Type: Article

IDR | The limits of AI in social change

– Gautam John, CEO, Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies

More actors—from grantmaking to service delivery—are exploring the use of AI. However, the excitement around scale and efficiency often overshadows a critical question: What does it mean to bring machine-generated abstraction into systems built on trust, context, and relationship?

In systems of social change, we grapple with an enduring tension: connection versus abstraction. Connection is slow, human, and relational. It thrives on trust, listening, and collaboration. Abstraction, on the other hand, simplifies complexity into patterns, insights, and models. It is fast, scalable, and efficient.

Both serve a purpose, but they pull in opposite directions. And now, with the rise of AI tools like large language models (LLMs), this tension has reached new heights. LLMs thrive on abstraction; they reduce human interaction into data points, surface patterns, and generate outputs.

While LLMs are not intelligent in the sense of reasoning or self-awareness, they can serve as tools that reframe, rephrase, and reorganise a person’s ideas in ways that feel expressive. This can enable creativity and reflection, but let’s be clear: It’s not agency. The tool reshapes inputs but does not make meaning.

In market-based systems, where efficiency is paramount, this might work. But in social systems, where relationships, context, and trust are everything, abstraction risks losing what makes systems real and resilient.

This essay is a case for vigilant embrace. It asks how we can keep tools in service to relationship, not the other way round. It draws from our country’s experience of the self-help group (SHG) movement and its microfinance offshoots, tests it against the new frontier of LLMs in the social sector, and distills a few design rules for keeping the work human in an age of speed.

Connection as infrastructure

Decades ago, India’s SHG movement reframed finance as a relationship first, and a product second. Groups formed through affinity; members saved together; rules emerged from context; repayment schedules matched rhythms of life and livelihood; and trust was the collateral. Over time, SHG–bank linkage became a way to bring formal finance into places where formal institutions had no legitimacy of their own. It only worked because process mattered.

As Aloysius Prakash Fernandez (long‑time leader in the SHG movement with MYRADA and a key architect of its practice) has argued, SHGs built economies of connection. The time it took to form an SHG was not friction to be eliminated, but rather the formation and cadence of months of meetings, savings discipline, conflict resolution, and learning to keep books and hold each other accountable. That slow work created legitimacy and resilience so that when crisis struck, the relationship fabric held.

Then came the turn. As microfinance commercialised, much of the field shifted from SHG thinking to microfinance (MFI) thinking—from affinity to acquisition, from place to product, from presence to process compliance. Loans became standardised, repayment cycles rigid, and growth a KPI. Speed, greed, and standardisation (to borrow Aloysius’s pithy phrasing) took what was relational and made it transactional.

The results were predictable. Repayment rates looked spectacular—until they didn’t. In many places, risks were accumulating: multiple lending without visibility on household cash flows, incentives that pushed volume over suitability, and the slow erosion of trust with lenders treating people as portfolios rather than participants. Products scaled, but belonging did not. The social infrastructure that had once underwritten financial inclusion was being displaced by numbers that looked like progress.

It is tempting to narrate this simply as a story of ‘bad actors’, but that misses the deeper point. Even well‑meaning institutions slide here because their structures privilege the measurable: gross loan portfolio, on‑time repayment, and cost to serve. The things that make SHGs work—mutuality, ownership, repair—resist instrumentation, and become, quite literally, less valuable.

If this sounds familiar to those working at the intersection of LLMs and social systems, it’s because we’re watching the same film again.

The question, then, is this: Where, if at all, do LLMs belong in the work of social change? And what can we learn from the SHG/MFI shift?

LLMs and the mechanistic view of wisdom

There are now many LLM-based tools designed to abstract and synthesise insights from human interactions, promising to amplify collective wisdom. In social change systems, where resources are stretched and problems are vast, this promise is tempting and does have some strengths.

  • It organises and systematises human insights into building blocks.
  • It surfaces diverse perspectives, tracing inputs back to their sources to ensure inclusion and accountability.
  • It accelerates decisions, offering actionable outputs at scale.

But these strengths are also its greatest weaknesses because they abstract the human process of turning messy, situated conversations into neat patterns. This comes at a cost.

  1. Loud voices and flattened complexity: They risk over-representing frequent or louder perspectives while erasing nuance, dissent, and marginal views.
  2. Loss of relational insight: Wisdom doesn’t arise from patterns alone. It comes from the trust, tension, and emotional connection born of human interaction.
  3. Hollow consensus: Outputs that bypass relational work may appear actionable, but they lack the trust and shared ownership that give decisions their power.

The result? Systems that look efficient but feel hollow because tools, frameworks, and processes sever the relational ties that make systems real.

Recent empirical evidence seems to confirm what we sense intuitively about these limits. When researchers systematically tested LLM reasoning capabilities through controlled puzzles, they discovered something profound: As problems grow more complex, these models don’t just struggle but collapse entirely. Even more telling, when complexity increases, they begin to reduce their effort, as if giving up. They find simple solutions but then overthink them, exploring wrong paths.

Perhaps this is a window into the fundamental nature of these systems. They excel at pattern matching within familiar territories but cannot genuinely reason through novel complexity. And social change? It lives entirely in that space of the new and the complex, where contexts shift, where culture matters, where every community brings unprecedented challenges. If these models collapse when moving discs between pegs, how can we trust them with the infinitely more complex work of moving hearts, minds, and systems?

Apply the narrow versus wide lens

To navigate this challenge, the tension between connection and abstraction must be examined through another dimension: narrow versus wide. While connection and abstraction often feel like irreconcilable opposites, the narrow–wide lens helps bridge this gap by revealing how different kinds of tools can play meaningful roles in social change.

  • Narrow tools are specific and targeted, solving well-bounded problems.
  • Wide tools are generalised and scalable, seeking to address large systems.

Combining this in a 2×2 framework gives us four distinct spaces where LLMs can, or cannot, play a meaningful role.

1. Narrow connection (Relational amplifiers)

  • What it is: Tools that deepen human relationships by enhancing context-specific, targeted work.
  • Example: A frontline caseworker uses an LLM to synthesise notes across multiple user visits in order to personalise their follow-ups. The LLM helps amplify memory and insight, but the relationship remains human.
  • Why it works: These tools augment human connection by surfacing insights without replacing relational work. They stay rooted in the specific, bounded context of their application.
  • Key use case: Tools for case management in social services. For instance, LLMs help social workers tailor interventions to individual users based on their unique needs and histories.
  • Key question: Does this tool augment connection, or does it replace it?

2. Wide connection (Relational ecosystems)

  • What it is: Tools that map and visualise relationships across broader ecosystems, enabling collaboration without eroding the human work of trust-building.
  • Example: Stakeholder mapping tools that reveal community networks and power dynamics.
  • Why it works: Wide connection tools respect the complexity of human systems, helping actors navigate and strengthen relationships without reducing them to transactions.
  • Key use case: Network mapping for advocacy coalitions. LLMs can surface insights about overlapping efforts, potential collaborators, or areas of conflict, but the work of building those connections remains human.
  • Key question: Does this tool illuminate relationships, or does it flatten them into transactions?

