Today we are at the fag end of second term of our PRM course. The last two months have really posed some great challenges before us, but despite all odds we sailed through the difficult times. Today we are at the end of the term (few sessions and examinations are still left), when I look back, we have come across various new schools of thoughts through the course “COLLECTIVE ACTION AND CO-OPERATION”.
This course exposed us not only to the diverse thought processes that have emerged at different points of time, but also tried to put across the relevance of these theories in managing the situations which we may face in our future endeavours.
Taking the case of our batch, we stood for each other when the prestige of our identity as a “BATCH” was at stake. We successfully organised “MILLAP” and “ANAND RUN”, despite all odds and challenges. But at the same time, when it came to the issue of assignments and projects, our behaviour reflected immaturity in terms of a collective force. This somehow reflected that when personal stakes are high and competition exists among different stakeholders, they try to maximize their own returns, be it at the stake of others. And this reflects the situation where even literate (forgive me for this, but we also tend to call ourselves CRITICAL THINKERS and intellectuals) people like us tend to run after personal gains, rejecting the collective spirit to which we had ascribed earlier.
Such events put forward the most critical question: Is Collective Action only for the so called MARGINALISED and OPPRESSED??? Or we as IRMAns can shoulder some responsibility, at least at our own level, to put-forth before this world that whatever has not been achieved individually can be achieved collectively (and we have examples of great institutions and individuals before us to emulate)??? If we are able to achieve success on this front, then I believe we will be able to do justice to the COLECTIVE SPIRIT………………
This course exposed us not only to the diverse thought processes that have emerged at different points of time, but also tried to put across the relevance of these theories in managing the situations which we may face in our future endeavours.
Taking the case of our batch, we stood for each other when the prestige of our identity as a “BATCH” was at stake. We successfully organised “MILLAP” and “ANAND RUN”, despite all odds and challenges. But at the same time, when it came to the issue of assignments and projects, our behaviour reflected immaturity in terms of a collective force. This somehow reflected that when personal stakes are high and competition exists among different stakeholders, they try to maximize their own returns, be it at the stake of others. And this reflects the situation where even literate (forgive me for this, but we also tend to call ourselves CRITICAL THINKERS and intellectuals) people like us tend to run after personal gains, rejecting the collective spirit to which we had ascribed earlier.
Such events put forward the most critical question: Is Collective Action only for the so called MARGINALISED and OPPRESSED??? Or we as IRMAns can shoulder some responsibility, at least at our own level, to put-forth before this world that whatever has not been achieved individually can be achieved collectively (and we have examples of great institutions and individuals before us to emulate)??? If we are able to achieve success on this front, then I believe we will be able to do justice to the COLECTIVE SPIRIT………………
2 comments:
In CAC, we have seen what a collective is. In the win win game we saw that most basic thing for collective is trust, which was not established till the end of game. As soon as personal interests come in to play, collective takes a back seat in absence of trust.
Collective is for eveyone, but if trust is lacking it is bound to fail whether it is in marginalised or literates. If we want to achieve this success we need to build trust among stakeholders.
I think that we can relate it to the principles of ethics and values. In case of Anand Run or MIlaap nothing tangible was on stake on anybody's part. So we could easily achieve collective action. But in case of projects etc. the benefits are very tangible. People try to gain by remaining the outlier. But in the process of doing so they also motivate others in a negative sense not to cooperate. I think this is the problem with many of the collective action initiatives.
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