Type: Article

LiveMint | A Sloth Bear in the Sunroom

Just recently, we woke up to some shocking news. The previous night, a sloth bear had broken into our then unoccupied home in the Nilgiris.

This hungry, curious sub-adult wandered around the property and raided the staff kitchen to find only some sugar. Then, encountering no human interference, he decided to try his luck inside the house. Smashing into a small windowpane, he squeezed his considerable bulk through and sauntered around, tracked by security cameras. Finally, finding nothing of interest, he exited the house by crashing through an upstairs glass door.

Now, I consider myself to be a wildlife enthusiast. We have deliberately kept the property wildlife friendly. No barbed wire, no electric fences, no light pollution. We have had the proud pleasure of leopards, leopard cats, porcupines, civets, barking deer, and much more on our camera traps or on strolls around the small tea estate.

As someone who travels whenever possible into the wild, I have also had my share of encounters with and escapes from wild animals, including elephants and tigers. Each has taught me how to be more alert, better prepared, and ever empathetic towards wild creatures.

As a philanthropist, I have supported several organizations doing exemplary work across the country on ecology and the environment. Many of the projects are about restoring cultures that peacefully co-exist with the non-human world, reducing human animal conflict, stemming bio-diversity loss, and promoting conservation.

Yet, the bear in the dining room was a rude wakeup call. Despite my love for wildlife, I recognise the limits of this romance. I will do whatever it takes to ensure the bear cannot enter the house again.

The elite of India can afford to love wildlife while they are protected from it, in luxury resorts and on safe safaris.

Not everyone is so fortunate.

India has among the highest reported rates of human wildlife conflict incidents, including human injury and death, livestock loss and crop damage. In fact, sloth bears caused the highest number of human deaths among wildlife attacks in some regions of India between 2001 and 2015! In the Sundarbans, one tiger related death occurs every week. In Tamil Nadu alone, from 2019-2022, 152 human deaths were caused by elephants.

Everywhere, it is poor labourers and small farmers that face the major brunt. Most incidents reported are due to elephants and tigers, but other wild cats, wild boars, gaurs, bears and even monkeys can cause serious damage. Of course, animals get killed in larger numbers than humans, due to aggressive retaliation. To give just one example, 222 elephants lost their lives between 2018 and 2021 in such conflicts.

None of this is surprising. India is one of the very few remaining countries in the world where, despite the population and land pressure, we have held the belief culturally sacred that non-human life forms have their own right to life. There are a million stories from around the nation of people protecting wild animals at considerable risk to themselves and their livelihoods. Pastoralists and shepherds renounce a few animals as food for snow leopards in the hills, wolves in the plains and tigers everywhere. Sugarcane farmers let leopards breed undisturbed in the tall grasses before harvest. Tea and coffee planters leave big cats, elephants and gaur to roam freely through the bushes.

But some things are changing, and rapidly. India’s conservation efforts have yielded huge dividends with the population of some species stabilizing or others growing, even while others decline rapidly. Many residents have noticed that there are more gaur, bears, leopards, and tigers in the Nilgiris than there were 30-40 years ago. I have personally witnessed this change in less than 20 years. A sloth bear in the living room and a gaur bull at the gate! A veritable animal stock exchange in the heart of Coonoor.

But the huge increase in land under cultivation around wildlife habitats has led to habitat fragmentation. This has depleted eco-sensitive zones such as forest reserves and wildlife sanctuaries around the country. The resultant degradation of quality and quantity of food from the forest no longer meets the needs of animals who shelter there. This drives animals into human settlements, significantly increasing the chance of conflict.

As the country moves into higher economic growth, the rapid increase in infrastructure such as highways, dams and new urban settlements further shrinks our natural resources and fragments ancient animal corridors.

Climate change layers on more complexity and uncertainty. Downstream effects then change the distribution and the behaviour of humans and animals, forcing them to share more crowded spaces and compete for diminishing resources.

Add to this the inescapable fact that new aspirations are driving younger generations away from traditional wisdom about coexistence and deracinating them from nature. Our education system teaches children zero capacity building on these issues, which might make or break our future. Environmental stalwarts lament that their own children are clueless about water sources, forest plants or animal behaviour. This becomes more pronounced in urban areas covering almost 40% of the nation’s population. Forget about bears and leopards, urbanites barely encounter moths and mongooses anymore. We have little knowledge about most animals or how to deal with them in the wild.

Unfortunately, most of us also cannot appreciate just how the complex world of the wild sustains our very modern lifestyles.

So, we use increasingly innovative ways to kill, trap and drive away animals. They are poisoned, hunted, put in enclosures, driven away with loud music and firecrackers, fenced out, electrocuted, and burnt. Animals that survive this onslaught either retreat or become more aggressive, leading to a vicious cycle of more conflict.

Environmentalists and the government are trying to be equally innovative in preventing conflict, using both technology and the arts. There is experimentation with SMS alert systems, sensors, cameras, eco-sensitive lighting, fencing, patrolling and more. Chief Society Officers (CSOs) offer sensitivity training to students and people living in conflict areas, revive cultural traditions and knowledge; and help increase livelihoods from non-timber forest resources or eco-tourism to positively reinforce the relationship between humans and animals. There is much, much more that can be done, which needs both philanthropic support and government partnerships.

India has the biggest opportunity than any country in the world to realize its ambition of inclusive and abundant prosperity for all, without destroying its ecological base. There is no choice but to do so. Our amazing biodiversity and ancient forests are our insurance against a water starved future and climate-related disasters. They are the natural laboratories for pharmaceutical innovation and for food to keep our population healthy. We need them for the minerals and other resources that will fuel our modern dreams.

We simply cannot afford to saw away at the branch we are sitting on and claim it to be the tree’s problem. All of us, including the elite must learn better not to just co-exist with animals and preserve forests but to ensure that they thrive. This is our existential and perhaps exhilarating, challenge.

My 6-year-old grandson summed it up best. Soothing me in my initial panic, he said, “This is nature. There are predators and prey, not good and bad. No one should say that the bear in the house is bad.” From the new generations, as always, springs the hope.