3. Narrow abstraction (Efficiency tools)

  • What it is: Tools that automate repetitive, bounded tasks, freeing up time for relational or contextual work.
  • Example: A grant officer uses an LLM to scan 100 applications for missing documentation or budget inconsistencies and flags files for review, but leaves decisions to humans.
  • Why it works: Narrow abstraction tools stay within well-defined parameters, ensuring that the abstraction doesn’t undermine human judgement or erode trust.
  • Key use case: Administrative automation in nonprofits. AI can handle routine data entry or flag missing information in grant proposals, allowing staff to focus on strategic decisions and relationships.
  • Key question: Has the process of abstraction removed necessary details that deserve human consideration?

4. Wide abstraction (Context flatteners)

  • What it is: Broad, generalised tools that prioritise scale and efficiency, but risk erasing context and relationships.
  • Example: A philanthropic CRM tool employs LLMs to rank grantees on ‘impact potential’ using prior grant reports that reward well-written or funder-aligned language, not those doing contextually important work.
  • Why it fails: Wide abstraction tools produce outputs that are disconnected from the lived realities of the people and systems they aim to serve. They often impose generic solutions that lack local resonance or trust.
  • Key risk: Policy recommendations generated by LLMs that ignore cultural nuance, power dynamics, or local histories.
  • Key question: Does this tool flatten complexity, producing solutions no one truly owns?

Wide abstraction tools fail social systems because social systems are built on trust, context, and relationships. Change doesn’t emerge from patterns or averages; it emerges from the slow, messy, human work of showing up, listening, and building together.

This requires moral discernment, cultural fluency, and the ability to hold space for uncertainty. Even the most sophisticated tools are not capable of these things. A tool cannot sense the difference between a pause of resistance and a pause of reflection. It cannot understand silence or the weight behind a hesitant request.

LLMs can play a role in social change, but must stay narrow, supportive, and grounded in connection. They canamplify relationships (narrow connection), reveal patterns in systems (wide connection), or automate tasks that don’t require human judgement (narrow abstraction). But they cannot replace the relational processes that make systems real.

Designing for a human age

The promise of LLMs is seductive. It offers speed, efficiency, and a sense of control—qualities we crave in complex, uncertain systems. But if we think of connection as the foundational infrastructure and abstraction as a tool, how do we build (and fund) accordingly?

Four clusters of practice follow from the analysis:

1. Placement and scope

  • Keep it narrow (bounded contexts) when automating.
  • Hold it wide and human when mapping relationships.
  • Avoid wide abstraction in relational domains (welfare, justice, health, community development). If you must use it, treat outputs as hints, never decisions.
  • Assume drift; design for it.

2. Process and ownership

  • Process matters. If a ‘consensus’ tool removes dissent and dialogue, it is producing hollow agreement.
  • Ownership signals reality. If a decision is not of the group but about it, expect distance and eventual resistance.
  • Messiness test. Did we stay in the mess to listen, disagree, compromise? If not, the outcome may travel poorly. Consensus that bypasses repair will not hold.

3. Measurement and accountability

  • Measure what you can while protecting what you can’t. Build explicit guard rails so that unmeasurable goods (trust, belonging, repair) are not crowded out.
  • Use AI where failure is acceptable. Drafting, summarising, data hygiene: yes. Decisions about dignity, safety, or entitlements: no.
  • Allow override without justification. People closest to the context must be free to resist machine outputs.
  • Capture moments of failure. Document not just technical bugs, but also when people forget how to act without the tool.

4. Funding and institutional practice

  • Finance the foundational layers. Budget for convening, accompaniment, group formation, and follow‑through, and not just transactions.
  • Reward stewardship, not throughput. Celebrate organisations that prune, pause, and repair, not just those that scale.
  • Create collision spaces. Funders should host containers for connection—open‑ended gatherings where practitioners make meaning together, not just report up.
  • Reframe accountability. Shift from counting outputs to honouring conditions: psychological safety, trust density, and role clarity across the network.

The work we do in the sector is the work of belonging, and it does not scale by flattening. It scales like a forest: root by root, mycelium by mycelium, canopy by canopy, alive and adaptive, held together by relationships we cannot always see and must never forget.

India Development Review

Hindustan Times | Where the wild things are

On a private reserve, Rohini Nilekani comes safely face to face with elephants and rhinos. Can we find ways to coexist in India too, adapting to animals as they have to us?

It was a bunker made of reinforced concrete and steel. It was half underground, and camouflaged with mud, leaves and grass. Just beyond this innocuous-looking mound was a waterbody about the size of a large swimming pool.

Ahead of it, we could see an African tusker making his way to the pond.

“Hurry, the animals are already here. We are late,” said our guide, as he opened a metal door to reveal steps leading down into a dark chamber.

We emerged, curious and a bit nervous, from our safari jeep. One by one, we entered this man-made cave. It was surprisingly roomy inside, with a modern toilet to one side.

Our guide slid open steel windows all around the room, each 2 ft tall and at eye level. There were no grills or meshes.

Then the evening show started.

The elephant reached the water, gauged the scene and slowly started drinking. He was soon joined by others, attracted to the best water source in the vicinity. This was their evening routine.

Before our wonderstruck eyes, white rhinos began to edge in. Four mothers with four calves of varying ages eyed each other and the tuskers. From afar, zebras and an eland were watching too, waiting their turn.

This was a unique African safari experience for us. We were on a private conservancy in Zimbabwe, spread over 150,000 hectares, far from the tourist rush in Masai Mara. Here, the owners have successfully created a haven for thousands of creatures.

The conservancy sits at the edge of a large national park. Just beyond the private estate, on its other edge, the bush has been cut down for sugarcane farms that stretch to the horizon. The pressure on the land is growing, even in Africa, which has a similar population of 1.5 billion but almost three times the land mass of India.

Africa has long followed a strategy of private-owner-led conservation, prompting as many bouquets as brickbats from the world’s environmentalists. It is true that ownership of these conservancies is rarely with indigenous peoples. It is also true that only elites can afford such wildlife tourism.

In India, such a strategy is neither possible nor desirable. Our conservation is led by the state and its forest departments. I argue that we will need the participation of all landowners in the country to restore and heal our lands, whether on plantations and farms or in urban corporate campuses. Luckily, we have the Forest Rights Act, 2006, which enables long-time forest dwellers to assert individual and community rights over the forest. They are closely watched over by state forest departments, which often encourage voluntary relocation outside the core areas.

Where the law has been implemented, civil society organisations are strengthening the capacity of the people to regenerate the forest while increasing their livelihood opportunities. They keep meticulous records of flora and fauna, so that the impact of this progressive legislation can be monitored.

Amid growing human-animal conflict, India’s commitment to increase its forest cover has never been so critical. We must recreate a new culture of co-existence, for we need the biodiversity to secure our own futures. We must redevelop a shared wilderness, where humans can adapt better to animals, as they have adapted to us.

Meanwhile, back to Africa, as we sat in the sunken hide, trying our best to be quiet, the animals came closer and closer.

Tusks and horns were literally within reach. The animals could sense us, but they had seen humans here before. They peered at us intently, discounted any threat and continued their usual activities. Waves of gratitude and awe washed over us. It is truly the experience of a lifetime to safely come face to face with the giant head of a rhino or a bull elephant.

