Never Apologise for Our Celebrations! Happy Diwali

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Every year as Diwali approaches, familiar chorus of professional gloom-mongers begins its performance. These selective pessimists sit waiting with pre-packaged outrage, eager to extinguish bright lights of an innocuous Indian celebration. Their main target remains fireworks and festive decorations that bring immense happiness to millions. When global news brings endless stories of conflict, disease, and economic hardship, humanity craves moments of collective cheer. Yet these perpetual whiners view national happiness as personal offense, launching annual campaigns to dampen public spirit under guise of environmental concern. Watching these activists pick apart moments of pure joy leaves citizens wishing every finger and toe could turn into a middle finger to show these hypocrites exactly what people think of their unsolicited lectures.

Beyond joy and traditions, these activists completely ignore massive economic engine that fires up during festive season. Millions of unskilled and semi-skilled workers reliance on Diwali for their annual earnings remains immense. Potters shaping terracotta diyas, rural pyrotechnic artisans, street vendors, flower sellers, small-scale decorators, and transport workers depend entirely on this surge in demand to feed their families and clear debts. Massive market circulation during this period sustains grassroots micro-economy for months. Damning these celebrations threatens direct livelihoods of hardworking individuals who lack corporate cushions or elite backing.

Hypocrisy of this activist class becomes evident through their deliberate silence during other major events. Massive fireworks displays mark New Year celebrations across global capitals without triggering frantic debates. Opening ceremonies of international sports events burn tonnes of pyrotechnics without drawing moral sermons. Air quality metrics suddenly matter only during native Indian festivities. This targeted obsession exposes their motives clearly. Environmental protection requires consistent effort throughout twelve months, not selective posturing during specific cultural celebrations.

Negative comments on the Visuals of lit-up hospitals during festival season illustrates deep disconnect of these critics. Lighting up healthcare facilities brings genuine comfort to patients facing tough battles and acknowledges selfless service of medical staff working tirelessly through holidays. Calling such gestures wasteful reveals lack of empathy. Doctors, nurses, and suffering patients deserve every bit of warmth and brightness during festive period. Dampening these thoughtful efforts in name of pseudo-environmentalism shows how out of touch these commentators remain.

Animal welfare arguments follow exact same pattern of convenient activism. Activists lecture public about pet distress during Diwali, yet go completely silent during other events involving public animal sacrifice and street pollution. Genuine activism demands unwavering standards across all situations. By choosing when to care and when to look away, these voices surrender their credibility. Public now recognizes these regular campaigns as performative gestures rather than sincere advocacy, ensuring these lectures are dismissed by everyday citizens who simply wish to celebrate traditions in peace.

Celebrity participation in this seasonal scolding adds ultimate layer of absurdity. High-profile figures routinely pose with fine leather valises, flaunt designer woollen jackets, and showcase exotic non-vegetarian dining choices on social media. Yet, come Diwali, these same influencers lecture public on pet anxiety and animal welfare. Animals subjected to loud noises survive their temporary fear and return to normal lives. Animals slaughtered for luxury accessories, designer apparel, or gourmet meals are gone forever. Selective concern for animal life ends where personal luxury and dietary preference begin, rendering their festive preachiness utterly hollow.

No amount of coordinated outrage, selective moralizing, or elite arrogance can dim spirit of a culture that has celebrated triumph of light over darkness for millennia. Let activists vent their annual venom; millions will continue to light up hospitals, support humble livelihoods, and fill skies with joy. Our festivals were not born out of permission from armchair critics, and they certainly will not die because of their hypocrisy.

A final note to the Professional Grievance Cottage Industry and to the annual brigade of selective pessimists and , designated gloom-spreaders, and armchair ethicists,
Your scheduled outrage has been noted, categorized, and summarily ignored by the millions who choose to live in the light rather than critique it from the shadows. Instead of wasting another festival season cultivating high blood pressure and low spirits in your lonely corners, here is a novel suggestion, put down the megaphone, pick up a diya, and actually learn how to live. Stop whining and come join the celebration. You might even crack a smile, it is surprisingly liberating. May God bless you with some light and cheers into our gloomy lives and bring you out of the shadows that you seem to revel in.

