Good-will Ambassadors

Dr. S. S. Verma
Good-will feelings among students towards insiders or outsiders in almost all educational institutes are generally very strong all over India but recently few incidents of their confrontation has indicated towards the growing interference of outsider influence into the educational institutes.  No doubt all outsiders (whether international, national, state or district level) studying in an institution will act good-will ambassadors for that institution and local community when they will go back to their respective places if they have good feelings of their stay.  Recently such incidents of student conflicts between locals and outsiders in J & K in particular and also in other places of country in general are serious and force people to think that why students are being driven to fight among themselves on such issues which they never used to give much importance. There are many common problems everywhere for students to raise their voice of dissent instead of fighting among themselves on regional grounds. Student life is very energetic, loving and carefree and in this age every student wants to help other student in all way out and this feeling is stronger toward a student who has been among them from faraway place.
Conducive atmosphere prevailing in educational institutes is always under attack from local politicians in order to exploit the youth power for their political gains.  Students should take a lesson and should not indulge in hate activities towards their outsider student fellows.  No doubt, these students when will go back to their respective places will act as good-will ambassadors for the local individuals and community as a whole. J& K Chief Minister Ms. Mehbooba Mufti remembering her college days in Jammu, has rightly asked the students to work on the principle of Atithi Devo Bhava and have good feelings towards their outsider friends so that they will act as good-will ambassadors after going back from J & K. She also asked the students of other states to reciprocate the same feelings towards students from J & K. Leaders can motivate masses and they should restrict themselves and their outfits from interfering with the students for political gains.
Here, I would like to share my two experiences with readers that how people think about the well being of outsiders and how the outsiders take long lasting feelings with them of our goodness.  Long back in 1991 I had an opportunity to go to Japan as a postdoctoral fellow on Japanese Govt. fellowship. In the university we were about 50-60 international students and were always taken on picnic parties by local NGOs.  In one such party arranged by local RED CROSS society, out of curiosity I asked the in-charge, that we are here to study on the cost of Japan itself and still you people are treating us so well. What is your interest in this?  He replied that in a country, Japan can depute only one ambassador but when you (we) people will go back to your respective countries, you will act our good-will ambassadors and you will reach to masses where our ambassador of your country generally cannot reach.   About 22-23 years back, after my stay of one and half years there I never had a second opportunity to visit Japan but those memories of good-will extended by Japanese towards me are still fresh in my mind and when ever somebody ask me about my stay in Japan, I cannot stop myself from praising the social-fabric of Japan.
After born and brought up in Himachal Pradesh and completing Ph.D. and post doctoral studies outside, and working at S.L.I.E.T., Longowal (Punjab), I had another opportunity to visit Ethiopia on a teaching assignment in 2004 and was surprised to meet many teachers of different subjects in the university those who have graduated/post-graduated from Punjabi University, Patiala or Punjab University, Chandigarh under international students exchange programmes of these universities with Ethiopia.  It gave me a great pleasure when the teachers during their interactions praised a lot to the friendly environment, culture, freedom, food, local hospitality etc. which they have really enjoyed during their study period in Patiala or Chandigarh. They were still interested to have an opportunity to come to these places once again to do higher studies.   No doubt, Punjabi people in general are more tolerant towards outsiders (except in the terrorism times) because they have their own people all over the world from the times of Komagatu Maru or even earlier.  Tolerance, acceptability, broadminded-ness, brotherhood and many more are the required characteristics of the society not only towards its near and dear, kith and kin’s but also towards the outsiders.  These outsiders will then reciprocate or will motivate others also to reciprocate and let us hope that if not me it may be my someone close who will be benefitted from the good-will being generated by me.  The student life is more important as sky is the limit for them and they can reach to any boundry so they should not confine themselves to local politics of regionalism. They should use their vast pool of energy to learn and make their career and act locally but think globally.
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