Those old friends

"What did you miss most about India?", my friend Alice asked me while I was showing her around Delhi. The question had occupied my mind earlier that day. I had spent almost two weeks in India, and it became increasingly obvious to me what I had missed. Had I been asked the question before the vacation, I would have drawn a blank. Living comfortably in Oxford, making good food and enjoying life with lots of friends, nothing seemed amiss. I didn't realise what I was missing, till I came back to it.

Over the last year, I had become so engrossed in my life in Oxford that I tended to ignore the relations I had formed back here in India. And yet when I came back, I found them intact. The warmth and generosity of my friends astonished me. It seemed like yesterday once again - all of us had a few more battle scars, but we still seem to care for each other like we did earlier. I also rediscovered myself. The layers of caution and politeness I had built around myself - which I tended to call 'maturity' - gave way to what I now feel is the real me, or was the real me. Blithe. Optimistic. Passionate. Perhaps funny.

I am not implying that the life I am living at Oxford, or the relations I am forming there, are not optimal. To the contrary, I cannot remember being as contented as I am at Oxford. Any kind of change is met with resistence. Perhaps this is me resisting the changes I am undergoing. Maybe I am trying to hang on to the memories of a time past. Perhaps this is the order of nature - of continuous change, of resistance, and a cessation of resistance.

However, the past is great because of the lessons it imparts. Hindu culture is said to view time not as a progression over time, but as one of circularity. And in the circles that my life will undergo in future, I will be better off learning from what had happened in the circles past. One of the lessons I want to keep with myself is the warmth I was capable of, and the love my friends showered on me. For long I thought that this love was what motivated me to achieve things professionally; that might not be true anymore. However, the way these relationships have withstood great stress tells me that the relations I form in future should be based on that kind of mutual love, trust and respect. Then, perhaps, I will be able to marry what are the best components from these different phases of life, these different circles.

A New Year

A friend wished me yesterday  - "advance wishes for arbitrary day on roman calendar." The thought had occupied my mind for some time - that we celebrate what is an absolutely arbitrary day of the year. However, extend that thought and any day that is celebrated would seem arbitrary. The point, therefore, would be to celebrate a year gone by. Be it new years', birthdays or religious festivals. It is a time to look back and reflect. Also a time, perhaps, to look forward and plan.

The year gone by has, again, been very eventful. I started the year spending a lot of time in the gym and doing my now notorious '100 surya namaskars each day.'  March was the time of travel - Israel, Turkey, Athens and Budapest. The summer was a glorious one spent in London, with more travel - North Italy, Brussels, Lyon, and Copenhangen. There was love, visits by family and friends, getting back to Oxford and all of that. Through all of this, I have been moving towards a holistic idea of who I am, and what I want to do in life. It has been challenging because I haven't looked back and asked such fundamental questions. I have followed an idea of success - primarily academic success - that took me to the places I went to. Simultaneously, I have been exposed to a certain idea of morality, to a certain notion of right and wrong. The idea, therefore, of finding the 'true self' becomes complicated. Is the 'true self' dependent on my history, and dependent on the ideas society has instilled in me? Or is it more innate - was I born with certain strengths and weaknesses that I can use to live a happy, purposeful life.

I suppose answers will come in due course of time, but I also want to have the process move a little faster. Therefore, I reflected on the two things that reflect what I want to do this coming year. One could call them a type of new year resolution. The two works I came up with are empathy and action. These two works, I hope, will serve as reminders of what I seek to achieve this year. The two also encompass a lot of other traits I thought desirable. For example, empathy includes humility and patience. Action includes discipline and perseverence. I want to move towards my goals this coming year, but always keep the good of other people at heart.

To start things off, I also made a more pragmatic new year resolution - to give a part of my scholarship money to those in need. Today I made another contribution to Milaap, this time for a village electrification program. For long, I thought that giving money was a lazy way to contribute. However, I now view it as a great commitment device that will help shape my non - monetary work, and be shaped by it. It is about putting my money where my mouth is. Plus, the Rhodes Scholarship is far too generous, and one that I received due to my extreme privilege. Like capitalism itself, I need to turn this scholarship and the associated opportunities into a machine to create greater surplus, and then send it back to the country and society I come from. A bit like the conscientous capitalists that Gandhi envisaged.