We watched, fascinated. There was a clear hierarchy. Some elephants were more equal than others and nudged away juniors to access the sweetest spots at the freshwater inlet. Sometimes, the rhinos were able to displace the elephants, maybe from an ancient sharing culture, or because long and sharp horns can be an effective deterrent to conflict.

By and large, despite the occasional head butts and trunk nudges, trumpets and snorts, all animals big and small were able to quench their thirst. The endless sky, fiery from the setting sun, created perfect backdrops, as did clear reflections in the pool. One by one, the animals began to move away.

Will we ever have such an experience in India, which can boast of similar biodiversity as the African continent? Which has the bears and tigers that Africa does not? Which has millions of people eager to experience the wild, and better protect our biodiversity? The debate on conservation is so polarised that it would be hard to get a consensus on such an idea.

We will never forget that encounter. My little grandson wants to be a conservationist when he grows up. I think those two precious hours in the company of magnificent, gentle creatures further cemented his dream.

As a parting gift, a young elephant looked straight at us, scooped up mud from the bottom of the pool with his trunk, and squirted it squarely at us through the window. Before we could duck, our clothes and cameras were sprinkled with wet soil. In the spirit of the season, we received it as a blessing from Ganesha.

First published in The Hindustan Times

Alliance Magazine | What if we funded justice differently?

Justice has often been philanthropy’s stepchild. In numerous donor forums I’ve attended, we’ve eagerly rallied around education, health, and livelihoods. However—when the conversation turns to justice, ensuring people can access their rights, challenge injustice, or navigate the legal system—the energy shifts. Justice is perceived as peripheral, abstract, or difficult to measure. Many funders treat it as the government’s job or the lawyer’s domain. As a result, initiatives that empower people to seek justice or reform broken systems receive only a tiny sliver of philanthropic support.
Yet over the past few years, my perspective has been upended by the partners I’ve met working on access to justice across India. Through interviews and field visits, including those for a film on justice that we recently produced, I’ve seen that justice is not abstract at all. It’s deeply human, intensely local, and full of possibility.

Across our conversations, we heard this repeatedly: justice doesn’t always begin in a courtroom. It begins when someone feels safe enough to speak. A community paralegal helping a villager resolve a land dispute. A former inmate is mentoring others inside prison. A survivor navigating the police station without fear.

At organisations working on reintegration and rehabilitation, justice often means supporting people in rebuilding their lives after incarceration. With flexible support, some partners have been able to offer socio-legal counselling, vocational training, and basic necessities. Others have built trust-based leadership programs that help young people move from the margins into positions of voice and responsibility. These are concrete, person-centred acts of justice.

In other cases, early patient funding helped organisations survive and scale when few others were willing to take the risk. That support enabled them to formalise their teams, build institutional systems, and communicate the broader narrative of their work. Crucially, the flexibility to plan a few years ahead allowed them to take bigger bets by investing in people, tools, or platforms that wouldn’t have been feasible under restricted project grants.

So why hasn’t philanthropy embraced this space more fully? A few blind spots keep recurring. First, the “tangibility bias”: funders like measurable outputs like vaccines delivered and schools built. Justice work is relational. It may take years before a policy shifts, a case sets precedent, or an ecosystem changes. But that doesn’t mean impact isn’t happening.

Second, many funders worry that justice work is adversarial or political. But the reality is that most of our partners work with, and not against, state institutions. We’ve seen collaborations with NITI Aayog, state and national legal aid authorities, courts, and correctional institutions. These are solutions, not confrontations.

Lastly, most funding structures don’t fit justice work. Short-term, output-driven grants don’t support the long game of legal empowerment or systemic reform. The most effective partners spoke about how they often had to start by showing up, listening, and building trust. Change didn’t happen in quarters. It happened in relationships.

When funding aligned with the nature of the work, things changed. Many partners credited long-term, unrestricted funding with giving them breathing space, not only to operate effectively, but to think expansively. They used that space to invest in leadership, respond to community needs in real time, and take risks they otherwise couldn’t afford to take.

Flexible support also allowed organisations to do the unglamorous but vital work of capacity-building: from hiring experienced staff, to building internal systems, to developing learning tools. Instead of chasing compliance, they could focus on what mattered by deepening their fieldwork, building networks, and responding to unexpected opportunities.

Organisations that combined legal literacy with cultural and emotional work, such as storytelling, expressive arts, or peer-led theatre, often spoke about the importance of being able to integrate these elements without having to argue for their “impact” in narrow terms. Being trusted to pursue what worked, even when it looked unconventional, helped the work land more deeply and durably.

So what would it look like to fund justice differently?

  1. Commit for the long haul. Fund justice like you would fund a promising health system intervention. Offer multi-year, flexible support. Treat experimentation and adaptation as part of the process and not red flags.
  2. Trust, then track. Start from a place of belief, then co-create learning approaches that suit the work. Let partners define what success looks like. Don’t ask for outcomes the work isn’t built to deliver.
  3. Think systems, not silos. Justice isn’t a standalone sector. It intersects with gender, education, livelihoods, and governance. Fund the connective tissue: the organisations translating legal rights into lived realities.
  4. Celebrate stories, not just numbers. A woman starting her own paralegal network. A district officer shifting how bail is granted. A reintegration program reducing recidivism. These are real outcomes, even if they’re not on a logframe.
    The partners I’ve learned from are not naïve. They know change takes time. But they’ve also shown that with the right kind of support, it is absolutely possible. They’ve built models, passed policies, won cases, and healed lives.

What they seek is not charity. It’s a partnership. Not pity. But patience.

So here’s the question again: What if we funded justice differently?

We would move it from the margins to the centre. We would fund what matters, not just what’s easy to measure. And we would finally stand beside the people who are already doing the quiet, necessary work of building a more just India.

…

Gautam John is CEO of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies.

The author is part of a philanthropy that supports access to justice initiatives. The views expressed here are based on learning reports (2021–2025) and interviews with partners working on Access to Justice in India)

…
Alliance Magazine

The Indian Express | Rohini Nilekani Writes: Why Heat Action Plans must factor in access to ‘smart’ fabrics

Natural fibres have served India well – but climate extremes demand innovation in what we wear, especially for those who can’t escape the sun.

The monsoon arrived early this year, bringing relief across the country. It may be hard to forget the record-high summer temperatures, though, when parts of Delhi felt like 54 degrees Celsius and Ooty had its warmest day in the past 73 years. In Kashmir, too, it has been the hottest June in five decades, with average temperatures three degrees above normal. Heat records are being shattered every year.

Much has been written about climate change, global warming and how India will be one of the worst affected by heat waves. We know how heat adversely impacts human health, causing not only mild symptoms such as exhaustion and dizziness but also death.

India is not alone. Europe and the US are experiencing extreme heat across large swathes of land, with the added danger of deadly wildfires. Heat claims more than 1,75,000 lives in Europe annually. In India, while thousands suffer or die, government data is unreliable. An analysis from Down to Earth estimates that a single five-day heat wave leads to 30,000 excess deaths in summer. This is way above official figures, though state governments are trying to better classify deaths from heat exposure.