LiveMint

Actizen Blog | Reclaiming Our Role as Citizens

2022 marks exactly 30 years since I started my formal journey in civic engagement. Like many journeys in the civic space, mine also began with an external catalyst. I had lost dear friends to a horrendous car accident on the Bangalore-Chennai highway, which took their unborn daughter and orphaned their three-year-old son. The unnecessary loss had a searing impact on me, perhaps because I was carrying my then-unborn daughter. Although I always had an itch to involve myself in social activism, this incident moved me enough to want to do something – anything – to improve road safety. Luckily, some like-minded citizens felt the same urge, and we jumped into the fray, rather naively but full of goodwill and energy. 

In 1992, we launched a public charitable trust called Nagarik, with the tagline ‘For Safer Roads’. This was my first experience working in a formal civil society organisation, and it was a steep learning curve to rally teams and create meaningful impact. In the end, Nagarik collapsed because we could not sustain a momentum of citizen interest and involvement. But this early failure left me with a strong understanding of what could be done better the next time. I realised that social change requires collective action, where citizens are inspired to actively become part of the solution. It was a humbling experience but a crucial one for my personal journey, aligning with the need for mutual accountability between civil society, state, and markets.

Given the complex societal problems of contemporary India, we need all three sectors -Samaaj, Sarkaar, and Bazaar, i.e. Society, State, and Markets – to work in tandem and with mutual respect, as I have highlighted in my book, Samaaj, Sarkaar, Bazaar – A Citizen-first Approach. However, many citizens do not believe in their own power. They act as innocent consumers of a sometimes-rapacious market. They believe they bear no responsibility in governance and should benefit from it without co-creating the good governance they crave. 

Through many of my field visits, I have often heard citizens complain about garbage on their streets, the rise in corruption, or the state of their neighbourhood parks and public facilities. In frustration, they say, “This is the government’s job, the municipality’s work. They just don’t do it!” There is often little self-reflection on the role of the citizen to prevent the problem from snowballing beyond the state’s capacity to resolve it. Everyone would benefit if citizens stopped littering, took collective action against bribes, or created local committees to care for parks. Citizens can participate in public consultations on draft legislation and give feedback to improve policies and laws. But they must go beyond this to invest in deeper conversations with parliamentarians and state legislators – our lawmakers. Engaging more substantively on how better laws can lead to a better society and demanding that elected representatives involve citizens more in law-making are critical. More such democratic participation is needed in shaping all policies and laws that affect people’s lives.

There is a natural limit to what the state can do. It is almost impossible for activities of the state to effectively solve the problem of the last citizen, or what we refer to as the first mile. When citizens wait for the state to solve their problems, they lose their sense of agency; they feel helpless and hopeless. There is an urgent need for a shift in our thinking. The strength of our democracy depends on an active and engaged citizenry. 

Fortunately, we have a long tradition of social movements, and even today, thousands of civil society organisations in India actively focus on inclusion and empowerment. At the same time, it is important to stress here that the work of Samaaj is not the work of a few organisations alone. While CSOs energise and enable Samaaj, ordinary people, volunteers from every nook and cranny of the country, are the real bedrock of society. 

An active Samaaj implies a civil society that is engaged and participatory. It takes on the agency and responsibility of co-creating good governance with the state and holding markets accountable to the people they serve. It also thinks aloud about how its own choices affect the planet. As I describe in my book, citizens can work together to identify issues and collaborate with local government on solutions.

We must start having conversations about how do we see ourselves as citizens first. How do we see ourselves not just as consumers or subjects of the state, but as active participants in society? We must work to make our society better for everyone, whether that means just doing something within your building, house, neighbourhood, city, or for the whole country. So, just that flip from realising you’re not a subject, you’re not a customer, you are a human being and a citizen first – once these layers are understood, it becomes easier to do the work which strengthens Samaaj.

To the young people in our country, I say (1) Cultivate empathy, (2) Stay curious, (3) Stay connected, understand all the connections, (4) Stay committed, and (5) Always participate.

All of us know things around us are not right. Some children may wonder, “Oh, why are we wasting water?” Some other young person may say, “Oh, what about our rights of expression?” Some other young people may be interested in other environmental issues. Please learn more about what you care about and are passionate about and want to change, and then think, talk to your elders, talk to your friend, “How can I participate in making real change?” Participate with humility, participate without judgment, and participate with self-reflection.

ORF | Pathways to Equality: Advancing Gender Goals in the G20

Pathways to Equality: Advancing Gender Goals in the G20 (a publication by Observer Research Foundation (ORF)) assesses a selection of critical issues faced by women in the G20 nations. It is a critical ‘thinking and doing’ volume for readers seeking to understand how we can transform society by moving the needle on gender equality. The curated essays discuss gender inequality in the G20 countries and explore current initiatives that are being taken to address this pressing issue. It features an all-star set of contributors from various fields, including eminent leaders from politics and society, philanthropists, policymakers, and thought leaders. The featured essays highlight the struggles but also offer up ideas and positive examples of how gender bias can be remedied in creative and practical ways.

A POSITIVE VISION OF MASCULINITY – ROHINI NILEKANI (this article was first published by ORF)

As early as 1995, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action called for a change in the partnership between men and women. This declaration was signed by India, along with 188 other countries, and much progress has been made on women’s rights since, especially when it comes to crucial indices such as enrolment and retention of girls in school, maternal health, and mortality, access to sexual and reproductive health, and financial inclusion. In India, I have witnessed the transformation among some of the 60 million women who are members of self-help groups, becoming more financially independent and sometimes emerging into local politics, as powerful influencers of public policy. This has resulted in more than one million elected women leaders at the panchayat level of government, possibly a world record. Much more remains to be done, however, when it comes to the empowerment of women, girls, and other genders. In fact, in many societies, we may be losing the gains made in the past two centuries.

This, then, is a useful moment to revisit the spirit of the Beijing Declaration. This is the time to understand the root causes of gender inequity and to pause and examine why efforts around building a gender-equitable society often omit the participation of or active engagement with boys and men, whose lives are inextricably linked to women.

The Challenge
Gender equity is as important for men and boys as for women and other genders. Inequitable gender norms lead to severe negative impacts on people of all genders. While women and transpeople face violence and discrimination, barriers to livelihoods, health services, safe public spaces, and more, rigid masculine norms can put pressure on men and boys to engage in risky behaviours such as violence, unsafe sex, and substance abuse. Men often find themselves in physically and psychologically unsafe spaces, while social norms prevent them from being vulnerable or opening up about their challenges and seeking help. As a result, many men struggle to form stable, fulfilling relationships.

