Dr Daisy Parihar
daisy.parihar@gmail.com
The turn of the year offers a moment for sober reflection amid continuing change. As India enters another year of growth and transition, it is timely to consider how development can be guided by foresight, institutional strength, and social responsibility. New beginnings are often framed through personal resolutions, yet the more enduring question lies beyond the individual: what values are shaping our collective public life?
In a period marked by rapid economic ambition, technological acceleration, and expanding aspirations, there is an increasing need to pause and evaluate the quality of our social fabric. Progress, when pursued without ethical grounding, risks becoming uneven and exclusionary. The New Year, therefore, is not merely symbolic; it presents an opportunity to renew civic consciousness, reaffirm kindness as a public value, and restore empathy to the centre of decision,making and everyday conduct.
Civic Sense as the Backbone of Public Life
Civic sense is often understood narrowly, reduced to visible compliance with rules,following traffic norms, maintaining cleanliness, respecting queues. While these behaviours are essential, civic sense in its truest form reflects a deeper understanding: that public spaces, institutions, and resources are shared assets, sustained only through collective responsibility.
A society with strong civic sense relies less on enforcement and more on internalised discipline. This distinction is critical. Laws may compel compliance, but values cultivate consistency. For an educated and professionally privileged population, civic responsibility carries added weight. Education confers not only opportunity, but obligation,an obligation to strengthen, rather than strain, the systems that enable social mobility and stability.
India’s democratic framework and institutional architecture depend on everyday civic participation. When citizens respect public infrastructure, engage constructively with institutions, and prioritise long-term common good over short-term convenience, governance becomes more effective. The New Year invites a reassessment of how individual conduct, repeated daily, contributes to national outcomes.
Kindness Beyond the Private Sphere
Kindness is frequently framed as a personal trait,commendable, but optional. In reality, kindness acquires its greatest significance when it enters the public domain. In professional settings, kindness is expressed through ethical leadership, fairness, and respect for dignity. In governance, it translates into policies that recognise human complexity rather than reducing lives to data points.
Public discourse today often rewards aggression over civility and speed over sensitivity. Yet societies that endure are those that preserve trust. Kindness does not dilute excellence,it reinforces it. It fosters cooperation, mitigates conflict, and builds institutions that people are willing to believe in.
For educated citizens, practising kindness may require conscious effort,to slow down, to listen, and to acknowledge experiences beyond one’s own. It involves recognising those who remain unseen in everyday systems,sanitation workers, contract employees, under-resourced students, and elderly citizens navigating public services. Kindness, in this sense, is not charity,it is civic maturity.
Empathy as a Policy Imperative
Empathy, the ability to understand perspectives different from one’s own, is indispensable in a diverse society. Without empathy, development becomes mechanical and governance distant. Policies framed without an appreciation of lived realities often fail, not due to lack of intent, but due to lack of understanding.
Education offers a compelling example. While national indicators may show progress in enrolment and infrastructure, many schools continue to struggle with limited resources, inadequate learning support, and uneven access to opportunity. For students in such environments, education is not a pathway taken for granted; it is a daily negotiation.
Empathetic engagement,by policymakers, professionals, and civil society,ensures that interventions are grounded in reality. It encourages solutions that are inclusive rather than uniform, responsive rather than rigid. Empathy also demands humility: the recognition that individual success is rarely independent of social structures, institutional support, and collective investment.
As the New Year begins, replacing judgement with understanding and indifference with engagement could significantly alter the tone and effectiveness of public life.
The Responsibility of the Educated Citizen
Education confers influence, whether acknowledged or not. Educated citizens shape conversations, set norms, and influence institutional culture. Choosing to engage responsibly-to mentor, to advocate fairness, to model ethical behaviour-has far-reaching effects.
National development cannot be sustained by policy alone. It requires citizens who see themselves as participants, not observers. In times of social and environmental stress, the quality of civic engagement becomes as important as economic indicators.
As India continues to navigate urbanisation, inequality, and ecological constraints, the role of informed, empathetic citizens will be decisive. The New Year provides an opportunity to reaffirm this role.
Entering the New Year with Intent
The New Year does not demand perfection, but intention. Intention to practise civic sense in public spaces. Intention to exercise kindness in professional and personal interactions. Intention to approach difference with empathy rather than judgement. Intention to contribute-however modestly to causes that nurture collective well-being, particularly in schools and educational institutions.
When such intentions are widely shared, they translate into cleaner cities, stronger institutions, more confident children, and a society better equipped to manage its differences.
Progress must ultimately be measured not only by economic growth or global rankings, but by how responsibly a society treats its commons, how inclusively it invests in its future, and how humanely it conducts itself in everyday life.
As we step into the New Year, civic sense, kindness, and empathy must be recognised not as idealistic aspirations, but as practical necessities. Even the smallest contributions, guided by awareness and purpose, have the power to place a genuine smile on another’s face and, in doing so, strengthen the nation we share.
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