In the West, despite the rising heat, summers are still about getting fit, unpacking the bikinis and shorts, and heading outdoors. In India, skimpy wear does not take over the season. Linen kurtas and cotton dhotis do. Natural fibres, khadi, light colours, and thin fabrics become ubiquitous, from the high street to the fashion ramp. And of course, there is the most popular gamcha or thin cotton towel.

Yet, it is worth asking a serious question: What should human beings wear in the face of rising heat? Will traditional clothing suffice? Is cotton really the fabric of choice?

In dry climates, it might well be. Cotton has always been celebrated for its breathability, accessibility and affordability in India. India is the world’s second-largest producer of cotton after China, and fine handspun cotton always had pride of place in its textile history.

Can cotton retain its reputation when things get both hotter and more humid? A “wet bulb” temperature of 35°C, when high heat combines with high humidity, creates a deadly combination for human beings. The body’s natural cooling mechanisms fail, making exposure life-threatening.

Cotton and other natural fibers do absorb sweat, but only up to a point. When ambient humidity is high, they dry slowly, leaving the fabric sticking to the body, increasing trapped heat and the risk of skin infections. They also do not provide protection against harmful ultraviolet rays, which are linked to cancer.

Humid heat is increasing across India, especially in the Indo-Gangetic plain, which shelters half a billion people. When half the population works outdoors, or indoors with poor insulation, what to wear is a question not just for frustrated teenagers but for every worker and citizen. At home, in the workplace, or in public spaces, people will have to think carefully about protective clothing.

In a country almost romantically attached to its natural fibres, especially khadi and cotton, it might be hard to face a startling reality — manmade fibres are better for adapting to heat stress caused by climate change. Recently, in Varanasi, Blinkit delivery partners went on strike to demand, among other things, cotton uniforms for the summer. Perhaps they should have asked for more sophisticated materials.

There has been a stunning revolution in material science and biomimicry-inspired textiles in the past few years. Athletes and urban cyclists and joggers were the earliest adopters of synthetic fibres designed to wick away sweat. But the need is far greater for farmers, construction workers and street vendors with high occupational exposure. How can we rethink the future of clothing?

Elsewhere, innovation has been driven by governments. The US set up the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to fund and direct discovery across a wide range of technology areas. As part of that mission, Professor Yi Cui and his team at Stanford University developed a textile that is transparent to infrared wavelengths and radiates heat away from the body. Already marketed in China, he claims it is not too expensive to take to a mass market, and would be critical for farmers around the world as part of a climate adaptation strategy.

Other biomimetic fibres are being tested, some inspired by polar bear hairs with high porosity and aligned pores, for superior thermal insulation. New phase change materials (PCMs) integrated into fabrics can absorb excess heat and release it when things cool down. The list of climate-smart wearable technologies is growing longer.

India will have to develop its own innovation engine to suit our needs. On July 1, the Union cabinet approved the Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Scheme with an outlay of Rs 1 lakh crore, which will support the development or acquisition of technologies of high strategic importance. Some of these funds should be directed to make wearable cooling technologies affordable and available to all citizens at the earliest.

Many states and cities are creating and implementing heat action plans. So far, none are investigating strategies to help people access smarter fabrics. The RDI scheme might be the right nudge for fresh thinking. This is one opportunity for both sarkaar and bazaar to be accountable to the samaaj, to thwart an unimaginable human crisis if the modelling on warming in India proves accurate.

Khadi was deeply associated with India’s independence movement. It will always remain precious. But the past may not always inform the future. Swadeshi new fibres might better dress up the mission for a healthier, more resilient Bharat.

The writer is chairperson, Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies and author of Samaaj, Sarkaar, Bazaar: A Citizen-first Approach.

 

The Indian Express

Hindustan Times | Rohini Nilekani writes: India’s biodiversity is a strategic advantage

Biodiversity markets are deepening, with a growing demand for high-quality carbon credits with biodiversity safeguards

As India’s geopolitical future sways with the swings of the global political pendulum, it is worth reflecting on the constant in the chaos, a North Star among spinning constellations. India’s biodiversity can be that sanctuary, that bank which helps us remain aatmanirbhar (self- reliant). Natural wealth is immune to trade and tariff wars, a trump card in climate diplomacy. It is a sacred vault which can future-proof our ambitions to be an abundant society by 2047.

India is one of very few countries with an unbroken culture of 5,000 years that is animated with the understanding that we are part of nature; that it is our privilege and duty to nurture and enrich all life on earth. That sacrality may be dimming in the face of a young population and polity demanding rapid, modern economic development. So, we must weave anew the stories, craft again the culture, the rituals, and behaviours that restore ecological belonging. Biodiversity is no longer a nice-to-have natural heritage. It could be a differentiator in the global arena, as scarcity mindsets take over with the climate crisis. If we act now, if we protect now, societal gains and economic rewards will accrue over time.

Biodiversity markets are deepening, with a growing demand for high-quality carbon credits with biodiversity safeguards. There is a strong pushback from environmentalists. Yet, if done right, it could allow first mile communities to be rewarded for conservation practices, to improve their lives and livelihoods.

The European Space Agency has launched a mission to map global biomass, penetrating dense forests to assess stored carbon. The Global Biodiversity Standard may push biodiversity monitoring further. This, in turn, will fuel the demand for verified ecosystem services provided by natural environments. The time is ripe to enhance our national, natural biodiversity.

India’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) commits us to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 sinks through additional forest cover by 2030. This is both a moral obligation and a strategic imperative for us. In 2023 alone, the Earth lost 3.7 million hectares of tropical forest, which accounted for 6% of global CO2 emissions. By one estimate, in just one year, the climate crisis has led to population weighted GDP loss of 6.3%, disproportionately affecting Southeast Asia. If we do not take this seriously, however, our economic growth can stall, with cascading impacts on well-being. All economic activity stands on the foundation of ecological security. We have been and will remain a biomass-based society for a long time to come. Whether or not we participate in biodiversity markets, it is in our self-interest to regenerate this land.

Luckily, despite more than three decades of fast-tracked development, inevitably swallowing up natural capital, India retains high biodiversity. The Forest Rights Act recognises the critical role of indigenous communities in conservation. Centuries of stewardship ensured that only four mammals — the Asiatic cheetah, the Javan rhinoceros, Sumatran rhino, and the banteng — have become extinct in India, though many are now endangered.

India is still blessed with vast floral and faunal species. We boast 13% of global bird species, and part of the world’s largest mangrove forest. Though nearly half our land is under cultivation, there is significant co-existence with wildlife; 300 species were documented just in the agricultural lands of the Ganga basin. Outside our forests, pastoral lands, tea and coffee plantations and even urban parks hold untold biodiversity.

Protect our plants, and we protect critical water sources that are an insurance against disrupted monsoon patterns. Forests slow down water, and they do it for free. The cost of man-made infrastructure for the same service has been prohibitive and repetitive — a Sisyphean task. Protect our animals, and we protect pharmaceutical innovation and the health care of our citizens. The drugs of the future are waiting to be discovered in our biota.

Much has been newly understood about zoopharmacognosy — how animals use plants as natural medicine. Most primates, big cats and even domesticated cattle and dogs still have the nutritional wisdom to seek out worm-destroying shrubs and grasses. We can learn much from the animal world about protecting human health.