Michaelmas, 2015

I remember the first time I watched English Vinglish. It was one of the few post - college movies for which we could mobilise almost our entire group of friends, and we went to Connaught Place, watched the movie and then had birthday celebrations on the street. At the end of this fantastic scene from the movie, Sridevi says something that stuck with me since then - that when you don't like yourself, you tend to dislike everything associated with you and new things look attractive. When you learn to love yourself, then the same old life starts looking new, starts feeling nice.

That has been the story of this last term at Oxford. I did precisely the same things that I did last year - met a lot of new people, started living in a new house, took new courses, and partied a lot. And yet, whereas I remember last Michaelmas as very melancholic, this one seems joyous. The world around me has, of course, not changed much. It is the outlook that seems to have changed.

Positivity is a word one hears a lot, but I certainly didn't understand its potency till very recently. I like to believe that I climbed the ladder of success with blood on my hands. This 'blood' refers to feelings of envy, anger and frustration that has characterised my journey from Visakhapatnam to Oxford. I reacted very strongly to negative emotions, and worked very hard to fight with them, and that helped me professionally. I am at a crossroad now, have been for a year. I have come a long way, and I need to reset and start a new journey where laurels of the past willl show diminishing returns very quickly. And therefore I need to choose how to motivate myself.

The summer helped me let go of a lot of emotional baggage that I had been carrying. The feeling of hurt that I had accumulated over the years made me look at the world, and people around me, very cynically. I became sensitive, became afraid. Over this most beautiful summer, so many things and so many burdens from the past have been let go of. And I can finally once again engage in the activity of making myself a better individual. The fear of failure holds back the first step. With that gone, I feel ready for a marathon.

Profesionally, I can engage in things I want to do. I have spent much time this term working on RSSAF's consulting work. It brings back memories of St. Stephen's College and building institutions from the ground. I'm also taking my time looking for jobs, and am being more risk - tolerant in my job search. I also feel more confident about what I want to do, and preparing for the long-drawn task of looking for something suitable. Not much has been gained over the last year to explain this change. Except positivity.

The most important thing has been to treat myself as kindly as I tend to treat others. When my reaction to others who err is to forgive, why be needlessly harsh with myself? When I provide comfort to someone who messed up a relationship, why shouldn't I comfort myself similarly? The same logic should be applied the other way round - to treat others as one would like to be treated. When I expect empathy and kindness, why not give the same to others? I am trying to push the boundaries of my empathy, trying to see things from others' point of view. It's an ongoing journey of discovery. I'm excited.

Towards a life of simplicity

My persistent fear during the last few days in London over the summer was whether I would once again be consumed by Oxford. Oxford in general, and Rhodes House in particular, are full of people with strong opinions, and the courage and fortitude to bring change. There are strong movements, and counter-movements. At around the same time, it seemed to me that opinions on my facebook wall reached a new level - with frequent exchanges between those who like Modi and those who dislike him. It made me agitated, and gradually that agitation made way for sadness.

I often wanted to sit down on my laptop and talk to some of those issues. I wanted to pose some questions, answer some that I knew about, and to generally try to put structure around these emotionally charged discussions. But I felt overwhelmed. Overwhelmed that my voice would be drowned. Overwhelmed by the fact that lines had already been drawn. Overwhelmed by the fact that maybe, just maybe, I am actually ignorant - that those who've taken positions understand it much better than I do.

But then I remembered that being overwhelmed is something I have felt before. I felt overwhelmed when, on seeing 'predicted scores' given by my teachers, my foreign admissions counsellor scoffed "as if you're ever going to get these." I felt overwhelmed when, long back, I worked very hard but never performed well academically. I felt overwhelmed when my friends were unfairly and unceremoniously ejected from student bodies. I felt overwhelmed when, despite my academic and extracurricular performance, I was never considered for any college awards. In each case, I felt hopeless and lost as I now do. And in each case, I did what my parents taught me best - to quietly work hard - to finally find redemption.

Today, I have come to a position of extreme privilege. I started life riding the wave of opportunities that my parents created for me, an already privileged existence in the Indian context. Mile by mile, I have travelled so far that I am now well entrenched in the system. Where do I go from here?