Happy Deepavali

Job Security vs. Institutional Results

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PC: Gemini

The recent controversy surrounding remarks by Karnataka Chief Minister DK Shivakumar and his daughter Aishwarya regarding the quality and accountability of government school teachers has once again exposed a deep-seated administrative fault line. Their comments on the gap between state-funded salaries and actual classroom performance sparked immediate pushback from teacher representatives and public sector advocates. However, rather than viewing this incident as a isolated political dispute, it serves as a critical trigger to examine the broader structural failure that plagues public-private partnerships across the state’s social sector.

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) in public governance, whether in government schools or Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), continually run into the same structural wall: the split between operational management and administrative control.

Core Paradox: Power Without Authority

When private players or trusts adopt government institutions under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) or PPP frameworks, they are expected to improve outcomes, modernise infrastructure, and raise standards. However, they possess zero supervisory control over permanent government employees.

Permanent government staff derive their security from civil service rules, state appointment frameworks, and powerful employee unions rather than performance metrics. Private partners cannot hire, fire, transfer, dock pay, or issue formal disciplinary notices. External management interventions are often viewed as unsolicited oversight rather than support. Without administrative teeth, external partners can only persuade, which fails when absenteeism or lack of accountability is already habitual.

Why ITIs and Schools Share Same Failure Pattern

This phenomenon is not unique to school education and follows a predictable path across sectors. CSR initiatives frequently turn into cash injections for infrastructure, such as smart classrooms, machinery in ITIs, bus services, or toilet blocks. While physical assets improve, pedagogy and operational rigor remain unchanged because the human capital layer is untouched.

Government staff are evaluated, if at all, on administrative compliance like census work, election duties, record keeping, and scheme rollouts. Reality is that appraisal and growth is time based nor performance based in Government Institutions. On the other hand, Private partners evaluate them on output quality such as student pass rates, skill employable ratios, and daily classroom hours.

Structural Hesitation: Infrastructure Capital vs Human Capital

This systemic lack of operational control explains why private entities and corporate foundations deliberately limit their involvement to physical infrastructure. Donating smart boards, renovating laboratory facilities, building sanitation blocks, or gifting school buses allows corporate donors to achieve visible, measurable outcomes without entering administrative conflict. High-value physical capital creates immediate visual impact for corporate social responsibility metrics while insulating the private entity from the friction of staff absenteeism, union pushback, and entrenched workplace culture.

True institutional reform and modernisation cannot occur through hardware upgrades alone. Operational success depends entirely on human resources. When management frameworks lack the authority to enforce daily accountability, performance tracking, or pedagogical standards, institutional staff revert to established habits. Infrastructure improvements without corresponding authority over staff management yield minimal long-term change, leaving structural reform unrealised despite substantial private investment.

Ground Reality: Lessons From ITI Interventions

Direct experience in ITI interventions across various models confirms that collaborative operations succeed only when complete management control, including staffing, is handed over to the private partner. While augmenting existing institutions by retaining incumbent government staff carries long-term merit on paper, it often remains a good intention defeated by a total lack of accountable participation. During an Industry-Government meet on PM-SETU, a renowned industrialist repeatedly pressed government officials on whether operational management control included staffing control. The policy representatives offered no convincing answer beyond stating that they would cross that bridge when they come to it. Leaving such fundamental rules of engagement unaddressed guarantees friction. Clear frameworks on staffing governance, measurable outcomes, and enforced accountability must be defined well in advance rather than deferred to post-implementation crisis management.

Structural Solutions for Functional Co-Management

To make public-private adoption work without stripping public servants of their statutory protections, systemic governance changes are necessary:

  • Statutory Delegation of Supervisory Powers: Adopting entities should receive formal, delegated authority to sign off on performance-linked incentives, daily attendance logs, and internal quality appraisals.
  • Non-Teaching Duty Relief: As highlighted in defense of public sector staff, teachers and instructors are often burdened with non-educational administrative duties. Public policy must ring-fence their hours purely for instruction before enforcing strict attendance standards.
  • Third-Party Metric Auditing: Independent state-sanctioned bodies—rather than internal department heads or private adopters—must handle attendance tracking and performance audits to bypass union pushback and institutional apathy.