Biodiversity research also offers remediation against new pollutants. University of Wuhan researchers found that a sponge made of cotton and squid could absorb 99.9% of microplastics in water. Indian universities must urgently ramp up such research, leveraging the opportunity from fleeing global talent.

If forests are a storehouse for genetic resources, new materials, and biomimicry-based innovations, trees also create microclimates that mitigate the impact of extreme heat; 2024 was the hottest year on record. Churu, Rajasthan recorded a maximum of 50.5°C. At those temperatures, people can die. We need shady cover more than ever.

There is a price to be paid for inattention. Bees, essential for pollinating half of all food crops, are declining worldwide. Honeybee deaths have hit record highs, including in Punjab. Commercial beekeepers in the US have lost 60% of their colonies, valued conservatively at $139 million this year.

We are entangled with nature even as we drive species extinction. For today’s generations, we need to spell out that entanglement. Can we go beyond GDP to better account for our natural capital?

Recently, the Indian Institute of Forest Management, in collaboration with the National Tiger Conservation Authority, conducted an economic valuation of India’s tiger reserves, using Stanford University’s open source InVest methodology. The study estimated that each of the 10 tiger reserves monitored generated about $1.2 billion to $4.0 billion in ecosystem services every year. Imagine what we will uncover about the inherent value of other ecological assets, by using indigenously refined models.

When we do, it will be easier to make better development trade-offs. A highway through a forest? A mega dam across a life generating river? Let’s consider smarter alternatives.

Measuring biodiversity is only one way to enhance public appreciation of the ecological legacy we borrow from future generations. If we as shareholders are inspired to become trustees of India’s natural capital, it will become a kamadhenu — a gift that keeps on giving.

Rohini Nilekani, chairperson, Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies, is the author of Samaaj, Sarkaar Bazaar – A citizen first approach. The views expressed are personal.

 

Hindustan Times

AARP International | Rohini Nilekani writes: A Commentary on Aging in India

In 2025, India had the largest population of young people of any country in the world. Within a couple of decades, it will have the largest cohort of people age 60+. This will not be just a demographic transition; it will also mark a seismic cultural shift — and India will need to find ways to manage the coming change.

My mother-in-law, Durga Nilekani, turned 100 years old this January. She is a peaceful centenarian, living in the moment, never complaining, ever smiling despite any physical discomfort she may be experiencing. As someone who turned 65 not long ago, I often wonder if I will be so equanimous if I live as long as her. Will I be at peace with my life at that age, or will I expect more as I get older?

Calm or restless, we are both part of India’s developing story. In 2025, India had the largest population of young people of any country in the world. Within a couple of decades, it will have the largest cohort of people age 60+. This will not be just a demographic transition; it will also mark a seismic cultural shift — and India will need to find ways to manage the coming change.

There is no mystery about how this has come about. India has experienced the same trends as many growing economies, with a decline in fertility rates and infant mortality, and better access to nutrition and health care. Those factors have contributed to a doubling of India’s life expectancy since Independence in 1947. The average lifespan is now 67.2 years.

Nor is India alone in anticipating the coming shift. In the coming decades, humanity will have to deal with issues of an aging global population for the first time. The United Nations estimates that there are more than 700,000 centenarians in the world today. Many countries are already facing the challenges of a greying citizenry, notably Japan, Germany, Italy, and even tiny countries like Monaco and Latvia. Their leaders are taking steps to support older adults, ensure their countries have the proper infrastructure and services, and prepare for the economic impacts that come with aging workforces.

The marketplace and scientific spaces have also begun to focus on prolonging health spans. Research on longevity has accelerated, especially in the West, where one Silicon Valley firm reportedly declared death to be a bug, not a feature of life! The Methuselah Foundation in the United States, a “biomedical charity,” wants 90 to become the new 50 by 2030. If these and other fanciful projects fail, many hope they will at least yield advances on dementia and other age-related disorders.

All that said, India’s approach to its aging population will necessarily be unique. First and foremost, because of the scale of the oncoming shift. Its older adult population will double by 2047 and overtake that of China a couple of decades after.

There are other factors at work as well: Unlike more prosperous countries, India’s older adults are poorer than the general population. Only 14 percent can use the Internet, and less than 5 percent reported being part of a social organization.1 They are more likely to be female, have much less education and live more in rural areas. More than one in three seniors in India still do not have the luxury of retiring, and many continue to do unpaid work, often in agriculture and allied activities. India is also experiencing a rapid shift away from multi-generational households and toward nuclear families, and an estimated 80 million older people will have to live alone or with an older spouse in just 20 years.2

Yet, data do not tell the whole story, or the only story.

In one survey, younger generations associated aging with grey hair, nursing homes, and wheelchairs, while older adults added freedom from responsibility, travel, and the joy of grandchildren.3 Clearly, how old you feel can be quite different from how old you are.

There are also strong socio-cultural traditions about aging that could determine how older adults cope with their advancing years. In India, age has long been associated with wisdom, enough that most families still consult seniors on big decisions like new jobs or marriages. Cultural messaging strongly cultivates a reverence towards older people, and millions of Indians touch the feet of family seniors at festivals and rituals, a sign of respect that can also symbolize conferring the blessings from the old to the young.

Equally, aging is widely accepted as a natural phenomenon with a spiritual opportunity. Among Hindus, for example, Vanprastha is a stage of life after the householder phase, when one is expected to gradually and gently withdraw from the material world. Vanprastha literally means “the way of the forest.” It is a time for prayer and meditation, for practicing detachment and oneness with the natural world, and I have personally witnessed dozens of relatives cheerfully adopt such a lifestyle change. When the time came to leave this world, they seemed to have been the more at peace, thanks to their practice.

My own paternal grandmother, whom everyone called Atya, chose to live the last 20 years of her life in a single room in the small temple town of Alandi. Even though her sons were doing very well in life, she cheerfully chose frugality. Visiting her to sit in an open courtyard, enjoying her delicious cooking, and hearing her spellbinding stories of her saint-Gods was always the highlight of my young life. She remains an enduring inspiration on how to “go gentle into that good night” despite what the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas wrote.

But times are changing fast, as are attitudes. Today’s elders want to feel young, to have social engagement, and give freely of their time and talent. They want to have fun, but they also want to be useful in society. One of India’s many non-profits working on longevity, Grey Shades, showcases intrepid seniors who are giving back gracefully — like army veteran and psychiatrist Colonel Dr. Rajinder Singh, who at the age of 91 is setting up a third Mental Wellbeing Centre to address addiction in young people in Punjab.

Not all seniors get the same opportunities to be productive and socially relevant. Nor should they feel pressured to be. There is a real danger that emerging societal norms will create a new anxious generation of elders, who not only feel pressure to look and feel young at any age, but face financial challenges as governments push up their retirement age and pension plans.

How can we reimagine a future in which older adults are respected, cared for, and given opportunities to contribute?