My attention was drawn to the issues of men and boys about seven years ago. A few instances from that time have stayed with me. One was in Ramanagara, Karnataka, when I saw a young boy crying in a public space and stopped to ask him what had happened. He was with his sister, and he was crying because although he had done very well in his 10th standard examination and wanted to study further, his father
had just informed him that he had secured him a job in the local Skills Training Corporation and that he would have to join the government. There was no question about him studying further. I have spoken
similarly to dozens of young men who have felt forced to follow in their father’s footsteps when it came to their livelihoods.

Another incident was when our car was stopped on a busy highway by a group of young men wielding lathis (sticks). They were holding up traffic in frustration at a local deadly accident, but their faces were flushed with excitement and a sense of raw power. The youngest among them could not have been more than 10 or 11 years old. And there were no girls or women in that mob.

The last example is of the scene at an employment queue, where dozens of young men were waiting, praying for jobs. These were posts like security guards, sales and service agents, or others that would barely offer subsistence wages. In their eyes, I could see equal parts of hope and despair. These snapshots assemble like a gallery for me, portraying the reality faced by 200 million young men in India, between the ages of 13-25, many of whom lack adequate opportunity, employment, and dignity.

This led me to investigate which organisations are working on these issues. There were not too many when I opened up a philanthropy portfolio to work with and for young men and boys. Today, my foundation has 16 partner organisations trying innovative ways to create shared and safe places for young males who aspire to become their best selves.

In multiple accounts from our NGO partners, and through our own research, we have heard boys talk about their worries, and rue the lack of intimacy or spaces where they can be real and vulnerable. In focus group discussions with boys in the 18-to-22-year age bracket across social classes, some said that many ideas of boyhood and manhood are forced upon them—they have to be strong, breadwinners, successful, protect and bring honour to their families, and uphold the traditions of society (1). They have to become worthy of marrying a girl by accumulating higher educational qualifications and high-paying jobs, and always doing better than their fathers.

But millions of young men simply cannot live up to these expectations. We see this even on a global scale, with the International Labour Organization calling the young men of today a scarred generation (2). Too many of them are undereducated, underemployed, and unemployable because they lack the new skills valued by the current economy, as traditional livelihoods like farming have lost their appeal. These are challenges that men face in ways unique only to them, but as Richard Reeves says, we often mistake the problem of boys and men with the problem with boys and men.

When we look at the lives of men and boys through the lens of data, the statistics are grim. In India, for instance, in 2021, 81 percent of all recorded accidental deaths were men; 73 percent of all suicides were
male (and these numbers have jumped by an average of 25 percent since 1967) (3); 96 percent of all persons in prison are men (4); and an overwhelming majority of alcohol users are males (about 95 percent) who fall in the age bracket of 18-49 years (74 percent) (5). Anecdotally, substance abuse among boys is on the rise, with the age of initiation getting lower and lower. In education, the latest Unified District Information System for Education data shows that more than 18 percent
of districts in India are reporting higher school dropout rates for boys (as compared with girls) (6). Moreover, data reports boys having higher rates of extreme stunting and wasting in comparison with girls (7).

The argument here is not that girls and women face no challenges, or that the lives of boys are worse than that of other genders. The point of presenting data about the lives of boys and men is that raising boys in a patriarchal mould is not only serving the world badly but is also coming at a high cost to them. This is something we must take a closer look at, especially because the world is changing rapidly, and society is in a period of great transition.

The Role of Boys and Men in Shifting Social Norms
This is a time for new openings, but also tremendous anxieties. Boys and men increasingly feel they have no control over their future. They are having to deal with elements in the marketplace that they have not been raised to understand—including women, technology, and climate change. At the same time, there is a lack of positive/alternative role models for many boys. How often do boys see fathers taking on household work or being the primary caregivers? Not only do social norms disallow men from stepping up to these roles, but the structural economy also prevents it. In India, fathers are entitled to only 15 days of paternity leave, compared with 26 weeks for the mother. This is even though studies show that paternity leave not only pushes fathers to assume greater parental responsibilities but also fosters better relations with and growth of the child, to say nothing of being a huge support to the new
mother (8).

Without adequate structural support, the burden of livelihoods will continue to fall on men, which will in turn keep women locked in traditional caregiving roles. The falling rate of women’s labour participation in
India may be a wake-up call. Perhaps it is time to see gender equity as a household-level issue, where women are freed from the home so they can break ground in traditionally male-occupied spaces, and men are encouraged (and sometimes they even need permission to be so, as our informal research has shown) to be active householders. Certainly, an efficient, demand-led system of childcare, provided by both the sarkaar (state) and the bazaar (market) could be a key driver of change in the samaaj (society).

Without such interventions, boys are set up to continue reinforcing the archetypal macho image and pretend that everything is fine, even when it is not. When there are millions of young people who feel this way in any nation or society, it results in these young and restless men turning inwards or outwards, possibly in violence. Recent events in India and worldwide confirm that there is indeed a backlash from increasingly insecure males of all political and religious hues. It is prudent for all of us, especially academics, policymakers, and practitioners, to pay keen attention to why that is happening, and design a non-judgemental, highly creative response to this emergence, not just in programmatic work, but within each one of us, in our homes, social groups, and in the broader polity.

A Call for Public Programmes for Boys and Men
How can we better support boys and men looking for change? Civil society organisations are natural allies for this work, but public programmes can catalyse this work at scale. In our internally commissioned research, we found that in 2021, ~US$365 million was allocated in the national budget for schemes and programmes for girls (for example, girls hostel scheme, Mission Poshan, and Mission Shakti) but no separate funding was allocated for programmes looking to intentionally engage males. In 2014, US$3 million was allocated towards a scheme called Saksham (holistic development of adolescent boys); however, no funds were released, and the scheme was shelved.

As we continue to work for women’s empowerment, can we also creatively solve this challenge of young men’s empowerment? Can we design public programmes for young males? Can we innovate safe, shared spaces so that boys can talk to each other without ridicule and fear? Can we imagine social structures where young men can organise around financial and other needs? Can we make time for boys to learn
about arts, sports, painting, and music, and encourage them to pursue things that help them grow as human beings?

We need to open up these conversations in our own homes, at the dinner table, or when families spend time together. We need to especially have these conversations in rooms where many men and women come from a place of privilege. While we continue to run gender sensitisation programmes on the field, in villages, and places where boys and men sit at the intersection of many disadvantages, it is equally necessary to keep one channel open with powerful privileged men. How do men who are rich, successful, and powerful participate in the creation of a society they want for their daughters and sons? What kind of role models can they be for the next generation? How can business owners thread care
and gender equity into all aspects of their factories and businesses?