For the answers, I looked back. My greatest journeys were ones of service. Service towards friends, acquaintances, and even strangers. At those times, when I was faced with heart-break, humiliation, jealousy, angst and so, so many strong emotions, the idea of service lead me to the state where I am. If there is something that has motivated me unlike anything else, it is this idea of service. And that is something I have tried to do over the past few weeks. For example, this year my birthday was preceded and followed by several days of doubt, like it has for the past 5-6 years. I wanted to do something meaningful, and found that meaning in donating money at milaap. I have immersed myself with RSSAF's consulting work so that I can find myself creating change in people's lives. One of the organisations I consulted came back with the case of a severely handicapped girl in Uganda. I have no context or specialisation - with disability, with gender, with sub - saharan Africa. And yet, I was moved to action. By an unspoken, yet compelling bond. By the idea of service.

What does this imply for my participation in discussions and movements that I am surrounded by? The idea of service, to me, is to reduce myself to zero - to nothingness. Because my service will remain insufficient if I look at it with eyes tained with myself, and my experiences. This insignificance brings clarity, and clarity brings a fortitude that is unshakeable. Towards this simplicity, and that strength, I seek to move.

Ferment Within

Last Friday, I made my way to London to visit a Durga Puja pandal. I reached just in time for the last anjali of the year, and sat through the dashami puja. At the same time, many Rhodes Scholars were in London to express solidarity with protestors in South Africa. They made their way to the South African High Commission and even made the High Commissioner sit with them on the ground and listen to them.

It's been a frequent occurence through the year. As part of the Rhodes Scholar community, I am exposed to a large number of inspirational (and often intimidatingly brilliant) young men and women seeking to disrupt the existing system. There is a revolutionary fervour in the air. There is impatience with status quo. And there is boldness in attacking the system. 

However, my battles have mostly been within. This experience at Oxford has given me the opportunity and the distance to be able to look at my own actions and try to make sense of them. It has given me the opportunity to be critical of thoughts I have had and actions I have undertaken. It is a process that has gained momentum since I read Gandhi's autobiography. Gandhi, a deeply flawed political leader and activist, showed a great deal of self-awareness and honesty. That is something that I seek to replicate.

I was recently asked in a professional conversation what I want to do in life. I said that I wanted to earn enough money, and keep myself professionally excited and engaged. But what I really seek to do is to initiate and contribute to, and to learn from, a conversation about this internal ferment. I want to continue to push myself to be a better and more sensitive human being, and I want people to know about my thoughts (so they can learn) and I want to learn from them so I can advance myself.

I also believe that this kind of clarity will help me be more impactful professionally. At work, I have often found myself face the temptation to confirm to what is common. However, over time I have come to start giving shape to what I believe would be my way of navigating workplaces. I sought to, and at least partially succeeded in, harmonising how I behave in my personal and professional lives.

The Durga Puja in London was my way to reconnect with my cultural heritage. But it was also a way for me to engage with my past and to reflect. The festival will return again next year - reminding us of the circularity of life, the ebb and flow of this mortal existence. The only hope is that the next time it comes around, we'll be in a better place.

Communal Violence and Politics in India

The discussion about communalism has come to the centre stage in national discourse once again. The allegedly beef-related lynching in Dadri, followed by the protest by writers, has raised fears of a saffron - induced surged in communal incidents. The fact that communal riots are driven by political considerations is well - understood. However, there is a large number of bbooks about what increases the probability of communal riots. The book 'Votes and Violence' by Wilkinson was one such book that I happened to read. It is a painstakingly put together econometric analysis of communal incidents in India since independence. The results, while reinforcing certain widely-held beliefs, also discredits other notions that we have.

While researching for my article on Islam for The Indian Opinion, my focus was very much on the question of law and order. Wilkinson's book helped me think through many such issues. Some facts were validated - for example, that communal incidents saw a major spike in the 1990s (coincident with the rapid rise of the BJP). Wilkinson set up several different specifications of his basic model with the probability of riots as the dependent variable. In each such specification, whether there were elections in the next 6 months was a statistically significant independent variable. Using instrumental variables, Wilkinson also argued that economic competition between Hindus and Muslims does not impact communal incidents at all. Evidently, the premiss for a communal conflagration has to be conjured up from nothingness. Hence the freak incidents of the kind we saw in Dadri are either engineered or exploited to create communal tension.

