Bihar government turns to Gandhi to teach life lessons to government employees

The Bihar government has directed its departments and institutions to prominently display Mahatma Gandhi’s photos and messages on their office premises as part of his 150th birth anniversary celebrations.

The Bihar government has directed its departments and institutions to prominently display Mahatma Gandhi’s photos and messages on their office premises as part of his 150th birth anniversary celebrations.

A display board at a government office sheds light on seven sins (HT)

A similar directive has also been issued to all government schools across the state, Vinodanand Jha, a senior officer in the higher education department, which is the nodal agency for the yearlong programme, said.

All departments, government institutions and schools had to complete the display work before Martyr’s Day on January 30, Jha said. “But we want the things to be ready before the Republic Day,” he added.

Jha said some prominent messages identified for the purpose included the one on human greed—“ The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed”.

The other messages included Gandhi’s views on life and politics, he said. “Gandhiji believed there were seven social sins, including politics without principles, wealth without hard work and trade without morality,” Jha added.

He said the Union government will launch the yearlong 150th birth anniversary celebrations on the Republic Day. “In the Union government programme, there is stress on cleanliness drive which Gandhiji had propagated. We are trying to spread his messages across the society and have planned to get them written on walls at prominent places,” Jha said.

“It’s just an effort to refresh Gandhi’s thoughts and opinions on different things. He has already been under focus since the centenary celebrations of the Champaran Satyagrah began in 2017. Last year, we started a special programme under which children in government schools are being made to read stories on Gandhi after morning prayers every day. About 2 crore children have been reading stories on Gandhi in their schools since the programme was launched on October 2, 2018,” Jha said.

The education department had also published booklets on Gandhi’s thoughts and messages and distributed them among 1.5 crore families, he added.