MIND SET Manifesto for our youth Young people must not retreat into cynicism or despair. India’s soul longs for change and its own ‘yes, we can’ gener

Every society is like a ragged army, with some parts running ahead and others lagging behind. In the case of India, a handful of farsighted leaders broke the socialist, isolationist mould to allow India to join the free market. But much lags behind.
The opening for a young people's movement cannot be denied. The question is how to take advantage of this opening.
What I see is idealism tempered by caution. Young people are restless, but they also realize that the old kind of activism (angry protests, labour stoppages, class warfare, etc) does not work in the long run. Moral outrage is still rage. In Cambodia and Burma, Asia has witnessed the horrendous results of morally certain leaders losing their humanity.
On a positive note, the young people I meet are eager to accept that a shift in consciousness is possible. What better country than India to foster such a belief ? Alone in the world, India has been a society where shifts in collective consciousness created enormous change without mass violence. It would be a betrayal of our heritage to add more anger to what already exists in the world.
How, then, can the future be shaped on the basis of consciousness? Several realizations must occur before it can happen:
A shift in consciousness is the most powerful way to create change: This realization will guide a new leadership to first seek personal transformation. The current leadership’s stagnation is rooted in routine, habit, inertia, and class pride. These are all the result of a stagnant consciousness. No one can hope to bring about change with reform or revolution applied from the outside. If we want new wine in new bottles, the consciousness of aspiring leaders must shift.
The role of a leader is to guide a shift that is already occurring:
No one is being asked to invent a new Indian identity — it is already being born. We don't need a new ideology. That route was tragically tested in the 20th century by c o m m u n i s m , fascism, Maoism and other toxic isms. Instead, the young people who will lead are the ones with sensitive antennae, the ones who can sense where the collective consciousness wants to go. That has been Barack Obama's secret and the need he sensed - for more freedom, democratic participation, idealism, and hope for the future - applies to consciousness everywhere.
A new type of activism is needed: Sacred activism is love in action. Love without action is irrelevant. Action without love is meaningless. Our youth must galvanize into leaders who turn love into its most practical products: relationship-building, creative problemsolving and service.
India gained independence under the guidance and inspiration of statesmen, visionaries and philosophers — Nehru, Vallabhai Patel, Gandhi, Radhakrishnan, Tagore, Aurobindo and many others. They were luminaries who considered themselves servants and stewards of civil society. British colonialism and its injustices were the impetus.
Today, the impetus is harder to label and nowhere as visible as a foreign occupation. We must be motivated by looking at ourselves. Jiddu Krishnamurti used to say that the violence in every person was the cause of war. He underlined the words ‘every person’ because he meant each one of us, not just those who openly foment violence.
As we are, so is the world. This spiritual dictum cannot be ignored or bypassed.
Therefore, youth must not retreat to the arrogance of youth, just as it must not retreat into the despair of youth or the cynicism of youth. Instead, the most basic and simple questions must be asked in the privacy of one’s awareness:

• What in me is the cause of the problems I see in the world?

• What change in me can bring about the change I want to see?
We need a revival of true leadership based on self-awareness. People are tired of power-mongering, influence-peddling, cronyism, corruption and bureaucracy. India is regrettably mired in all of these things.