Courtesy: "Indha Naal Iniya Naal" in Sun TV provoked some of the thoughts put down in this write-up.

Today, the nation debates whether Kanchi Sankaracharya should involve himself with the Ayodhya controversy. Puri Sankaracharya has mentioned that Kanchi Seer does not have any authority or right to comment on Ayodhya controversy. Pope has condemned the recent Anti-Conversion bill of Tamilnadu government and the Tamilnadu Chief Minister Ms Jayalalitha has criticized Pope for commenting on the anti-conversion bill. When USA waged a war against Iraq, most of us criticized Bush as an individual person creating havoc in this region. Decades after decades, we have been struggling to sort out our issues with Pakistan but we blame those whoever is at the helm of affairs in both the countries for not building confidence between the two countries. Jayalalitha suggested growing alternate crops which are not water-intensive in the delta region of Tamilnadu to combat poor rainfall/water scarcity as Tamilnadu faced in the last year. It is highly disappointing that people took sides with regard to this suggestion depending on their alliance with Jayalalitha and commented on this suggestion. They should have utilized this opportunity and must have kicked-off a quality debate on whether Tamilnadu delta farmers should seriously consider less water-intensive crops in their own good interest. Nobody initiated a meaningful discussion on good water management of the State - as to whether we must on a war-foot get into desilting our canals, lakes and ponds in an effort to harvest as mush rain as possible in the ensuing monsoon period. Instead those who support her welcomed this suggestion and those who are politically on her opposite side suggested her to keep her mouth shut. This is an appalling trend.

Why am I listing the above cases? This is only to illustrate that be it home, office, society or nation, we quite often indulge in conversations, discussions and debates that are more "person-based" than "ideology based". If the debates and discussions are person-based, it would vitiate the atmosphere we live in - be it office, home or society/nation. This is substantiated by the degradation in our polity as our politics has long back derailed into person-based polity rather than ideology-based. It not only vitiates the environment that we operate in but also degrades our "quality of mind" and thereby our "quality of life". Our conversations and discussions, without the consent of our consciousness, shape up our "thoughts and attitudes" and in turn our thoughts and attitudes lead to our "actions". Our actions shape up our further "thoughts and attitudes". This viscious cycle can be positive or negative depending on how we converse/interact with our surrounding and how we discuss or debate about an issue/idea/ideology.

There are three bases on which we can interact and discuss about anything - person-based, incidence-based, and ideology-based. The "ideology-based" conversations would always enrich our ideologies as we get exposed to different dimensions of what we discuss based on other persons' views, and it would also lead to good thoughts. Always a mind occupied with good thoughts and enriched ideologies would be highly "rational" and thereby one can transform into a courteous, decent and a civilized human-being. If one is not able to engage in ideology-based conversations or debates, one should atleast try to involve in "incidence-based" conversations and discussions without targeting or criticizing the person involved in the incidence. This ensures that our thoughts and ideologies are consistent and not biased. Also, we do not cast or develop aspersions on anyone around us or concerned with us when we want to counter the views/actions and also we do not identify ourselves as puppets of anyone around us when we support anyone's views/actions.

The negative discussions are always "person-based" which need to be avoided if only we want to improve our thoughts, deeds and actions. It is of no use to centre our conversations around a person and his/her actions. One can only give opinions and not judgements even on incidences and ideologies leave alone passing judgements on a person and his/her actions. In such a case, where is the need for basing our arguments and discussions on an individual? It is a sheer waste of time and it would only lead to a negative viscious cycle of thoughts-actions-thoughts. This simple fact should be instilled in the impressionable minds of our younger generation as part of their education. Definitely this would not only enable them to get into rational debates and discussions but would also lead to a more civilized society around us because their thoughts and consequently their actions would be courteous, decent, rational and with meaning towards a purpose. It is to be accepted and recognized that many amongst us are not even able to form our views and opinions on most of the actions/ideologies around us. This would be counter-productive to a society and to the nation especially to a nation with a democracy.