Essential Requirement of Qualities in the Rulers and the Servants of People for Good Governance
EDUCATION, 26 Mar 2018
Surya Nath Prasad, Ph. D. – TRANSCEND Media Service
The Role of Universal Peace Education
The lives and behavior of the rulers and the servants of the people are living models for the bureaucrats, judges, persons working in mass-media, police departments, defense, and other professionals, businessmen, ruled masses and common people. Therefore they are supposed to strictly adhere to:
Good Qualities in the Rulers and the Servants of the People
- serve their people, not to rule them,
- put all their surplus money in trust to the welfare of the needy people,
- cultivate extreme simplicity in food, drink and dress,
- not spend too much on their personal maintenance,
- be free from lust and craving,
- not get wages or salary, live a very simple life of active service,
- accept only food, clothing and shelter as their remuneration,
- not think of earning money or enjoying the so-called comfort and luxuries,
- despise money and property,
- be industrious,
- aim at perpetual learning and social service,
- work as speaker, writer and organizer,
- do manual work also,
- always be patient and gentle,
- not fawn on the rich, frown on the poor,
- treat all alike as comrades,
- be tolerant to all,
- respect the rights of those who differ from them in religion and politics,
- not try to force their options on others by aggressive method,
- sacrifice everything for the good of their fellow-men,
- love and serve poor and the humble,
- wisely choose celibacy,
- choose a like-minded man or woman, if they want to marry,
- prefer childless marriage, or a family of one child so that they be free from mental distraction,
- think and act locally and globally as the situations demand in the interest of the people and peoples.
The above list may not be considered complete. Hence further good qualities of service in the rulers and servants of the people may be added in to be warning examples for their good governance.
Bad Qualities in Rulers and Servants of the People
Besides these shining qualities in the rulers and servants of the people to provide good governance to their subjects and the people, they are expected also to be free from the bad qualities like favoritism, nepotism, racism, casteism, regionalism, maintenance of secrecy, immoral social conduct, divisions on flimsy grounds in social life, arrogance, biases and prejudices, separatism, undue pride, suspicion, untruth, hypocrisy, sycophancy, killings, assassinations, genocide of human beings, betrayal of credibility, unreliability, and other bad qualities.
Renowned Personalities as Role Models for Good Governance
Apart from being practitioners of good qualities and free from bad qualities, the rulers and the servants of the people must be aware and enlightened about the most renowned personalities whose lives and behavior can be as role models for them for good governance. And they are: Maryada Purushottam King Shri Rama, Emperor Bharata, King Janaka, Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, Mahatma Gandhi, Sadar Vallabhbhai Patel, President Ramon Magsaysay, President Ho Chi Minh, Acharya Vinoba Bhave, Shri Jaiprakash Narayana, Dr. Young Seek Chou, Dr. Lala Hardayal, Pitirim Sorokin, UNESCO’s Council of Sages, Constitution of India (particularly the Section under which provision, 12 members among the intellectuals from the different field of knowledge to be nominated for the Upper House of the Indian Parliament).
However, the rulers and the servants of the people in democratic, semi-democratic and non-democratic nation-states have been utter failure in developing good qualities in them and keeping themselves to be free from bad qualities. Hence, the people and the masses including intellectuals (learned and educated) everywhere have been suffering from bad governance at the hands their rulers and the servants of the people.
Mis-education as Reasons for Bad Qualities in the Rulers and Servants of the People
The unfoldment of good qualities in the Rulers and Servants of the People, and prevention of bad qualities to develop in them for good governance requires better education for them. But education was not in the past, and also not in the present based on man, what he or she is. Hence education has always been anti-human, in-human and non-human. However, everywhere this mis-education was and is available only for a few well-to-do privileged people, and maximum people were and are deprived of this mis-education also. And this mis-education has been destroying both to whom it reached/it reaches, and to whom it was denied/is denied. And due to this mis-education, bad qualities were developed in those who were/are in authority, particularly in the rulers and the servants of the people.
Universal Peace Education for Good Qualities in the Rulers and the Servants of the People
The Rulers and the Servants of the People everywhere urgently need universal peace education based on universally inherent five elements, viz. body, vitality, mind, intellect and spirit in every man and woman including in them everywhere without any discrimination. Each element is very powerful contained with full of energy, which requires particular food as nourishment, un-polluted sufficient pure fresh water and air to be evolved or unfolded integrally. However, perpetual integral unfoldment of all the five elements will certainly develop good qualities in the Rulers and the Servants of the People, and enables them to provide good governance to the masses and the people.
Truly, universal peace education, which is the totally novel man-making education, is restoring and unfolding the treasure of good qualities within the learners in general, and the Rulers and the Servants of the People in particular, preventing from developing the bad qualities in them, and also curing if they become victims of bad qualities being enabled to provide good governance to the people.
The concept of universal peace education has been developed by the author of these lines, Dr. Surya N. Prasad after his continuous study and research for the last more than 45 years. For more details about the concept of his universal peace education, one may refer to his Chapter – Universal Peace Education: Concept, Meaning and Practice included in the book recently published in December 2017 by L’Harmattan, Paris, France:
Pour une éducation à la paix dans un monde violent (For Peace Education in a Violent World), Edited by Obrillant Damus, Christoph Wulf , Joseph P. Saint-Fleur , Denis Jeffrey Published by L’Harmattan, 2017: Paris, France https://translate.google.co.in/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.editions-harmattan.fr/index.asp%3Fnavig%3Dcatalogue%26obj%3Dlivre%26no%3D58155&prev=search
And also may be referred to the book written by me: Shanti Shiksha: Siddhant Evam Vyavhar (Peace Education: Theory and Practice) by Surya Nath Prasad, Published by: Prakrit Bharati Academy, 2016: Japur, India https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/shanti-shiksha-siddhant-evam-vyavhar-peace-education-theory-prasad
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Dr. Surya Nath Prasad, former president & currently executive vice president of International Association of Educators for World Peace (IAEWP), associate professor of education emeritus, former visiting professor, the graduate institute of peace studies, Kyung Hee University, Republic of Korea, founder & editor-in-chief, Peace Education: An International Journal. dr_suryanathprasad@yahoo.co.in
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 26 Mar 2018.
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