This is a creative challenge for the corporate sector, which has done some credible work on empowering women at work. Now there is more work to do with men. I have met so many young men who want to enter the social sector or the corporate sector to change the way capitalism works. They could be great leaders for this societal mission.

Through my philanthropy, I support many wonderful organisations that are at the forefront of this complex work. And through them, I am learning that the discourse is indeed shifting (9). The younger generation is increasingly questioning fixed gender norms, and their conversation is platforming plurality and fluidity. Tens of millions of young men are moving onwards and outwards from where they were born or where they were stuck, to try and make something more of themselves. But they need society’s help.

Even if they have been brought up with certain traditional values, they are open to new norms, especially on gender issues, and like young people everywhere, they are experimenting. As the saying goes, the future is here, it is just not evenly distributed. If we support them, we can make it happen sooner than we think. Moreover, green shoots are already emerging. Think of the small but noteworthy examples of single fathers, who are adopting children despite the difficulty the law presents them with. Think of the men entering unusual occupations in the arts or in the care economy.


And then there are the celebrities. Cricketer Virat Kohli missed three out of four test matches that were part of an important Australian tour to be with his newborn baby. He had to brave much controversy when he talked about this. Tennis players Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal cried openly in defiance of the norm as Federer retired from an illustrious career. More and more famous and powerful men are showing younger boys that masculinity need not be a prescripted idea.

We know that there are many such good men in the world, who have silently worked on themselves and with the women in their lives to balance power better. Again, in the spirit of inclusion, of not generalising, of not lumping men together, let us acknowledge, celebrate, and ally and work with the men who are on this journey. This must be a co-powered journey for a more humane society.

Endnotes
(1) Rohini Nilekani, Report: What’s It like Being a Young Man in Urban India Today?
(Bangalore: Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies Foundation, 2022), https://
rohininilekaniphilanthropies.org/resources/report-whats-it-like-being-a-youngman-in-urban-india-today/
(2) International Labour Organization, Global Employment Trends for Youth: 2011 Update,
October 2011 (Geneva: International Labour Organization, 2011), https://www.ilo.
org/empelm/pubs/WCMS_165455/lang–en/index.htm
(3) NCRB, Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India 2021 (New Delhi: NCRB, 2021), https://
ncrb.gov.in/sites/default/files/ADSI-2021/ADSI_2021_FULL_REPORT.pdf
(4) NCRB, Prison Statistics India 2021 – Executive Summary (New Delhi: NCRB, 2021),
https://ncrb.gov.in/sites/default/files/PSI-2021/Executive_ncrb_Summary-2021.
pdf
(5) National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre and All India Institute of Medical
Sciences, Magnitude of Substance Use in India 2019 (New Delhi: Ministry of Social
Justice and Empowerment, 2019), https://socialjustice.gov.in/writereaddata/
UploadFile/Survey%20Report636935330086452652.pdf
(6) Ministry of Education, Unified District Information System for Education Plus: 2021-2022
Flash Statistics (Ministry of Education, 2022), https://www.education.gov.in/sites/
upload_files/mhrd/files/statistics-new/udise_21_22.pdf
(7) Kundan Pandey, “Why are Boys More Malnourished than Girls in India?,”
DownToEarth, February 19, 2018, https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/health/
why-are-boys-more-malnourished-than-girls-in-india-59734
(8) Richard J. Petts et al., “Fathers’ Paternity Leave-Taking and Children’s Perceptions
of Father-Child Relationships in the United States,” National Library of Medicine,
2020, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7030161/
(9) Rohini Nilekani, “Build the Field. Build the Movement. Engaging Young Men
& Boys in India,” Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies Foundation, 2021, https://
rohininilekaniphilanthropies.org/resources/report-build-the-field-build-themovement-engaging-young-men-boys-in-india/

IDR | What New Possibilities Could Your Leadership Unlock?

By Gautam John, CEO – Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies
In the quest for social impact, community building and platform creation are crucial strategies for nonprofits. The power of shared values, the vibrancy of collective action, and the sustainability offered by a community-centric approach can help amplify the reach and resonance of an organisation’s mission.

These strategies are the equivalent of turning a single powerful gorilla into a herd of nimble deer, with the organisation acting as a life-giving oasis. Let’s explore how leadership can guide this transformation using the idea of fractals.

Fractals are shapes in geometry that repeat the same pattern on different scales. Leadership is much like this. It’s not a one-way journey but a process that needs constant refining and adjusting, just like a fractal shape that keeps refining itself. Small changes in the beginning can lead to a significant difference later. Similarly, in a community, small decisions can create large effects.

Consider an instance where a leader’s values differ slightly from the organisation’s. At first, it may not be a reason for concern, causing only small ripples. But as this difference is repeated, it can create larger problems in the organisation, leading to confusion and inefficiencies. Over time, this slight difference can become a big issue, leading to the failure of the organisation.

I’ve learned from my experiences that leadership is like a fractal. It starts with one person making a change, which then affects those around them. Here are six ways in which leaders can help their communities grow and make a bigger impact.

1. Sharing core values

Community building begins with identifying and articulating your organisation’s core values. These values serve as the lifeblood that guides the community’s interactions, behaviours, and goals. It’s essential to understand that these core values aren’t merely imposed from the top but rather emerge naturally as an embodiment of the team’s shared beliefs, experiences, and aspirations.

The values thus formed become the common thread that connects diverse individuals, magnetically attracting those with similar beliefs and instilling a sense of camaraderie and shared identity within the community.

These values also give everyone a common language and frame of reference, guiding their actions towards achieving collective goals. This process is not a one-off event but a continuous exercise requiring constant introspection, mutual conversations, and a deep understanding of the community’s mission and vision.

Each member must live and breathe these values, and not just pay lip service to them. This can only happen when they are shared openly, regularly, and with conviction. Leaders for their part should incorporate these values in all communications and demonstrate them through actions.

Socratus, an organisation that works towards arriving at political solutions by bringing together all key agents who are the proponents of competing schools of thought, undertook an exhaustive process of reformulating and crystallising its core values, involving everyone from the senior management to all levels of the organisation. This process aimed to ingrain these values in the organisation’s collective conscience and is consistently revisited in weekly meetings.