What is interesting, however, is the role of caste - based politics in containing communal riots. When Lalu Prasad talks about 'mandal' (caste) versus 'kamandal' (communal) politics, he is (intentionally or unintentionally) making a very valid point. Communal riots are seen to be more likely in bi-polar states, where political consolidation between two parties reduces the importance of the muslim vote. Caste politics, by fragmenting the Hindu vote, makes the muslim voters more important at the margin, and therefore reduces the likelihood of communal incidents. Law and order is a state subject, but communal riots are no less likely to happen in Congress-ruled states than in other states. There are many other such findings that Wilkinson presents; I would therefore strongly recommend the book to anyone interested in this topic.

Question of technology

Modi's visit to the facebook headquarters generated much debate in India regarding net neutrality in general and facebook's intentions behind the tricoloured display pictures in particular. This subsequently spilled over into an access vs. neutrality debate, and a few branches of the debate reached the technology vs. basic services debate. It is the last one that I seek to talk about in this post.

The trouble with evaluating the impact of most technology - based products is that the major impact happens through externalities. Therefore, if we try to measure the outcomes by the impact on individual households, we will always underestimate the impact of such products. There are also other issues. For example, increased attendance in couchsurfing gatherings has been observed to be positively related to a sense of belonging to the community; and hosting a guest shown to have a positive relationship with trust. However, in case the causal relationship runs in the opposite direction, could products like couchsurfing be making society worse off by segregating between two sections? Ignoring questions about negative consequences, let us focus on the more positive aspects. For example, independent media has often been shown to lead to many positive societal outcomes. However, the impact on the life of the marginal consumer would be quite low due to the externality problem. To add to that, because the consumer may not fully internalise the long - term benefits of these products, making fair comparisons inherently a difficult task.

If we narrow down to products which have immediate returns to consumers, we run into many that impact the middle segments of the population - ones who are significantly more prosperous than the BOP populations, but not wealthy enough to be excluded from other things. Take credit, for instance. Due to asymmetric information (and general risk aversion on the part of lenders), markets left to themselves lead to under-provisioning of credit. Technology, therefore, turns out to be an excellent tool to remove informational barriers. One might argue that access to facebook doesn't have any benefits (thought many will disagree). However, when social media activity becomes a gateway to credit access, facebook can turn into a tool for social empowerment. Companies such as Lenddo are creating a new industry where big data can be unsed to create the next wave of financial inclusion. Removal of informational barriers can also lead to benefits in more traditional goods markets. This is especially true for small producers and traders, for whom access to information (and storage) can often be prohibility expensive. For example, the introduction of mobile phones in the early 2000s was seen to lead to an increase of 8% in the profits of fishermen in Kerala[1]. There were also more wide - ranging benefits, including a 4% reduction in the average price of fish in these areas.

However, we are still talking in the realm of the middle class. What has technology got for the people at the bottom of the pyramid? Can technology reasonably impact the lives of those struggling for food, energy and shelter? Once again, technology as a medium for spreading information can help address some of the very basic issues of survival for large swathes of the population. The Chhattisgarh PDS turnaround was aided by technology, albeit alongside other systemic changes. Something as simple as sending SMS notification to villagers when the PDS truck leaves for the fair price shop can reduce pilferage and increase foodgrain availability to the poor. Having reduced wastage and pilferage from 40-50% to less than 10% in a short span of time, Chhattisgarh has shown that technology can help address the needs of the poor.

In conclusion, if one views technology as an end in itself, the impact may be too diffused and long - term to care about, especially for a country like India with more pressing concerns. However, if one looks at technology as an enabler, and as a disruptor of non - tech sectors, then one can start seeing some of the benefits of technology vis-a-vis other more traditional interventions. At the end of the day, few interventions - including technology - would be effective in a vacuum. It needs to be supported by government will and space for innovation.

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1 - The Digital Provide: Information (Technology), Market Performance and Welfare in South Indian Fisheries Sector - Robert Jensen (The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 122, No. 3 - Aug 2007)