Confronting the Human Element in Public Education

The controversy surrounding the statements made by Aishwarya and DK Shivakumar brings this long-evaded reality into sharp focus. When the state provides substantial salaries to public school educators, expecting proportional commitment and outcome delivery is not an unreasonable corporate demand, it is basic institutional governance.

This core issue is often obscured by defensive rhetoric, such as the pushback from JD(S) MLC A P Ranganath (representing the Bangalore Teachers’ Constituency), who claimed that questioning teacher performance “insults” them because they clear rigorous recruitment exams. This argument fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of public service: clearing a competitive test is merely the entry ticket, not the end goal. Recruitment exams test potential at a single point in time, but daily performance and classroom engagement decide the future of lakhs of children. Similarly, accusations from groups like the Save Public Education Committee, claiming the government is passing the buck onto teachers, ignore the reality that teachers remain the single most critical factor in learning outcomes. Shielding staff behind past credentials or union solidarity ensures educational reform remains a distant dream.

If the goal is truly to safeguard accessible, quality education for underprivileged students, a pragmatic economic model must replace political posturing. The government can continue funding base salaries according to existing public remuneration scales, while private partners fund performance-linked top-ups and resource gaps. In return, teachers must commit to strict, enforceable standards of discipline and measurable student outcomes. Without this balanced accountability framework, no amount of public funding or private goodwill can fix the system.

Essence of Volunteering: An Indian Citizen Volunteer Perspective

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Excerpts from my online address for International Consortium of Volunteer Organisations

Respected delegates and esteemed participants, warm greetings to you all.

I stand before you not as an expert on Administration nor as policy expert, but as humble seeker and blessed devotee of Pujya Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar ji. Whatever little I understand about human service comes from observing Him, whose life is ultimate testament to leadership by example. From Pujya Gurudev, I received foundational truth of my life: service is never burden we carry or favour we grant to society, but sacred privilege bestowed upon us.

My understanding of ground execution was tested in crucible of crisis. During relief operations with Art of Living, I saw how compassion transforms instantly into swift, organized action on ground. Later, while serving as Honarary Vice-Chairman of Citizen Task Force for COVID Management under Government of Karnataka, I coordinated with nearly 40,000 volunteers, where over 25,000 were active throughout the lock-down phases, risking their lives when virus was silent, unknown killer. I remain deeply grateful to Major Manivannan, IAS (currently Commissioner of Bengaluru Development Authority), a senior bureaucrat in Government of Karnataka, for trusting me with this responsibility. That experience revealed clear truth: formal state machinery can build infrastructure, but only deep spirit of voluntary action can heal society during massive human crises. When senior administrator asked why I was taking humongous personal risk when government officials were paid to do job, my heart gave only one response:

“If not me, who?
If not now, when?”

Paid duty moves within boundaries of mandate, but true citizen service springs from personal accountability toward community. I am sure each one of us are guided by the same principle

Yet, sustained service requires more than initial emotional surge. When public crises stretch across months like in case of COVID19 Management, enthusiasm naturally turns into physical and mental exhaustion. Key to building resilient volunteer movements lies in ancient Indian concept of dispassionate attachment. Shrimad Bhagavad Gita anchors this exact principle of action:

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन |
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ||
karmaṇy-evādhikāras te mā phaleṣhu kadāchana
mā karma-phala-hetur bhūr mā te saṅgo ’stv akarmaṇi
“You have right to perform prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to fruits of action. Never consider yourself cause of results of your activities and never be attached to inaction.” (Bhagavad Gita 2.47)

When volunteers chase personal glory, recognition, or quick fairy-tale endings, frustration sets in immediately. Working without attachment to outcome protects teams from burnout and ensures temporary setbacks do not paralyze collective movement.

Public administration during emergencies often suffers from institutional friction, rigid hierarchies, and pursuit of absolute procedural perfection. Crises demand timely, practical solutions over delayed perfectionism. True leadership requires shifting from top-down control to facilitative mindset. Administrators must insulate ground teams from red tape, replace multi-layered authorization chains with rapid clearances, and eliminate bloated documentation. We must build documented systems, not systems for documentation. Thanks to the Government of the day for the free hand given to us to manage the situation, and Major Manivannan insulating us from the comprehensive and slow moving procedures. By deploying lightweight digital platforms for resource mapping and tapping open-source technology alongside pro-bono corporate expertise, zero-budget volunteer networks can scale rapidly without heavy overheads or delays.

