IDEAS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE: Life and Mission of Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak

The continuous search for new ideas has been man’s old obsession and older still is to find a blend of ancient values and modern materialism. The Sulabh philosophy is the nearest approximation to it. Writing about life and mission of Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak is like discussing an elusive idea which is hard to define and harder still to put into a theoretical stereotype. It all started from toilet to later expand into a societal culture and a system which produces no winner, no loser – the stuff of which history is made of. While the ideas of the past have shaped the social, political and religious institutions of today’s world, new concepts continually challenge our old perceptions, fuel debate and pave way for the future. Dr. Pathak’s vision is global, his heart is local. He never quits, no matter how tough life gets in difficult times. He works hard mostly in silence; his success does the talking. He is Hegelian because he is a rationalist; he is a Kantian because he talks of social moralist (categorical imperative), and both of them run together in the book like the Biblical sequence of creation, fall and redemption. This is the history and the legend of Sulabh Movement which is also discussed in the book.