The aim is not to achieve a fixed set of values but to nurture a living ethos that resonates with the community.

Similarly, Agami, a nonprofit that works towards innovation in law and justice, has integrated service leadership into their operations and community interactions, reflecting the organisation’s core values. Arghyam uses its mission of providing ‘safe, sustainable water for all’ as a guiding star, helping them discern whether their actions mitigate or aggravate issues. By conducting regular dialogues with stakeholders and beneficiaries, Arghyam ensures alignment with its mission of water security.

Articulating and sharing core values is an ongoing journey. The aim is not to achieve a fixed set of values but to nurture a living ethos that resonates with the community, evolves with it, and guides it towards a shared vision.

2. Encouraging unexpected connections

Serendipity—the occurrence of beneficial events by chance—can fuel innovation and foster deep connections within the community. It is the impromptu conversation at a networking event, the unexpected collaboration from a casual chat, or the innovative idea sparked by a chance meeting. Serendipity brings novelty and spontaneity, allowing diverse ideas and perspectives to mingle and generate unique solutions.

As leaders, the task is to architect an environment that nurtures these moments and promotes open dialogue and cooperation.

Creating ‘collision spaces’ where members can cross paths, interact, and collaborate is essential in fostering this culture of serendipity. These are not necessarily physical spaces but occasions, platforms, or environments that encourage and facilitate unexpected interactions and exchanges among community members. This could take shape in various forms—community meetups, workshops, online discussion forums, virtual coffee breaks, or social gatherings.

As leaders, the task is to architect an environment that nurtures these moments and promotes open dialogue and cooperation. This involves striking a delicate balance between structure and freedom—enough structure to provide a sense of order and coherence, and enough freedom for members to explore, express, and experiment. It also includes crafting an atmosphere of psychological safety where members feel seen, heard, and valued—spaces where they find it safe to voice their ideas and concerns, take risks, and make mistakes.

3. Building trust in the community

Building culture transcends merely assembling individuals around common interests or goals. Instead, it is rooted in creating an environment where care and trust are the foundations of every interaction, relationship, and initiative.

Leaders play a crucial role in this process. Their task extends beyond simply setting rules or defining boundaries; they must embody and model the behaviours they wish to see reflected within the community. This means constantly demonstrating empathy, practising active listening, offering support, and extending kindness and respect to all members. Furthermore, leaders must reinforce these behaviours through effective policies, constructive practices, and responsive feedback mechanisms.

Investing in trust is equally essential. Building trust is not an overnight process; it requires persistent and earnest efforts, transparent and open communication, and a willingness to face conflicts respectfully and constructively. Trust is built and sustained through consistent actions that validate the words spoken. And as trust grows, members become more willing to contribute, collaborate, and take risks, knowing they are in a safe and supportive environment.

At Agami, camaraderie and trust between colleagues and external partners is built through activities such as retreats, offsites, and informal meetups. Responsiveness to user needs and addressing issues respectfully, even when they can’t be resolved, are part of the leadership’s approach at Pratham Books to cultivate user loyalty.

4. Developing a platform for engagement

Platforms serve as a communal space or ‘watering hole’ for your community, where members gather, interact, learn, and collaborate.

These platforms often emerge organically from the needs and aspirations of the community rather than being predetermined structures. Therefore, they must not merely be technical solutions, but instead offer a space that nurtures a sense of belonging and encourages co-creation.

Community members should feel empowered to contribute to, innovate within, and take responsibility of the platform’s development and governance. This active participation deepens engagement and creates a stronger sense of ownership and accountability. It results in a platform that evolves with its users, ensuring its relevance, utility, and longevity.

Pratham Books developed StoryWeaver by observing how translators work offline and replicating this process online, making the platform intuitive and responsive to the needs of marginalised users. Arghyam amplified community capabilities by creating digital spaces to make skills training data visible and reusable at scale. This approach also fostered collaboration between government departments previously operating in silos.

5. Getting ready for decentralisation

The journey towards a community-centric model is a significant transformational process that involves rethinking and reorienting traditional organisational structures. It necessitates the shift from a hierarchical, control-based approach to a more collaborative, decentralised model, embracing shared ownership and governance.

This shift is not just operational but also cultural. It requires a change in mindset among the leadership and individual team members. It’s about redefining power structures and creating an environment that allows community members to shape the organisation.

A shift towards real decentralisation makes the organisation more resilient and adaptable in the face of change.

Indus Action, for instance, is working towards a future where regional teams operate autonomously and are independently funded, while the central team focuses on specialised functions such as technology. Pratham Books has adopted a light-touch governance approach for their StoryWeaver platform, employing mechanisms such as red flagging to maintain quality while encouraging open contribution. The organisation believes in collective stewardship, allowing the community to control the platform with minimal gatekeeping.

Such a shift towards real decentralisation—handing over ownership and agency to the community members—makes the organisation more resilient and adaptable in the face of change. By embracing decentralisation, the organisation truly becomes a platform that is of the community, by the community, and for the community.

6. Becoming a gardener

In a community-focused model, leaders transition from being the central authority to adopting the role of a ‘gardener’, often both within the host organisation and in the larger community.

Much like a gardener who cultivates a thriving ecosystem, leaders provide the necessary resources, conditions, and support for growth but also step back to allow the community to take the lead and evolve organically. This means creating opportunities for members to spearhead initiatives, mentor others, and even make mistakes from which to learn and grow.

But it’s more than just stepping back. It’s also about being attuned to the changing needs and dynamics of the community. It involves listening, observing, and offering targeted interventions when necessary, not unlike a gardener who prunes a tree or enriches the soil. Leaders need to maintain a hands-off, eyes-on approach, nurturing the environment while respecting the autonomy and individuality of its members.

Ashoka recognises individuals in the ecosystem who spotlight others’ needs without pushing their own agendas. Ashoka believes it serves as magnets, bringing together different stakeholders. At CIVIS, the leadership encourages organisations to cultivate volunteers’ passions, encouraging them to take ownership of the work rather than focusing on internal scaling.

Building communities is a journey of learning, adapting, and growing. The most successful organisations are those that enrich and are enriched by their communities. By embracing this fractal approach, leaders can help their communities become more resilient, creative, and impactful.

So, what patterns will you adopt to grow a thriving community? What new possibilities could your leadership unlock?