This self-arising model, traditional wisdom calls Swayambhu, relies entirely on shared purpose rather than monetary incentives or capital-intensive structures. Amorphous citizen groups lack rigid designations, allowing individuals to step up based on competence and adapt instantly to changing field realities. To sustain such movements without exhausting key leaders, organizations must practice rotational leadership. Inability to delegate traps experienced leaders in routine tasks, creating operational bottlenecks. Bhagavan Shri Krishna highlights how detached duty releases operational stress:

तस्मादसक्तः सततं कार्यं कर्म समाचर|
असक्तो ह्याचरन्कर्म परमाप्नोति पूरुषः||
tasmād asaktaḥ satataṁ kāryaṁ karma samāchara
asakto hyācharan karma param āpnoti pūruṣhaḥ
“Therefore, without being attached to fruits of activities, one should act as matter of duty, for by working without attachment one attains Supreme.” (Bhagavad Gita 3.19)

Establishing robust decentralized frameworks and handing over authority ensures social institutions outlive individual leaders.

Decentralized self-governance is not foreign concept to Indian soil; it is our ancient heritage. For millennia, local communities managed civic infrastructure, water bodies, and justice independently of royal courts. 10th century Uthiramerur inscriptions from reign of Paranthaka-I detail how Tamilagam’s local assembly, Sabha, managed public works through executive committees elected via Kudavolai – Kudam (pot) + Olai (palm leaves) where a small non-interested boy draws the leaf with name of the nominee from the pot – an unique lottery system with strict eligibility criteria and instant disqualification for administrative misconduct or lack of financial transparency. Similarly, in Sixth Century BCE, Gana-Sangha dynasties like Licchavis of Vaishali governed through representative assemblies, taking democratic decisions using wooden voting slips called Salakas. Modern public policy can draw from these roots, creating nodal desks that seamlessly integrate citizen action into governance framework.

For over four decades, social initiatives guided by Pujya Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar ji have proven transformative power of selfless action across India. In River Rejuvenation project, Art of Living volunteers, hydrologists, and villagers have revived dozens of dying rivers across Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Uttar Pradesh. By constructing thousands of recharge structures and injection wells, groundwater levels have been restored, bringing fertile land back to life for lakhs of farmers. From rural development and organic farming to free tribal education and disaster relief, these projects succeed because citizens view service not as transaction, but as spiritual duty.

Viewing volunteering as privilege transforms administrator and volunteer alike. Pujya Gurudev reminds us that supreme reality operates through us, and we are merely instruments in larger cosmic order. When we surrender personal ego and ownership of results, our actions remain pure and untainted, as Gita describes:

ब्रह्मण्याधाय कर्माणि सङ्गं त्यक्त्वा करोति यः|
लिप्यते न स पापेन पद्मपत्रमिवाम्भसा||
brahmaṇy-ādhāya karmāṇi saṅgaṁ tyaktvā karoti ya
ḥlipyate na sa pāpena padma-patram ivāmbhasā
“One who performs duty without attachment, surrendering results unto Supreme, is unaffected by material contamination, just as lotus leaf is untouched by water.” (Bhagavad Gita 5.10)

As every Art of Living follower understands, true service is not about capability; it is about availability. When we make ourselves available as clear instruments, dispassionate action becomes journey of self-discovery and lasting social transformation.

Thank you for patient listening and to the organizers for according this privilege of addressing this amazing bunch of Nishkama Karmayogi (Those Serving selflessly without any personal expectations)

On occasion of Deepavali, grand festival of lights, I extend my heartfelt wishes to you and your families. May your lives and path of volunteering be illuminated with light of wisdom, humility, and endless capacity to serve society.

Happy Volunteering!

PS: Script of this address will be availabe online within 24 hours on the following link

https://yensures.com/2026/11/07/essence-of-volunteering-an-indian-citizen-volunteer-perspective/

You may also refer to my earlier articles on the related subject on the following links