From 'me' to 'us'

The notion that the collective is something more than simply the sum of several individuals is not new. Even the Gita in its last verse speaks of a man of vision and a man of action coming together for any enterprise to succeed.

IN THIS century, we tend to lionise the lone genius, athlete, artist or scientist who triumphs against all odds. The emphasis is on individuality, aloneness, uniqueness, to the exclusion of relationship, community and shared identity.

Maxim Gorky, in his essay on "The Disintegration of Personality," stresses on the "collective creativity of a people, not the private thinking of any particular man, that finds vent in myth and epos, just as in language, which is the prime mover of the epoch." In fact in early man's existence, literature and poetry were the creation of a collective. Even the paintings of Ajanta and other sculpture do not bear the signature of a single artist.

It is much later that art became an individual's creation with a signature under it. This emphasis on individualism puts me personally in a predicament. Very often organisations want to honour me as individual responsible for the successful running of "Ananda Bharathi," an educational unit catering to the needs of girls from the underprivileged section. I often tell them that the institution is run by the collective effort of a group of individuals who share a common concern, that is, the empowerment of underprivileged girls.

Collective effort

It is quite often taken for modesty, which it is not. To me it is like adding insult to injury when my modesty is appreciated and the need to honour my effort becomes even more compelling. What I think laudable is that a group of people are able to unite their efforts, their varied talents and professional skills to put the institution on a sound footing. Individual egos disappear and the collective effort proves that "None of us is as good as all of us." Though in recent years the importance of team work is gaining ground, honouring a group seems more difficult than honouring an individual. I can cite only two instances where a group and not an individual was honoured. A group of doctors who carry their expertise and skills of healing across boundaries of war — Medecins sans frontieres — was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace in 1999. When Kishore Bharathi was at its active best Anil Sadgopal was told that the Central Government wanted to honour him with an award. He refused to take it singly and wanted the whole group to be honoured. He also stipulated that anyone from the group may take the award, and this was agreed to. There may be more such examples, but few and far between.

Mature dependence

What happens when an individual aspires to be the leader and is not content with her position as one of the members of the group? This individual then sets herself apart from the group, taking a position of (perhaps) authority and (often) superiority. The distance between the group and the leader widens and the leader begins to feel threatened and insecure. The tension of holding on to the position takes precedence over working for the progress of the organisation and its goals. The group also feels alienated and begins to be wary of the steps taken by the leader to strengthen her position. One is reminded of what Cassius said about Caesar: "He rides the world like a colossus."

Contrast this with the wholesome coming together of a group of equals and the absence of tension, which frees the energies of all to work towards a common goal. Each member of the group is aware of his or her strengths and weaknesses. There is a sense of mature dependence on each other, a sharing of physical, mental and emotional energy, and strengths of different kinds. This has a salutary effect on the pupils in an educational unit such as Ananda Bharathi. The cooperative spirit among the adults running the institution as well as the teachers percolates to the children who learn to be non-competitive. Their attitude towards the younger children, particularly during field trips, is one of affectionate care and tenderness like that in a family. In addition, there is sympathy for their peers when they perform badly and need to be cheered up.

This is not a new idea; the notion that the collective is something more than simply the sum of several individuals has been put forward and discussed by many thinkers. Even an ancient text like the Gita in its last verse speaks of a man of vision and a man of action coming together for any enterprise to succeed. I would emphasise that in the complex society that we have today, an individual's vision has to be constantly corrected to eschew individual idiosyncrasies. In the national scene, in post-independence India, we see individual ambition and personal greed cloud the vision of the Mahatma. Patriotism and a genuine love for the motherland — and the large collective it stands for — seem to have died a natural death. The sense that we are together a nation is overwhelmed by the desire for personal power and accumulation of private wealth.

It seems to be the time to plead for an understanding that a group of individuals coming together to work for a common cause is more laudable than a single individual, sometimes compared to a CEO, making an organisation work. How much more could be achieved by this simple shift in perception: alone, we can only do so much, and our effort may still end up being one lonely voice in the wind. But together, with all our differences in culture, language, religion, socialisation, we could not only achieve more, but we would achieve something that would not stand in danger of being fragmented by the insecurities of several individuals.

JANAKI N. IYER

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