (eye, ear, nose, tongue, skin), heart, mind, and soul actions? Thinking, feeling, and doing?
For this kind of agenda organization, how much is a good communications, and strategic communications budget? For an entity which is not a pure advocacy, policy entity. 10%, 20%? Will it be treated as investment into mobilizing resources? Or mobilizing the community into the programme, or both? Will communications, social media and other media visibility, posts, articles, et al take us scaling our agenda? Or do they cause obstacles in our way? Do we see any benefit of engaging mainstream newspapers, magazines and channels? Does paid PR help? What kind of skills do our communications people have in their portfolio?
Documenting, communicating, communicating strategically is an art. Art is a matter of heart. It touches our being. Matters of heart need to be experienced. Are we artists? Can we be artists? Creative Comm artists?
Yes, we can. We are born artists. Born creative. If we build our agency of thinking, feeling and doing. For our sarvendriyas. For changing our behaviours, families, teams, and systems. In the flow of N. For 7L.
Join us in the yoga of creative engagement in nature and with the people – srjanayoga for 7L.
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