Here’s where society, the state, and markets need to do much more. While India does have several good non-profits working with older citizens, there is room for many more to support the 300 million — and counting — older adults. While the state has many initiatives to assist senior citizens in health care and pensions, there are too many delivery gaps. While the markets have begun to offer some services targeted at seniors, $50 billion in potential economic activity remains largely untapped.4

As a start, we need much more private philanthropic capital to come into the sector, to underwrite innovation, to provide patient funding, and to create the new narrative on aging that India and the world needs. At RNP, we always try to peek into the future, to see where new societal issues will need the risk capital that philanthropy uniquely provides. For example, my team helped set up India’s first domestic endowment for water and sanitation. Similarly, we started our work with young men and boys long before it became the global talking point it is today. In climate, RNP has focused on adaptation, for which communities at the first mile must innovate to build their resilience in the face of so much uncertainty. Post-pandemic, we realized the urgency of working on mental health. Now, we are keenly exploring opportunities in longevity and aging in India.

Whatever we decide, it is clear that this area needs much more attention from philanthropists the world over. After all, many philanthropists themselves are elder adults. Time should not empty out before the pocket does.

India matters in the world. How it shapes its policies, its public infrastructure, and its society to give more agency, dignity, and choice to senior citizens can become a beacon for other nations as the entire globe adapts to a rapidly aging population.

 

1 Dalberg meta-analysis of available India data from following sources: (1) LASI India Report, 2020; (2) Government of India, Population Census, 2011; (3) Asian Development Bank, Aging Well in Asia, 2024 (4) Oxfam, Digital Divide: India Inequality Report, 2022; (5) Agewell Foundation Survey, 2019 (5) National Sample Survey Office, Household Consumption Expenditure Survey, 2022-23; (6) Ideas for India, Determining how many Indians are poor today, 2024.

2 IBID

3 Internal research by Silver Talkies, https://silvertalkies.com/

4 Senior Care Reforms in India, NITI Aayog, 2024

The Times of India | Rohini Nilekani Writes: Silver Can Be The New Swag

In 25 years, India will have 300mn elders. It’s time for a mental reset – from making second careers possible, to recognising hours of caregiving they provide, to finding ways to keep them socially active. 

Recently, a parliamentary committee proposed that the age criteria for Ayushman Bharat Vay Vandana Card, the health insurance scheme for elders, be reduced from 70 to 60 years of age, and coverage doubled from 5L to 10L. Whether or not that suggestion is implemented, it points to the importance of the demographic transition in India.

In 2020, almost 90% of the country’s population was below the age of 60 years. Young, vibrant India was able to reap an economic dividend for the past 30 years or so. However, with the birth rate rapidly declining, the proportion of young people is expected to decrease significantly. Longer lifespans compound this effect. By 2047, we will have 300mn older adults, roughly equal to US’s population, with almost 50mn aged above 80. By 2067, we’ll surpass China to have the world’s largest cohort of older adults.

Politics already reflects the anxiety around the reduced productive workforce. Will we become old before we become rich? In south India that has already fallen below replacement rates, politicians have begun to speak up about encouraging couples to have more children. Although, in other rapidly ageing countries like South Korea and Japan, such a strategy has not worked.
It is critical, then, to focus on what’s possible. How can we shift our mental models? Do we understand the needs and aspirations of elder adults? How can we focus on the opportunity for an older population rather than be weighed down by the threat?

Older adults can be significant contributors to their families and to society. One in three is working well into their 60s, though mostly in the informal and agricultural sectors. They contributed 3.3% of the estimated real GDP in 2023-24. Businesses run by older adults Calvin & Hobbes employ 63mn individuals countrywide. Even after retirement from the formal sector, urban seniors especially are using digitech innovations to pursue second careers or new hobbies. Society thinks of the aged as needy. Yet, they spend about 14bn hours a year providing care to their grandchildren or other family members. One of three wants to actively volunteer and contribute to their communities.

It’s time to change the story of old age. In a study on longevity, elder adults across the board expressed their need for freedom, for economic and physical security, and for well-being, including social connectedness. This is an opportune moment to invest in these areas to be prepared for the seismic demographic shift to come. The state can focus on appropriate physical and digital infra, improved access to social protections (only 8.6% of older adults receive any form of work- related pension now), better healthcare and structured capacity building for willing and able elders. Business can tap into the potential of the silver economy, which in US is estimated to be $8.7bn and gro- wing. Today, there are about 100 Indian startups focusing on the 60-plus. With the right venture capital, there could easily be 1,000 such endeavours, with the potential to integrate over 25mn more people into the economy.

Lastly, civil society can greatly help. The Niti Aayog Darpan portal lists over 39,000 CSOs focusing on- older adults. Several organisations with support from philanthropies have done exemplary work to provide support and help change the narrative on ageing. More philanthropists are paying attention to the needs of an ageing demographic. For example, Kris Gopalakrishnan and Ashok Soota support neuroscience research to unlock better understanding of the ageing brain and mental health, critical in a country where the population of seniors with depression may cross 16% in 20 years.

Yet, the journey into later years is very individual and can be very difficult. In India, 40% of older adults live close to the poverty line, and are more likely to be female, with 70% of older women dependent on others for their basic needs. In this digital age, only 14% can use the Internet. Isolation may rise, with fewer than 5% being part of any formal social network or organisa- tion – 38mn seniors already live either alone or with their spouse in increasingly nuclear families. Lastly, India’s healthy life expectancy is 58 years, far below its life expectancy of 73 years.

There’s much catching up to do before the lived reality of the majority of older adults meets their rising aspirations. Can India take the lead in positively redefining what it means to be an older adult? Can it be done in time for what’s coming, ready or not? As we celebrate our youth and rising prosperity, we can be future smart-welcome the oncoming longevity to unlock a different but stronger idea of a mature developed society. One that is mentally and physicall sound, economically secure, and an exemplar for a ageing world.

Silver can become the new black.

The writer is chairperson, Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies and co-founder/director of EkStep Foundation.

The Times of India

IDR | A question for all of us who care about change

How do we resist the pull towards control and instead lean into the messiness of connection?

– Gautam John (CEO, Rohini Nilekani Philanthropries)

In an earlier piece on IDR, I explored connection and abstraction as two distinct approaches to systems change. That framing was meant to start a conversation, to ask what it takes to build what I call a rainforest of change in a world so often drawn to the efficiency of plantations. A rainforest conjures images of abundance, resilience, and diversity—a thriving ecosystem in which each element plays a role in sustaining the whole. A plantation, by contrast, symbolises uniformity, control, and extraction, where the goal is not thriving but harvesting.

Since writing that piece, I’ve been reflecting on the ways connection and abstraction interact, not as binaries but as polarities. They’re not opposites; they’re interdependent. The tension between them doesn’t have to pull us apart. It can hold us in balance, like the dance between the roots and branches of a tree.

This follow-up piece builds on that idea. It draws on recent conversations and experiences to look more deeply at the relationship between connection and abstraction, the role of trust and language, and what it means to lead in a way that honours both.

In a recent conversation with Rajesh Kasturirangan at Socratus, I spoke about the concept of terroir. It wasn’t his framing, but it became a starting point for our dialogue about connection, abstraction, and systems change. I used terroir to describe how deeply place matters—how the soil, history, relationships, power dynamics, and culture of a community create a unique context that resists replication, and how this context must be understood and respected. Just as wine reflects the terroir of the vineyard, change reflects the terroir of the community—and in systems change, we cannot treat every community as a blank slate.

Rajesh pushed back not to dismiss the value of connection or terroir, but to emphasise that abstraction matters too. His point was that we shouldn’t think of them as oppositional. Rather, they are part of the same ecosystem, each enriching the other.

