IIMC Student Council President Kapidhwaja Pratap Singh addressed the student body and the administration on the occasion of India’s 60th Republic Day. What follows in a transcript of the speech. All of us here at Jokatimes wish you a happy Republic Day! Do spare a moment to remember the values on which the nation was founded.

Honorable Director of the institute, faculty, officers and staff, our esteemed guests and my dear friends,

I express my greetings to everyone on this occasion of India’s 60th republic day.  We, as a republic, have come a long way in the last 59 years. We have a long list of achievements accomplished since 26th Jan 1950 and even a longer list of things to be done. We are all aware of it. I would not waste your time by going into those details. What I want to speak about is “what is expected of us students 59 years after the formation of the republic”. 

We are privileged to have found a place in this premier institute of the country and getting a heavily subsidized education whereas, there are lakhs and lakhs of people waiting outside the walls. We are proud of our accomplishment and so should we. The nation adores us, the nation feels proud of us and the nation expects their children to be like us. But, the nation also expects something from us.  

We are all known for our business acumen and our problem solving abilities. We are going to be the business leaders of tomorrow. But, is this all we need to be?

What we also need is to be thought leaders for others, to be opinion centers of the country.

In the month of September 2008, we were all shocked by the news of Lehmann brothers collapsing and American economy going into economic depression. But we missed the news of 50 lakhs people displaced in the worst ever flood in north Bihar, the news of communal outburst in Orissa and the likes. It is true that the Lehmann collapse is very detrimental to our careers, but I don’t think the other news were so insignificant that we didn’t even give a second thought. 

The recent blasts in Mumbai will be remembered for so many reasons. But one reason that I feel worth mentioning here is- it made the people living in posh localities of South Mumbai realize that their expensive ACs and  marbled bungalows were not strong enough to isolate from the ground realities the nation was facing. 

We will have to consider these factors when we do the DCFs or SWOT analysis of our careers, our business and our lives. This is because a major part of the investments in building our careers have come from this nation. The opportunity costs of these investments are very high. How does the country manage to provide this; -by cutting down drought relief money of a Vidarbha farmer, by cutting down the medical facilities at a government hospital in a village or by simply letting a few more thousand people die out of hunger.

I do not mean that we should leave the corporate and join social service, but what we must do is try and repay the debt that we owe to this nation and to its people.  

What do we need to do?

Get aware of the ground realities, start identifying the ways in which we can repay the debt and be a thought leader for others to follow.

Let us all Accept the challenge and make her a better republic!

Happy republic day!

Jai Hind!

for Jokatimes
Abhishek Nagaraj