IDR

The South Asia Journal | Democracy’s Handmaiden: Humour

First published by The Times of India in July 2020, this article is from the book, Samaaj, Sarkaar, Bazaar – A Citizen-first Approach.

In today’s India, we need more of a funny bone in our public life

In these dark times, there is no harm in easing up with some sharp humour. Like the coronavirus, humour is infectious, but can spread much-needed joy. The world over, social media is lighting up with witty memes around the pandemic. Bumbling politicians have been prime targets, and especially President Donald Trump. “Calm down, everyone,” reads one meme, “A six-time bankrupted reality TV star is handling the situation.”
But that is the US, where comics can get away with a lot, without political backlash. Where, in fact, politicians themselves can create the humour.
In 1985, I was lucky to be a reporter in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where former President Gerald Ford hosted a three-day conference on “Humour in the Presidency”. Ironically, Ford was hardly known for his sense of humour. Asked why he had hosted a conference where he himself might be the butt of many jokes, he disarmingly said, “I thought a look at the lighter side of politics may help us to realise that perhaps sometimes we take ourselves too seriously.”

This is the crux of the issue, then and now. When politicians take themselves too seriously, and when the public takes its politicians too seriously, unintended yet harmful consequences can emerge. Imagine if more people had laughed outright at the self-important demagogues of the past century. Could that have prevented some from taking their own absurd and dangerous ideas to fruition? We don’t know, but it is worth thinking about.
The Ford conference was a refreshing change after the humourless years of the Nixon presidency, where America had perforce to look into the dark soul of its politics and its president. There was a steady stream of jokes about US presidents, with Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, and John F. Kennedy as the favourites. Conference speakers remarked on how the smarter politicians would make self-deprecating jokes before others could mock them.

President Kennedy had the best flair for it. Criticised for bankrolling his campaign with his father’s money, he retorted, “I just had a telegram from my famous Daddy: Dear Jack. Don’t buy a single vote more than is necessary. I’ll be damned if I am going to pay for a landslide.” Similarly, Reagan was very skilled at winning over crowds and critics with his jocular manner. “I’m not worried about the deficit,” he famously said. “It’s big enough to take care of itself.”
In today’s India, perhaps we need more humour in our public life. Are our politicians able to joke about themselves? Or do they mainly use ridicule? And what about us? Do we lack a political funny bone?
India has had a long, strong history of political satire. The kingdoms of India appointed court jesters or vidushaks to lighten the atmosphere. They would take pot shots at the public, at visitors and sometimes at the king himself. Remember the stories of Tenali Ramkrishna, Birbal, Gopal Bhar and Gonu Jha? Their job was to bring wit and humour to expose oppression and injustice.
Through India’s freedom struggle too, there were many lighter moments. Sarojini Naidu’s descriptions of the Mahatma as Mickey Mouse and Little Man did not anger him. Instead, he signed off as Little Man in his letters to her.
Today, too, we have a burgeoning number of stand-up comics, especially in Hindi. At increasing personal risk, they take sure-fire aim at our politicians, who manage routinely to generate great material for satire. But in India, this is still a cottage enterprise compared to the full-fledged industry in the US, now in full spate through Trump’s term.
Arguably, today, there has been a chilling effect on our humorists. Cases of sedition have been initiated against cartoonists and others, for criticising the government or the ruling party. Intensive trolling and threats have inundated those who raise important issues in jest. Certainly, today’s humorists have to be braver than their profession should require them to be.
As citizens, we should renew our understanding of why political humour is critical to society. Historically, too much power and secrecy have often coincided with a lack of tolerance for satire, leading to a breakdown of trust between the public and the government. Humour can provide a safety valve when social pressures are building. It can inform us about social relations.
Concentrated power without feedback loops is dangerous. We all know the story of the emperor’s new clothes. When they mock elites, humorists can hold leaders accountable. They create safe space for us to think through things, to question our beliefs and to change our minds.
That’s precisely why governments and politicians don’t like humorists. They hate to be challenged. But it is also why the samaj must support humorists. We need mirrors held up to us; we need new ways to refract reality.
Of course, there is a Laxman rekha that is crossed at great peril to both humorists and society. Comics need to practise both restraint and sophistication. They need sensitivity to local histories and culture. But offence is taken, not given. Even if some humour makes people in power uncomfortable, it may simply be because the truth sometimes hurts.
The best example often comes from the top. At the White House, when Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin Roosevelt, was asked where the president was, she said, “Where the laughter is.”
Would that we could say the same, here, and soon.

The South Asian Journal

ET | Conquer Mt Self Learning

When we look back at the 2020s, will we be able to conclude that this was the decade in which India completed its long journey to ensure universal foundational literacy and numeracy? Can we promise this to the 250 million children, many of whom are still waiting to join the rest on the journey of self-learning?

If at any time this was going to be achievable, it is now. The next three years are critical. And many windows of opportunity have opened up together to make this happen.

Successive governments have made progress on the road with programs like GoI’s Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA) and Karnataka’s activity-based learning programme Nali Kali. These have culminated in the New Education Policy (NEP), launched in 2020 to create a new pedagogic and curricular structure of 5+3+3+4, the first stage being the foundational stage covering children in the ages of 3 to 8 years. For this most important age group, there is  the National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN Bharat), launched in July 2021during the pandemic, amid fears of severe learning loss during one of the longest periods of school closure in the world.

Luckily, the fears were somewhat belied. Children have recouped sooner than predicted, thanks to organized efforts. The National Curriculum Framework for Foundational Stage (NCFFS) was released in October 2022, in both physical and digital formats, creating a searchable document that helps demystify foundational learning.

NIPUN Bharat has set out clear and concise learning goals and outcomes. This has galvanised several state governments to put in much needed resources for relevant teaching-learning material, teacher training and most importantly, a more structured inclusion of parents. This must be celebrated and convert to a broadly embraced societal mission for the country.

Along with sarkaar, the bazaar too has stepped up in a big way to boost access to educational tools. Edtech companies and content platforms have created multiple offerings to teachers and learners, with content, accreditation, testing tools and more. The 600 million plus smart phones and access to digital technologies have created unprecedented opportunities. A new imagination has been unleashed. Market forces have internalised the reality that India’s ambitions for its economic development need a functional workforce, standing on a solid foundation of the ability to learn and adapt to changing needs.

Over decades, hundreds of civil society organisations (CSOs)across India have also worked tirelessly with communities and the school system to understand what children are learning, what the gaps are and then to experiment with filling them.