This brought me back to a widely used metaphor when comparing systems work with project-based approaches: the rainforest versus the plantation.

Systems work as rainforests

The rainforest is the model we often hold up as an ideal—diverse, resilient, and alive with connection. But saying we want to create rainforests of change means little unless we understand what it actually takes to nurture one. Rainforests are the result of countless unseen relationships of roots, fungi, and microbes all working together in ways we cannot always observe or control.

Contrast that with a plantation. It’s certainly efficient, but only in a narrow sense. It replaces diversity with monoculture, relationships with extraction, and adaptability with rigidity.

The more I think about it, the more I see how much of our work risks becoming plantation-like when we lean too heavily on abstraction. Frameworks can flatten the complexity of the systems we’re working in, turning vibrant ecosystems into neatly pruned rows—useful, but also brittle.

Rajesh offered an important clarification here: patterns, he said, are not the frameworks themselves, nor are they abstract blueprints. Instead, they are regular, repeated forms that emerge from the underlying structures, whether in nature or communities. They arise when the conditions of connection, trust, and collaboration allow something meaningful to grow.

This idea of patterns as a bridge between connection and abstraction is powerful. It suggests that while abstraction helps us recognise patterns, it is connection that makes those patterns meaningful and rooted.

How we lead

Two podcast conversations I listened to recently, one with Jim Dethmer and another with Karen Kimsey-House, offered language that deepened the idea of leadership for me. They discussed different ways of showing up: ‘to me’, ‘by me’, ‘through me’, and ‘as me’. It struck me how closely these ideas map onto the tension between connection and abstraction.

‘To me’ is an approach of helplessness where life is something that happens to us. There’s little agency here, only reaction. ‘By me’ is where most of us spend our time as leaders. It’s about taking charge, creating outcomes, and owning our role in the process. It is empowering, but it can also lead to overcontrol and trying too hard to shape the world to our will.

The shift to ‘through me’ feels like the key here. It’s a practice of letting go, not of responsibility but of attachment. Karen expresses this well: when we lead ‘through me’, we allow the frameworks to recede into the background. They don’t disappear; they’re still there, but they no longer dictate the moment. Instead, we make room for what’s emerging. This requires trust, not in the sense of blind faith, but in a kind of grounded confidence that the system knows what it needs, that the connections will hold.

What stood out most to me was this idea of invisible networks. In a rainforest, the mycelial web is what connects everything, shuttling nutrients and information between species. In systems change, those networks are the relationships, trust, and shared purpose that hold a system together. The networks are not always visible, but they’re essential. And they can’t simply be transplanted from one place to another. They have to be cultivated, nurtured over time. Trust plays a key role in this—it is not a soft variable, but the primary infrastructure of flourishing, resilient systems, as relational theorists suggest. However, for trust to thrive, belonging alone is insufficient; action is necessary too. Belonging is foundational, but it cannot substitute for action. Trust deepens when it is made visible through showing up, following through, and co-creating the future together.

Donella Meadows touches on this in her reference to Wendell Berry’s concept of ‘tyrannese’—language that abstracts so much it loses its grounding in lived experience. Meadows, echoing Berry, warned that our words, if we’re not careful, can become tools of control rather than connection.

But language can also be expansive. It can help us make the invisible visible and give shape to the networks we sense but can’t always see. This ties back to Rajesh’s emphasis on trust as a foundational virtue, one that not only connects people but also allows the emergence of empathy, justice, insight, and complexity.

The idea of trust

The podcasts also touched on something else that feels relevant here: the idea of trust. To lead ‘through me’ is to trust not just the system, but ourselves. Jim talked about the work it takes to get there, the inner stability we need to stop outsourcing our sense of ‘okayness’ to external markers of approval or control. That’s not easy. It means letting go of certainty, of the need to be right, of the urge to cling to frameworks as a safety net. But it’s also freeing. When we trust, we make space for something new to emerge.

This is where connection and abstraction can meet—not as opposites, but as complements. Abstraction helps us see patterns, while connection reminds us that those patterns are rooted in place, in relationships, in the invisible networks that sustain life. The art lies in holding both, in knowing when to let the framework guide us and when to let it go.

This isn’t just a question for leaders; it’s a question for all of us who care about change. How do we resist the pull towards control and instead lean into the messiness of connection? How do we create systems that honour the terroir of each place while still learning from one another? How do we trust in the mycelial web of the rainforest, even when we can’t see it?

These aren’t easy questions, but they’re the ones I want to sit with. Maybe it begins with simply noticing when we reach for control, and when we might lean into trust instead. And today, as large-scale technologies increasingly abstract people’s lived realities, the need to restore connective language and practice feels even more urgent.

Because the more I think about it, the more I believe that the work we’re trying to do—whether it’s in leadership, systems change, or simply in being human—can’t be done without them. Connection and abstraction, roots and branches—what grows between them is what we call change, and like any living thing, it needs care, attention, and time.

India Development Review

The Indian Express | Jan Vishwas 2.0 and 3.0 will find the ‘madhyam marg’ between trusting and punishing citizens

The current system also blurs the lines between minor infractions and serious crimes. It can award lesser punishment for serious offences and severe punishment for lesser offences…

 

Good laws make for good societies. The recently announced Jan Vishwas Bill 2.0 at the Union government level, soon to be followed by Jan Vishwas 3.0 bills by various state governments, is critical to enabling this maxim.

 

A new database by the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy shines a bright light on 174 years of legislative enactment across 882 central laws. Of these, 370 have criminal provisions for 7,305 crimes. Of these crimes, 5,333 attract jail terms, 982 attract mandatory minimum jail terms, 433 attract life imprisonment, and 301 attract the death penalty. Criminal justice laws like the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, National Security Act, etc, only account for about 25 per cent of crimes. The rest are laws governing many aspects of ordinary life, such as parent and child care, gathering in assembly and mobility. India has steadily moved up in international rankings in improving the ease of doing business and is working on employer decriminalisation. The next phase of change involves raising the ease of living for our 1.4 billion nagariks by making humane laws that are easy to follow and enforce.

 

Currently, our plethora of criminal provisions for citizens is undoubtedly excessive; you can be arrested for milking a cow or buffalo on the street, failing to report the death of an animal within three hours, removing corpses by unprescribed routes, neglecting to provide proper exercise to a pet dog, distributing feeding bottles even to a mother who cannot breastfeed, and for simply storing e-cigarettes. These are just some inexplicably harsh punishments for common human failings that do not cause grave public harm. Cases using these provisions are rarely filed, and don’t often reach courts. Yet, having such provisions on the books increases the potential for the arbitrary exercise of power.

 

The current system also blurs the lines between minor infractions and serious crimes. It can award lesser punishment for serious offences and severe punishment for lesser offences. For example, the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 prescribes six months of jail for failing to maintain records and fulfil reporting obligations. It also recommends the same jail time for performing brain surgery for mental illness without the consent of the patient and the Board. Similarly, running a red light while driving can incarcerate you for as long as if you forced a person to labour against his will. This disproportionality between crime and punishment can severely distort incentives across society.

