Lessons from the Thailand rescue operations

The whole world prayed for a football team - to be rescued from a cave, they had been struck up due to heavy rains.  12 young boys and their coach had vanished into the caves and for 10 days no one knew where they were or even whether they were alive.  On the 10 th day, even as most of us had resigned to fate and thought that the rescue operations fighting against all odds, including torrential rains were going to be given up, a flicker of hope came.  The team was found alive deep inside a cave.  But rescue teams that had arrived in Thailand from all over the World did not know how to reach to them and how to rescue them.  To have known that they were alive and still not knowing how to rescue them was more painful. The pouring rains brought in deluge after deluge more than what could be drained out by motors.  Then sustained effort and a massive fight brought all the 13 of them safely, out of the caves.

In this gallant act, one rescuer of Thailand had laid his life.

There are important lessons for all of us in this event:

1) Sustained struggle yields. Not empty talk or so called 'lobying'.

2) The action plan has to be scientific and organized. Not jumlas and jumlas alone.

3) Those who are caught, even in the darkest cave can look forward to be rescued, if only they have the will to survive, have courage to face the ordeal, have a proper leader and his advice is followed.

4) A leadership that seeks to lead, also should be a leadership that would be ready to sacrifice.  Imagine what would have been the plight of those children if the coach had been an IRS or an IAS Officer.  He would have tried to come out first, claiming that only then the rest of relief work can happen.  He would have eaten up the food of the others also stating that the survival of a coach is more important for the game than that of a member of the team.  He would not have apologized for having endangered the team by taking them into the cave and rather would have blamed the boys themselves, or the system or technology or lack of it. And upon being rescued, he would have given a press statement that it was all his design to make them more strong or test their strength.

Swami Vivekananda laid down three steps for success, in his famous speech 'My Plan of Campaign', at Madras.  They are vital for any organization. To quote:

"Three things are necessary for great achievements. First, feel from the heart. What is in the intellect or reason? It goes a few steps and there it stops. But through the heart comes inspiration. ..... Do you feel? Do you feel that millions and millions of the descendants of gods and of sages have become next-door neighbours to brutes? Do you feel that millions are starving today, and millions have been starving for ages? Do you feel that ignorance has come over the land as a dark cloud? Does it make you restless? Does it make you sleepless? Has it gone into your blood, coursing through your veins, becoming consonant with your heartbeats? Has it made you almost mad? Are you seized with that one idea of the misery of ruin, and have you forgotten all about your name, your fame, your wives, your children, your property, even your own bodies? Have you done that? That is the first step .........

You may feel, then; but instead of spending your energies in frothy talk, have you found any way out, any practical solution, some help instead of condemnation, some sweet words to soothe their miseries, to bring them out of this living death?

Yet that is not all. Have you got the will to surmount mountain-high obstructions? If the whole world stands against you sword in hand, would you still dare to do what you think is right? If your wives and children are against you, if all your money goes, your name dies, your wealth vanishes, would you still stick to it? Would you still pursue it and go on steadily towards your own goal? As the great King Bhartrihari says, "Let the sages blame or let them praise; let the goddess of fortune come or let her go wherever she likes; let death come today, or let it come in hundreds of years; he indeed is the steady man who does not move one inch from the way of truth." Have you got that steadfastness? If you have these three things, each one of you will work miracles. You need not write in the newspapers, you need not go about lecturing; your very face will shine. If you live in a cave, your thoughts will permeate even through the rock walls, will go vibrating all over the world for hundreds of years, maybe, until they will fasten on to some brain and work out there. Such is the power of thought, of sincerity, and of purity of purpose."

The Thailand rescue operation's success just exhibited practically what Swamiji said in the steps above.

The depravity of our cadre is no better.

It is up to us to see whether we are ready to follow them.

R. Manimohan,

Secretary General,

AIACEGEO