Democracy : Social Revolution Through Individual Transformation

Society and the system are both intimately connected. No member of a society can function with unlimited freedom. Everyone must function within limits, and a system is necessary to define such limits. From family to democracy, the evolutionary march of establishment has been a long one. According to present-day thinking, in the history of systems of government, democracy stands supreme. Is it really a system of the people? Who will answer this tremendous question?

This unique moment, when the individual of old is no more and the new man is yet to be born, when the old order is dead and a new one has not yet evolved, a moment of transition demands self-abnegation and men who are capable of making sacrifices; it requires asceticism and the ascetic, non-violence and the follower of non-violence, non-possession and the non-possessive individual.

The craving for money has vitiated the purity of action in every field. Even the so-called ascetics and non-possessive monks and world-forsakers are not free from such disintegration. How can then we expect the businessmen, the industrialists and the political leaders to be free from it? How is it possible for the water kept on the furnace of possessiveness not to get heated up? How is it possible for society to remain unaffected by violence and terror?

Acharya Sri Tulsi launched the Anuvrat Movement in the moment of birth of Indian democracy. The intention was that the people as well as those undertaking to serve them, should take certain pledges so that democracy fulfils its objectives in the true sense of the word. That intention can be realised if people working in the field of religion and politics, together with the intellectuals, resolve to usher in a social revolution through a total change of heart. This is the only way to firmly establish democracy in the country.

Acharya Mahaprajna