Presenting a new e-book from the ISDM Centre for Philanthropy for Inclusive Development for which Biraj Patnaik and I co-authored a chapter challenging current norms and practices of Indian philanthropy and seeking to re-orient it towards the founding vision and values of our country.
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As we count down the final few hours to knowing the contours of India’s next Parliament, it’s hard not to feel anxiety, even trepidation, at the likely outcome. What will the next five years hold for freedom, democracy, social harmony and the rule of law in India? Do the trajectories of the past decade foretell ever worsening conditions for minorities and other marginalised groups? And ever narrower space for civil society? What of independent media, online freedoms, and privacy? Will we see an acceleration in the erosion of the institutions that protect us from untrammelled executive authority? Can we hope that the individuals and institutions who have courageously resisted these trends will survive and live to fight another day?
"To be born again," sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, "first you have to die,” is the opening line of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. It foreshadows the events narrated in his latest book, Knife, which vividly details the murderous attack upon him in 2022 and the testing, arduous, precarious journey back from near death.
Among the highlights of my year in 2023 were these books and reports to each of which I was privileged to contribute a chapter.
We woke each day in 2023, it seemed, to ever bleaker news. In India, we witnessed deadly ethnic conflict in addition to the relentless assaults on children, women, Dalits, Muslims, Christians, queer folk and other vulnerable groups, and to increasingly frequent disasters – ‘natural’ and more obviously human-made. All exacerbated by the inexorable erosion of our democratic rights and freedoms and the institutions designed to protect them.
In a few months (is the year’s end already in sight?) we’ll mark the 75th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I was fortunate to participate in the commemoration of the 60th anniversary and to meet individuals who had been involved in drafting, protecting and promoting this master work of humanity from its inception through its existence.
“India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks — experts are baffled.” The news caused consternation among teachers, citizens and well-wishers of India around the world. The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) — the public body that develops the Indian school curriculum and textbooks — defended the deletions as rationalising student workload by postponing learning about these fundamental topics to later years.
15 years ago, I spoke the words that follow at my brother’s funeral. Now, more than ever, words are all we have.
A while ago I met a young woman from Satara district, Maharashtra in India. Let’s call her Lakshmi. A secondary school graduate, wife and mother of two children, she described her efforts to improve her family’s economic status. She had started by selling products door-to-door for a multi-level-marketing brand. She then discovered bee-keeping via a YouTube video and was soon selling her own brand of honey on Facebook. Her enterprise not only gave her children small ‘luxuries’ they could not previously afford, but gave Lakshmi pride in her accomplishments and in the contribution she was making to her family. I was impressed with her dynamism and told her so. She responded, “But, you know, my whole family wants me to fail.” She went on to describe how she had to ensure her children never fell ill or did poorly at school and that her in-laws’ every need was well taken care of. Any lapse on these fronts was attributed to her not devoting her full attention to the family. Her persistence and resilience despite the utter lack of family support was simultaneously inspiring and heartbreaking. A few days later, still overwhelmed by Lakshmi’s experience, I shared her story with two colleagues at Ashoka University. These women, both highly qualified and extremely successful, heard me out, then said, “But, you know, it’s the same for us.” Their words, like Lakshmi’s, felt like a body blow. They challenged every notion of ‘women’s empowerment’ we practice in the social sector. They dramatised for me just how seriously the sticky floor of grossly unequal gender role expectations hampers the aspirations of women of all socio-economic categories everywhere.
Since August 2016, I have had the rare privilege of helping to create India’s, and South Asia’s, first and only academic centre to focus on social impact and philanthropy. Looking back, as I hand over charge of CSIP to Pankaj Ballabh, I am overwhelmed by the utter generosity we have been showered with by a very, very wide range of individuals and organisations.
The global ‘debate’ around philanthropy often resembles a ping-pong game. A noted critic lobs a grenade making broad allegations of widespread self-serving, hypocritical, ineffective, tax-avoiding billionaire philanthropists. A practitioner in the field responds with well-intentioned counter examples of the considerable good work of other philanthropists. Repeat ad nauseam.
Z is a manicurist who lives in the far Northern suburbs of Mumbai. She commutes to work each day to a tony salon in Bandra. Just before Ramzan Eid, I asked Z how she planned to celebrate and whether recent attacks on mosques and Muslim communities around the country had caused celebrations to be curtailed.
“They can say what they want about her. She is my daughter and I will fight anyone who tries to harm her.”
Sightseeing in Mandu, Madhya Pradesh, last weekend I met 9 year old Arun. He helps a local flower vendor sell her wares to tourists in return for a share of the proceeds. The few rupees he earns each day are a welcome supplement to the family income. The family owns a small parcel of land on which they grow wheat, soya bean and corn. Arun is the youngest of five siblings and the only boy, a pattern all too common across India. He has just returned to school after two years of pandemic school closure. A student of Class 3, Arun says he can neither read nor write in Hindi, the only subject he is taught at school. His ambition is to join the police, a goal that he knows will require him to complete the 8 years of schooling available in his village as well as 4 more years at the district secondary school where two of his sisters currently study.
I spoke recently with Ashika Thomas from The Centre for New Economics Studies at O P Jindal University on (surprise!) philanthropy and civil society in India — how they’ve evolved, what’s changed and what needs to change. It’s Episode 42 here: https://nickledanddimed.com/inter-linked-a-global-affairs-podcast/
On November 26, 2021, I had the opportunity to deliver a lecture at the London School of Economics (LSE) Department of International Development as part of their “Cutting Edge Issues in Development Thinking and Practice” series.
Whole Numbers and Half Truths by pioneering data journalist, Rukmini S, captures quite brilliantly the realities of India as revealed by the data that exist about how Indians live, work, marry, eat, vote, love and play. In so doing, she challenges misconceptions about, and throws up new insights into, our perceptions of ourselves as a people. Who in India is middle-class? What really prevents more Indian women from taking up paid employment? How do we feel about fellow citizens who practice religions different from our own or about crossing boundaries of caste? Are we predominantly vegetarian in our dietary habits? What drives our voting behaviour? Just as importantly, she illuminates the dark shadows where data either do not exist, are inaccessible or, increasingly, are obfuscated and suppressed.
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