NGOs like Pratham have, for 28 years, provided evidence-based tools for teaching and learning at the foundational stage when there was little attention paid to this issue. Through the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), they have, since 2005, kept our collective attention on the crisis in early learning. The Azim Premji Foundation (APF) has through its relentless support of  the public education system enhanced teacher capability and the development of communities of practice around learning outcomes. The Central Square Foundation (CSF) has long nurtured an ecosystem for the foundational stage, and has pioneered programmatic support for various states across the country. 

EkStep Foundation has created open, digital public goods to enable a national digital infrastructure for learning. GoI’s Diksha platform has used this technology to create billions of learning sessions on its platform.

Together, samaaj, sarkaar and bazaar  are now in the best place we could possibly be. There is more difficult hiking ahead. But you can see the summit clearly. As India’s population growth stabilises, the number of new children entering the learning universe will continuously go down from the current 25 million a year. And if society takes up this challenge seriously –  as a joyful responsibility – it is very doable.

Think about this. With parents and grandparents included, these 25 million children already have about 100 million caring adults totally vested in their success. Plus, this is the first fully literate cohort of parents in India, who have all completed at least a few years of schooling and want even more for their children. We have to find new ways to include them, along with the whole education system, from anganwadi workers to school principals, education secretaries and ministers, to achieve our societal goal.

We must innovate and incorporate play as a serious method for young children to learn naturally. This time, we must learn to do this by ensuring inclusion and diversity, and by making foundational learning sustainable and irreversible. We can use digital goods and services to generate relevant data for quick course correction.

It is early days, but AI tools can also help us leapfrog over some legacy obstacles, and create a unified but not uniform response, especially when it comes to local languages in which children learn best. If we do all this, we will have a generation of confident, eager young learners, able to enhance their own well-being and therefore immeasurably add to the prosperity of our beloved nation.. Together, let’s celebrate the children of India. Let’s celebrate childhood itself. Bachpan manao, badhte jao.

Read the article in The Economics Times

Forbes | No longer are we confined to the conventional and the familiar

In 2013, Rohini Nilekani was featured on the cover of our Heroes of Philanthropy edition alongside husband Nandan, co-founder of Infosys, for backing social causes others may find risky. The founder of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies reflects on how far she has come, and how Indian philanthropy has changed along the way.

When I look back at how far we’ve come, I feel cautious optimism for the future of Indian philanthropy. There has been a subtle but significant transformation in the approach to social causes. No longer are we confined to the conventional and familiar. Today’s philanthropists, especially those with first generation wealth, have begun to venture into uncharted territories. Whether it is mental health, scientific research, access to justice, or art and culture, they are investing innovative, patient capital for serious transformation.

 More importantly, people are thinking together, and at the scale of the problem.

Take, for instance, the Grassroots, Resilience, Ownership, and Wellness (GROW) Fund, an initiative pioneered by the EdelGive Foundation in partnership with a generous cohort of dedicated funders. This ground-breaking endeavour aims to fortify 100 impactful grassroots organisations over two years.

What’s remarkable about this is the spirit of collaboration. We are not just pooling resources; we are a unified front of philanthropists saying, “We can do more together.” By reaching out to grassroots organisations that often miss out on the spotlight of traditional philanthropy, we hope to create a new trend.

A similar story unfolds with the India Climate Collaborative (ICC) that we too are a part of. Here’s an initiative that understands the urgency of climate change and is committed to establishing an India-specific narrative. Launched in 2020, the ICC is a beacon of hope, inviting “diverse voices, innovative solutions, and collective investments”. Many well-known philanthropists and organisations, such as Ratan Tata, and esteemed institutions like the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology & the Environment (ATREE) are part of this collaborative.

Also read: Indian philanthropists need to become bolder, lead with trust, look for new areas to fund: Rohini Nilekani

No longer are we confined to the conventional and the familiar: Rohini Nilekani on philanthropy in India

Even where the efforts are in traditional areas, there is much more work at scale and in the spirit of true collaboration. Examples are the Anamaya collective for tribal health, spearheaded by the Piramal Foundation, the work on water security by ATE Chandra Foundation with partners like Caring Friends, and leadership development in education through Shikshalokam, primarily supported by the Shibulal family.

Hopefully, the philanthropic scene in India is on the cusp of great change. With the multitude of interconnected challenges India faces, from the widening inequality gap to the impending climate crisis, philanthropists are leaning more towards multi-stakeholder partnerships and holistic strategies that strike at the heart of these complex social issues.

In our own philanthropy, we have learnt to take a more ecosystems approach. With the Societal Thinking team, for example, we are trying hard to help the best social entrepreneurs to be even more effective. Through our mental health portfolio, we hope to deepen both research and practice in an area of extreme vulnerability and inadequate resources. On the environment issue, we are broadening and deepening our support to the many excellent non-profits working on improved resilience and restoration.

There is so much more to do in this country, as old problems morph into new ones, and traditional solutions seem inadequate. This is the crucial time for Indian philanthropists to really step up and give forward in a faster, bigger and bolder manner. Luckily, the green shoots are visible.

IDR | The power of building a community

This article is written by Gautam John, CEO – Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies. First published in IDR.

How does one create infinite good with finite time and resources? This is the challenge that many nonprofits face. The traditional approach to this question of scale has been to build a larger organisation. However, there is an alternative—one that enables the organisation to scale through external resources by building communities, engaging networks, and creating platforms.

To help illustrate this point, I often use the metaphor of a 300-pound gorilla versus a herd of 300 deer. The gorilla represents a central entity that is slow to move and expensive to feed, whereas the deer are agile, responsive, and independent, both as individuals and as a group. While it may be easier to manage the gorilla, there are ways to manage the herd of deer–by creating a watering hole where they can gather. This watering hole represents a safe place of trust and resources where the community can share knowledge, ideas, and solutions. By building such a watering hole (a platform), nonprofits can create value throughout the ecosystem.

Platforms are the best way to engage what Seth Godin calls ‘tribes’—a group of people or a community that has a shared interest. The platform then becomes a way for people to communicate and organise. 

However, when platforms focus only on their scale, or the number of users they have, they can inadvertently fracture communities. This is because the sheer size can make it difficult for users to connect in meaningful ways, leading to a fragmentation of the community. It is, therefore, crucial for platforms to prioritise building depth and trust within communities.