 

Often, citizens simply do not know that these jail provisions and fines even exist across all these laws. That gives corrupt public officials a convenient handle to make them disappear. As the Vishnu Sahasranamam anticipated: Saha-srarchi sapta-jihvah sapta-dha sapta-vahanah, Amoorti ranagho chintyo bhaya-krudbhaya-nashanah (amateur translation: Fear was created so it could be taken away). No wonder citizens fall for digital arrest scams, as we saw recently, where petrified citizens paid up to prevent arrest for crimes they had not committed.

 

A multi-stakeholder consultation recently organised by Vidhi made it apparent how hard the road to decriminalisation may be. Participants gave examples of how harsh provisions affect poor people the most. Conviction rates are low; the process is the punishment. Courts are hesitant to pass sentences that does not pass a common sense test. Most importantly, it was recognised that the over-reliance on criminalisation in governance reflects the frustrations of trying to impose a modern state on an ancient civilisation. This is only a sarkaar or state-sanctioned system, not a samaaj or society-sanctioned process, and therefore likely to fail.

 

The proposed Jan Vishwas 2.0 bill can be a powerful gift to the nation. It must go beyond the framework used for version 1.0, where asking civil servants to give up jail provisions led to meagre outcomes. They say nobody surrenders a stick; it must be taken away. If we are serious about writing clear, concise, consistent, comprehensible, and implementable laws, and if we want to decriminalise existing laws with disproportionate punishments, we need a public consensus around an updated framework of values and guardrails.

 

The Vidhi report proposes four principles, including some that already direct criminal law. First, the protection of value (criminalisation must protect a specific value vital for the existence of society and the larger public interest). Second, protection against clear, identifiable and substantial harm (criminalisation must be justified only by a direct and reasonable apprehension of harm) Third, an effective and efficient solution (criminalisation must be deployed as the sole means to achieve the legitimate purpose of the law). Lastly, proportionate response (criminalisation must be a proportionate response based on the gravity of the harm).

 

After Jan Vishwas 2.0 adopts these four principles, every criminal provision must also be assessed for its impact on human rights, society, fiscal impact, and justice system capacity. Criminal law has a profound impact on the lives of citizens, whether they recognise it or not. Poor laws affect poor people the most, as they are most vulnerable to the power of the police and small courts. Sure, there will always be crimes that require putting people in jail. Yet a justice system must aim to be restorative and rehabilitative rather than retributive. As Paracelsus, one of the founders of modern medicine, said, “The dose makes the poison.” Anything powerful enough to help has the power to hurt. In India, 75 per cent of prison inmates are undertrials; they have not been convicted of the alleged crime that sent them to jail. We have 3.5 crore pending criminal cases arising from the 5,333 crimes identified in our myriad laws.

 

As we look ahead to Viksit Bharat by India@100, it is the right time to focus on the ease of living for our citizens. We have faith that Jan Vishwas 2.0 and Jan Vishwas 3.0 will find the madhyam marg between trusting and punishing citizens.

 

Rohini Nilekani is a philanthropist and Manish Sabharwal is an entrepreneur.

 

The Indian Express

The Times of India | Rohini Nilekani writes: Our children have told us a wonderful story

Aser 2024 shows govts succeeded in minimising Covid impact on learning gaps. Rural kids are doing better & govt schools are teaching better than low-fee private schools.

 

A moment comes, not too often, when a society can sense joyful satisfaction. Not elation but a quiet happiness. I believe we should savour such a moment now.

The recently released Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024, spearheaded for 20 years by Pratham, with the participation of tens of thousands of volunteers across more than 605 districts calls for celebration. After years of disappointment that the country’s children were not learning as well as they should despite serious efforts of sarkaar and samaaj, results show there’s a clear uptick in both language and arithmetic skills. This is especially clear in the lower grades up to Class 5. We’re nowhere near where we want to be, with 100% of children at grade level efficiency. But we seem to be at a tipping point, where reversal looks unlikely. Most children seem to have bridged the pandemic deficit, and states like UP have done particularly well.


A lot of credit must go to both Centre and state govts. Focus on foundational learning and numeracy (FLN) is yielding results — 80% of schools reported they had received both training and materials for basic learning. Interestingly, gains in competence were consistently higher in govt schools across the country, than in rural budget schools.


The focus on little ones is critical. Brain development science tells us more than a million new neural connections are formed every second in the first few years of life. Connections that form early provide either a weak or a strong foundation for connections that form later. Early experiences shape brain architecture, which then determines future learning, behaviour and health too. What happens to 0-to 8-year-olds matters greatly. The National Education Policy has set a goal of universal coverage for all 3- to 6-year-olds to be in high-quality learning environments by 2030. We’re well on the way. Aser tells us that of all rural children, 77.4% of 3-year-olds and 83.3% of 4-year-olds are enrolled in pre-school or Aanganwadis.


It is hard to attribute this shift to any one cause. But the pandemic created a nationwide jolt to the system. The school system had to go digital. Govt’s ‘Diksha’ platform swung into action. Teachers were trained overnight with new skills. Virtual classrooms and processes were set up. There was a country wide consensus that children were in danger of falling behind. Everything that could be done would be done to prevent this.

 

Suddenly, families became bigger stakeholders in the process. Especially young mothers, who’re themselves more educated than their mothers, with tremendous hopes pinned on their children. They taught themselves to teach. They learned to go online. They saw how play itself became an opportunity for exploration. How the home could be a laboratory for learning. Across the country, people shared notes about their frustrations and their discoveries. Not all the loss could be prevented. The inherent disadvantage of spending two years without formal teaching is showing up in middle school. The learning levels of children in grades 6,7 and 8 seem to have remained flat across the previous Aser reports. We will need to pay very special attention to these students to bring them up to speed. These are already difficult puberty years and children, if not sensitively engaged with, can fall prey to low self-esteem. There is much work ahead.

 

But there is other good news. Less than 3% of 14- to 16-year-olds were found to be out of school. The majority, 89%, of school-goers have a smartphone at home, of whom 82% know its use reasonably well.
Perhaps the native digital citizens now in middle school can leapfrog through new digital tech powered by AI that allows for better self-learning journeys, in language and math. This is already being tried at some scale and success in Tamil Nadu.


Meanwhile, younger children need to learn less through screens and more through play. Albert Einstein believed that ‘Play is the highest form of research. If all of samaaj participated in this process of celebrating childhood learning through free play, maybe we could soon achieve what most countries only dream of —enabling every child to learn how to learn, with joy, agency and dignity.

Recently, a nationwide ‘Bachpan Manao’ campaign has been launched. Together with several civil society organisations, including our Ekstep Foundation, it will aim to enthuse communities, schools and families to encourage free play, and get a broader understanding of how it cements future learning skills. GOI has a popular kit for schools called ‘Jadui Pitara’ to unleash imaginative play-based learning. We hope this will become a strong societal mission, just as Aser has become a citizen’s movement to take public stock of children’s learning.

 

Current 3-year-olds, almost all already enrolled in preschool, will be the nation builders of 2047. We have a unique opportunity to nurture this generation of 0–to 8-year-olds, to make them strong lifelong learners, adapted to a fast-changing environment. With big leaps accomplished, this is the quiet happiness moment society can relish and be rejuvenated for the task ahead.


The writer is Chairperson, Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies.

 

The Times of India