The angry man went home and was struck by remorse when he meditated on Buddha’s compassion. The next morning he returned and apologised to Buddha but was surprised when the master told him he couldn’t remember what wrong he did. Buddha then explained, “Just like you are not the same angry person that was seated yesterday, so too have I changed. We are all constantly born anew every moment if we become truly aware.”

A new moment, a new day and a new year are important to us as individuals and as a nation. It was the celestial ballet of the sun and moon that first gave us a sense of the passage of time. Now we use manmade watches or calendars to herald a new moment or a new year. In all this change is the constant. The poet Robert Burns wrote, “Look abroad through Nature’s range, Nature’s mighty law is change.” Evolution is the law of progression without which you and I would have remained as amoebae in the primordial soup of life.

Just as Nature abhors a vacuum so also as individuals and as a nation we must eschew the status quo. As 2014 unfurls and matures we must each set our goals (call them resolutions, if you will) so that when the year ages and withers away we grow stronger and welcome 2015 with renewed vim and vigour. Bill Gates, in his essay published in ‘Reimagining India’ last year that talked of how India eradicated polio, said, “To be successful, any campaign this big must have three elements: a clear goal, a comprehensive plan and precise measurements — so you can see what is working and what is not and improve the plan as you go.”

With the General Election due by May 2014, these are good tips for all political parties to keep in mind. The BJP and Narendra Modi must move from a negative campaign of deriding the Congress to a positive agenda of letting voters know how they plan to make India rise and shine again. Similarly, it’s time the Congress and Rahul stopped talking about what they did in the UPA’s second term and come out with a new game plan to reinvigorate India.

For it is apparent that India wants change in 2014, that the nation is impatient for it to happen, and that, as the overwhelming support for AAP in Delhi showed, voters want progress, not at an evolutionary pace, but a revolutionary one. There is now zero tolerance for corruption, which is most evident in middle-class India. It is as if we have collectively decided that enough is enough. The effete and inefficient are out. The clean and conscientious are in. In 2014, there is a new restless India — so run-of-the-mill politicians beware — we do not want business as usual.

There are signs that make us still hold our heads high. The fact that we remain dissatisfied with a 5 per cent growth in the economy is a measure of how much we have matured as a nation. The results of the recent round of state elections showed that not only voters are willing to reward performers but that a strong India need not fear the emergence of regional satraps. As industrialist Anand Mahindra perceptively wrote in the book quoted above, “The idea of a united India now runs so broad and deep that it allows us to consider a counterintuitive way of thinking about growth — that the best way to propel the economy may be to encourage different parts of the country to go their own way.”

At the dawn of 2014, India and Indians are raring to break free from the despair of 2013. There are big issues to tackle: put the economy back on the growth path, ensure that there is enough food, clothing, drinking water, shelter, health care and education facilities for the have-nots, take steps to secure the nation against external and internal threats and keep our citizens safe, be generous and kind to the weak and needy and tough and unsparing to the wicked and the crooked. There is not a moment to waste, so let’s get cracking. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”

raj@tribuneindia.com