THAT fitness should be a matter of culture ingrained in the system, is the message Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi has sought to give to the nation by launching the unique “Fit India Movement” on the national scale. For the first time, any Indian Prime Minister has addressed himself to the issue of total fitness as a matter of national culture, shared national belief in such a pronounced, well-meditated manner. He is dreaming of a India that is physically fit, mentally mature (and may be spiritually evolved). This is one movement that the country needed very urgently. For, it is through this movement that we can expect to start working on a truly healthy society -- which is our national need.
Though the emphasis at the inaugural at the Indira Gandhi Stadium Complex in New Delhi was on sports and yoga, it was obvious that the Prime Minister and the Government were looking at a comprehensive wellness of the people in general. Conceptually, thus, ‘Fit India Movement” is expected to bring into people’s homes the concept of genuine wellness based more on physical and mental efforts to stay fit -- through sports, through yoga (and perhaps through adventure). The nation must thank the Prime Minister for having conceived a project like this as a national activity.
The challenge of fitness has become far more complex than we could ever imagine, thanks to the excessive advent of consumerism in our society. Most unfortunately, the idea of wellness is being driven more by market forces and less by the core value of overall fitness. And as the society is almost becoming a victim of market-driven idea of wellness, a powerful modern pharmaceutical industry, too, has registered a rather domineering presence in people’s lives in the form of medicines and allied treatments that are generally very expensive and beyond the reach of common people. As an extension of this market-driven culture, public health has now become a subject of acute and demonic financial exploitation of unsuspecting victims of illness. In the name of helping fight illness, a whole generations of exploiters has come up, harvesting massive sums of money from the people’s pockets. Let us hope that “Fit India Movement” will provide an effective answer to this exploitative system.
It is clear that through this movement, the Government will achieve a greater people-connect through which it would be able to address many other public concerns as well, besides fitness. Binding the larger society in common causes is as important as anything else. “Fit India Movement” may become a platform serving that larger cause. The Government has judged it right that an overall fitness will help people combat many an ailment. But fitness is not something that one can wish and attain. One has to work to stay fit in a tireless manner, on a continuous basis. Thus, fitness is a matter of evolving a culture of which self-restraint and overall discipline are integral parts. Fitness, therefore, will involve not just physical efforts but also a family-engagement in the activity round the clock, round the year.
When Mr. Modi pushed the idea of celebrating June 21 as International Yoga Day, he was actually pushing the concept of total wellness. He is now adding further value to the idea through the “Fit India Movement”. Very rarely can one come across such a statesman who has the time and the inclination to think of such an area of national life. Very rarely can we have a national leader who thinks of issues as basic as Swachh Bharat or Fit India. To some, these ideas may appear rather too preliminary for a Prime Minister to handle. But for a man driven by the thought of genuine welfare of the people the new initiative is of paramount importance.
