On New Year’s Day last year we made the point editorially that in India most people have more than one New Year’s Day. Apart from the fact that there are Hindu and Islamic calendars, as opposed to the usual Gregorian one that is in fact used, Indians have other reference dates that are also observed as symbolising the beginning of a ‘new year’. Different parts of India have, therefore, different New Year’s days. Then there is Deepavali — a new year’s day for business, like the modern concept of the first day of a new fiscal. While there are, indeed, so many New Year’s days, the fact remains that the 1st of January has acquired a special place. The main reason for this, of course, is that it is the first date of the normal calendar that all Indians and people all over the world use. As a consequence of the growth of modern media and the coming together of the ‘global village’, there is a new sense of global community created by the observance of New Year’s Day on 1st January. Everyone has a party on the night of the 31st. Even the Chinese, who observe the Chinese New Year in an increasingly special and grand way, have fun on 31st December night. So the sense of a global community makes January 1st a special day.
There is, however, an even bigger reason why the first day of the first month of the Gregorian calendar has come to acquire a special significance in people’s lives. This has to do with the idea of discarding the old and adopting the new on New Year’s Day and of making ‘New Year Resolutions’. There is a process of individual introspection that begins, as one approaches the end of December every year. What has one done with one’s life? How many years of active life lie ahead? What mistakes have been done in the past that should not be repeated in future? How much weight has been added this year and how does one shed it in the next? Every individual goes through such introspection, resulting in resolutions being adopted. New Year resolutions are par for the course. Everyone has one, and most end up breaking them! However, merely because one has lived a lifetime of breaking New Year resolutions does not mean people stop making new ones.
New Year’s Day then becomes socially significant because everyone is adopting a resolution for the future. The sum of all such individual resolutions can be a social movement for the better. When every individual resolves to live a healthier life, a more honest life, and so on, there is the potential for social betterment. Regrettably, however, most New Year resolutions get broken within a week! This, however, has never discouraged anyone from adopting new resolutions every year. Human beings live on hope and the expectation that others too live on them. It is such optimism and faith in human endeavour that makes people adopt New Year resolutions.
That is why this newspaper hoped that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would make better use of New Year’s Day this year by beginning anew, with a new team, putting the past firmly behind and marching forth with a clutch of New Year resolutions in mind. Alas!