MAINS 2013
Essay
250 marks
Be the change you want to see in others (Gandhiji).
WRITE IN
180 min
up to 2,500 words
Reading the topic
The topic, popularly credited to Gandhi, says real change starts with oneself rather than with demands on others. Gandhi's own recorded words were closer to: if we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. The examiner expects the essay to show how personal conduct, leadership by example and citizen behaviour drive social change, and where systemic reform is also needed.
ThesisLasting social change begins when individuals practise the values they demand of others, because personal example gives reform credibility and spreads through communities.
Dimensions to cover
- 1Individual: a person who preaches honesty but bribes for convenience loses the moral standing to demand change
- 2Leadership: leaders who share hardships and follow their own rules inspire followers far more than orders do
- 3Community: villages and neighbourhoods transformed by a few committed residents show change spreading by example
- 4Governance: public campaigns on sanitation or civic sense succeed only when citizens change their own habits
- 5Administration: a civil servant who refuses perks and keeps office hours shifts the culture of an entire department
- 6Limits: structural problems like caste discrimination or poverty also need laws and institutions, not only individual change
Counter-view
- Critics say focusing on personal change lets governments and corporations escape responsibility for systemic problems. The essay should agree that structures matter, and argue that personal change and institutional reform reinforce each other
Open and close
- Open: Begin with Afroz Shah and an elderly neighbour picking plastic off Versova beach on a weekend morning in 2015, with no one else around
- Close: Conclude that the change we want in others becomes possible only when they see it already lived in us
Where marks usually go
- Writing a biography of Gandhi instead of an essay on self-change as a basis of social change
- Ignoring structural causes and implying that individual virtue alone can fix society
- Using only moral exhortation without concrete examples of change spreading by example
Examples that fit
- ThinkerGandhi wrote in 1913 that if we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change, the source of the popular 'be the change' paraphrase.Indian Opinion (1913), Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Volume 13
- CaseMumbai lawyer Afroz Shah began cleaning Versova beach himself in 2015, drawing thousands of volunteers, and received the UN Champions of the Earth award in 2016.UN Environment Programme, Champions of the Earth 2016
- CaseUnder sarpanch Popatrao Pawar, Hiware Bazar in Maharashtra revived through watershed work and village rules that residents first applied to themselves.Maharashtra Adarsh Gaon Yojana; Government of Maharashtra documentation on Hiware Bazar
- CaseThe Swachh Bharat Mission launched in 2014 made sanitation a matter of personal behaviour change, not only toilet construction.Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen), Ministry of Jal Shakti