Quick notes from India visit
Just back from a hectic and intense 10-day visit to India.
I did four cities on this visit…and on an average, slept about 5 hours each day…by 7pm on most days, my throat would begin to hurt (from talking too much)…and I actually managed to run down a fully charged phone battery in about 15 hours during one of the days!
Highlight of the visit was an hour I spent with Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan’s parents. It was a moving and unforgettable experience…I will write more on this in the next few days.
Had numerous conversations with a very wide range of people about politics. This is significantly helping shape my thinking and the direction of future efforts…sensed a lot of frustration amongst people in general and a genuine desire for change…but not enough clarity on “how”.
Some things are becoming clearer. For instance, this is the way in which I am now phrasing the way ahead:
As you would know from my blog/discussions, I have now concluded that sustainable and meaningful change in India will not come unless we have effective governance and committed leadership in place.Â
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This cannot (and does not) happen in a vacuum. So the first objective of any movement to bring about change must be to raise awareness (about the need for change), then bring about agreement on the kind of change that is needed and then organise to actually make it happen.
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In other words, 1] Make people aware that change needs to happen (on the political level) 2] Mobilise public opinion around the kind of change that is needed (e.g. clean, committed leadership, transparent political processes and a government that actually “listens” to its citizens) and 3] Organise to bring about such a change.
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We are at the first step of this journey….and it is likely to be very long.
There is also greater visibility on next steps and/or short-term objectives:
- To organise the Hope Summit (most likely in Sept-Oct of this year)
- To develop an ideological framework that can guide policies and decision-making (a lot of work and some great thoughts are being discussed on the FTI GoogleGroups)
- To develop a platform/forum (most likely online) which can serve as a knowledge/resource base on a wide range of policy issues. Might this evolve into a Think Tank? I do not know. Also it may already exist in some shape/form
- Work on developing political consciousness amongst educated, urban professionals
Thoughts, suggestions and further ideas welcome, as always.
In the meantime, I am looking forward to the second meeting of our political interest group in London later this week.
More on all this later.
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Dear Shantanu
Quick one: “To develop a platform/forum (most likely online) which can serve as a knowledge/resource base on a wide range of policy issues. Might this evolve into a Think Tank? I do not know. Also it may already exist in some shape/form”
I’m trying to revive my 1998 effort – India Policy Institute which is intended to be exactly this – a forum to create resources and policies.
Current website: http://www.indiapolicy.sabhlokcity.com/
I’ll soon get it pointed back to http://www.indiapolicy.org with which it started. I’m also trying to revive the associated Yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndiaPolicy/
The problem I’m suffering from is shortage of time. I’d appreciate if you want to lead the revival of this effort. That means also re-doing the website suitably.
IPI has a huge internet presence and has a ‘brand name’ of sorts because it is the one of the oldest internet institutes of India by now. So advancing this and making it into a professional body which publishes regular magazines/journals will be useful rather than creating a new institute.
Ajay Gandhi, its settlor, is also a member of FTI. So it can provide a liberal perspective. We can discuss offline if you are interested.
Regards
Sanjeev
Thanks Sanjeev…I will have a look at the links…Lets discuss off line/
Shantanu,
I agree that people need to be aware that change needs to happen but at the same time I feel that in India we are at a point where people have been looking for a change for a while and are at a stage where they are giving up when they see nothing coming up. Although, recent security lapses and terrorist acts have brought the need for change to forefront again.
When you talk about kind of change needed “(e.g. clean, committed leadership, transparent political processes and a government that actually “listens†to its citizens)”, I think, people want that today but there is no alternative. We don’t have a single national level political party which qualifies above criteria( LokSatta in AP is a good beginning )
I think need of the hour is to actually provide an alternative political party. This brings us back to the question of finding educated non-corrupt people who are ready to enter into politics. Most of these people have personal and financial obligations to fulfill.
How do these people become financially independent to take the plunge ? How do these people become comfortable to be part of political activities, as we are so used to look down upon politicians ?
Anupam
Anupam: The real issue is that people expect *change* overnight…
This process is likely to take years if not decades…A large part of my “making people aware” is making them aware about precisely this point – that it will need sustained effort over many many years before they begin to see evidence of any movement…
Unfortunately, most peoiple get disillusioned rather quickly…
For instance, at the Mumbai memorial event that we had in December, a lot of people expressed interest in participating in some kind of a political movement. When I said that our first meeting will be on Jan 23rd, quite a few felt that “it would be too late”.
I say to such people, if we need only 6 years to fix the mess of the last 60, we will be lucky!
As for alternatives at the national level, I am beginning to think that this change will need to be precipitated from inside (the national parties) and externally (by lobbying and public pressure).
Newer political formations (alone) will not be enough…and alternative political party is a distant dream when we do not have even 100 people willing/able to get into politics full time….
Yes, not being financially independent is one reason…but I know at least a dozen individuals who are substantially better off than me (and some considerably better off) but would never even think of joining active politics…
On the other hand, there are people I know who are already in full-time politics but struggling to make ends meet – or reconciled to a very modest life-style…
So being financially independent helps…but will probably not be enough.
Thoughts?
I agree that just being financially independent is not enough, but some genuinely interested people are not coming forward because of personal and financial obligation.
Another reason we are not even able to find 100 people is the bad reputation of politics, people are ready to support but not ready to join.
Above two obstacles apart, I agree that people need to change their thinking. They have accepted the current situation and have learnt to live in the system. Change is going to be to make people realize that they need to challenge status quo and make political parties more accountable. People need to realize that casting vote for short term gains is a very bad idea and is not just jeopardizing their future but future generations as well.
Bringing this change in people’s thinking and then using that power to change political class is definitely going to take time and might take years. I hope, with the change in thinking a new batch of politicians will come at center stage, either in current political parties or through new ones.