Divya Bhaskar is one the most popular newspapers in Gujarat. When I was in my 9th grade, these people held a city-wide competition for writing articles on hot issues such as environment conservation or old-age or education. Our school participated in this competition and teachers from the three languages (English, Hindi and Gujarati) were actively engaged in inviting articles and sorting them out to send the best ones further. I won the contest (yay!) and as prize, got my article printed on the newspaper’s front page. Because the newspaper comes in Gujarati, they had to translate my article to Gujarati. So I will put the translation here:

Education can impart Morality and Sense of Duty to Young Minds

India is known for its rich cultural traditions since time immemorial. But today, the unfavourable influence of Science and Technology on India’s remarkable heritage as well as on the thinking process of this generation of youngsters has been well documented. In the modernization of thought schools, human values are gradually diminishing from the society, especially from the young tiers of the population who are to be the future of the nation. The moral definitions of benevolence, charity, compassion, and equality have been by far and large replaced by the grim taboos of child labour, poverty, smuggling, trafficking and drug abuse. Our culture does not permit, or rather forbids the exploitation of self as well as others on all grounds. These days, things like usage of slang words, violence or cheating have become so casual that people committing to such things feel no regret at all. And nobody dares to speak up, not friends, not teachers nor parents. Keeping quiet and watching the downfall of our country and its values is a big crime in itself. If we want to see our country going on the path of development and regain its lost glory, imbibing these values of patriotism and ethical living into today’s generation is a must. Along with any other lessons, it is important that the youth is taught lessons of humanity and love for others. In schools, in books everywhere there should be chapters on moral education which could help bring about the revolution. Modernization should never be equaled to forgetting the past values or blindly accepting the malpractices of the modern day. Nor does getting back to the past mean that we have to go back to the orthodox traditions that were followed in ancient India. Because all these negatives were actually never a part of our heritage, but only part of the vicious human minds. Before the wave of modernization renders our country hollow and powerless, we need to adopt practices that can bring back our lost traditions. The government could promote this by short films, media, campaigns etc.