Ideas! Ideas build civilisations. Civilisations take humanity forward. The main attribute of every idea is that it is young every inch. An idea may not stand the test of time -- or even of those who are expected to implement it in whatever form, in whatever manner. So, to begin with, every idea asks for space in which it can be explained and thought over. Minus this space, the idea dies. Countless ideas have, thus, died -- for lack of space! What is this business of space for ideas? What are the attributes of this space? There are many, of course. But let us talk of only one first: Respect. When an idea germinates, and when it starts looking for space, it actually looks for respect from those who first hear it. Respect for a new -- and, of course, young --idea means opening the mind up for new possibilities. In other words, this means accommodating a proposal that has not been heard, let alone tested, before. Of course, we belong to a land -- India (Bharat) -- where ideas were the staple food of civilisation.

 

The evidence of this grand reality is textually and culturally available to us in old literature, history of our past -- of countless thousands of years. We lived in a society in which every idea had a premium (and never a discount). In that social space, ideas germinated -- germain to our culture, our tradition. But that culture also gave birth to ideas that took the civilisation forward --in the domain of sciences, in the field of art, in the ever-expanding circle of learning, in the ever-inviting area of commerce, in the ever-enchanting subject of architecture. That was India’s legacy -- in which every idea was respected in its fullness. True, some ideas did not pass test of approval -- and, therefore, died. But the person who proposed that idea was not discarded. Instead, he -- she -- got full recognition of the society. And that recognition, that accommodation, formed another facet of the core value of respect.

 

That accommodation can be likened to mother’s love for her little one’s fond shenanigans, or to a teacher who feels very proud of his pupil’s or disciple’s attempts to rise above the ground like a sprout tearing through the soil and raising its head -- standing on the foundation of Earth and carrying the promise to expand into the sky’s vastness. In the story of Indian civilisation, therefore, ideas carried so much importance. This story is fascinating despite the passage of thousands of years simply because of the ideas it produced day in and day out. Those who dream of replicating that model of civilisation today must, therefore, learn how to respect ideas and how to push good ones to fore. If such a domain gets going in the Indian society, the outcome will be one of unity and harmony and a sense of being part of the larger family of Man defined by a sense of poetic and practical togetherness. There is no age-bar for producing ideas, of course. But the real onus of creativity is mostly on the youth of a society. Their heads brimming with ideas is the real treasure of a dynamic society. In ideas lies the seed of future. Idea, thus, is the mother of human progress. n