Depth refers to the quality of connections and interactions among community members, while trust is the sense of safety and reliability people feel within the community. Fostering deeper connections and trust could mean offering features, services, or content that cater to the specific needs and interests of the community members. Doing this can help a platform create value for their users, and foster loyalty and retention—both of which are key to long-term success.

To achieve any of this, however, it is important to first nurture a community around shared values—essentially beliefs, goals, and principles that unite a group of people and guide their interactions. This is the foundation on which platforms can then build a thriving community that can grow and evolve over time.

Building a community

I worked at Pratham Books from 2007 to 2014 when it chose the Creative Commons model and gave up its position as a content gatekeeper in the children’s publishing space—a bold move at that time. They openly licensed their content to spur discussion, and had regular interactions with the community. This enabled entrepreneurs to experiment with creating new formats for content, enabled organisations to make this content accessible for differently abled people, and encouraged everyone to localise the material in ways relevant to their contexts.

This approach allowed Pratham Books to harness the power of this vibrant community and the breadth of these external resources to achieve its larger goal of helping all children discover the joy of reading.

While Pratham Books is one of the first ones I know of that adopted this agile, community-centric platform model, I now see others in the nonprofit ecosystem such as Agami, Civis, Reap Benefit, and EdelGive Foundation’s GROW Fund that have developed innovative models to expand their impact using technology, capacity building, and social engagement.

Creating community-centric platform models

Agami seeks to elevate other innovators in the space to create a network of problem solvers rather than doing it alone. Civis is a platform that works under their umbrella. It creates a participatory structure for citizens to engage with draft policies and laws. Its open-source technology interface makes room for citizens to be active participants through public consultations on urban development, environment, social justice, information technology, and health. Civis then collates this data and shares it with the government to build accountability.

A similar initiative is Reap Benefit, dedicated to collective action around civic and environmental problems at a hyperlocal level in cities. Through a platform called Solve Ninjas, Reap Benefit gives agency to communities to solve the issues and propose solutions at the local level, whether it is designing better dustbins, waterless urinals, or community waste and garbage disposal methods. The information collected on the platform is then shared with stakeholders and governance to push for impact. Reap Benefit’s community-driven approach has allowed it to build a platform that empowers young people to become changemakers within their communities.

An important realisation is that platforms that serve communities can look very different while serving similar purposes. EdelGive Foundation’s GROW Fund, which supports 100 nonprofits, is an example of a platform that goes beyond mere collaboration. It has effectively evolved into a transformative platform, fostering knowledge sharing, capacity building, and continuous improvement for its partner organisations. By implementing a platform model based on trust and community engagement, the GROW Fund has demonstrated the potential for such platforms to create sustainable social impact.

The reasons for the importance of these platforms are many:

  • They provide a way to scale without scaling the organisation proportionally.
  • They provide a way to bind and engage communities even without continuous engagement.
  • They help build sustainability and reliability by creating many community audiences and voices.
  • They are a force multiplier, offering the possibility of leveraging the power of networks. As the web grows, its value increases exponentially.
  • They offer some protection against failure. Once stable, a platform needs far less overhead to function than an organisation.

While existing platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram are good, they cannot be the primary platforms since their agenda is their own. They are beachheads in the digital world, but these companies hold the development, messaging, and purpose and seek to build their own communities on their platforms.

Investing in the community and nurturing it

Communities provide us with a sense of identity and belonging and can offer support during difficult times. However, communities don’t just happen; they need to be built and maintained through the investment of care. This can take many forms, from simply being friendly and welcoming to new members to organising shared events and forums. But whatever form it takes, the care we invest in our community helps to create a stronger, more resilient place for all of us.

J P Rangaswami, in his blog titled ‘The Plural of Personal Is Social,’ writes: “You need to start thinking of the customer as someone to have a relationship with, to get to know, to invest in, to trust, to respect. And you need to get everyone in the company to think that way, to act that way, in everything they do. And you need to do this everywhere, not just with your customers. Not just with your supply web or your trading partners. Not just with your staff and your consultants. Everyone. Everywhere.”

What organisations need then is an internal culture that enables this. They need to learn how to work with crowds and govern through the network rather than controlling the network itself, understanding the community by working with insights from learning and feedback loops. This can only be done if the tone is set at the top of the organisation and demonstrated in practice. 

My time at Pratham Books taught me valuable lessons about communities and platforms and their role in creating positive social impact. Witnessing the power of building and nurturing a community to create value throughout an ecosystem has impacted my work—it has instilled in me the desire to cultivate care, trust, and value for users in any community-building endeavour. I have understood that nonprofits can achieve scale and catalyse infinite good with finite time and resources through engaging networks, creating platforms, and fostering communities.

I now approach platform and community building with a focus on deepening connections and building trust, and understanding that scale only happens at the speed of trust. Because only when we view the community as an investment are we more likely to work together towards common goals and create a stronger sense of connection. This is the mindset I now carry with me in all my work.

IDR

LiveMint | Why India’s forests need new stewards?

This article was first published in LiveMint

BENGALURU : The Oscar for the documentary The Elephant Whisperers has happily turned the nation’s focus towards our wildlife and our forests. After all, the 35,000 or so elephants in the country depend greatly on forests for their nourishment, even as they, in turn, nourish the forest. These magnificent creatures are now often in conflict with human beings, as forests merge into agricultural lands where sugarcane, banana, and grasses lure elephants towards human settlements.

If we want to conserve our spectacular wildlife, from these largest of mammals to the smallest of forest rodents like the tree shrew, we need to protect the old growth forests that we already have. But if we also want to safeguard human well-being, and meet our international commitments on carbon sequestration, we urgently need to grow our forests by at least 12% more just in this decade. A daunting task indeed.

In the past two decades, I have been fortunate enough to visit several of India’s amazing, biodiverse forests and reserves. Some were field trips to see the work of environmental civil society organizations (CSOs) we have been proud to support, and some trips were because of a romance with the wild. It has been a learning journey among erudite forest officers, passionate wildlife experts and forest dwelling communities, all grappling with complex and swift change. And I have begun to wonder, who will be the future stewards of India’s forests?

Forests are too important to be left only to the forest department, too fragile to be entrusted only to corporates, too complex to be left to communities alone and too precious to be preserved only by the philanthropy of the rich.

Maybe we must reimagine the role of samaaj (society), sarkaar (the state) and bazaar (markets), if we are to truly conserve what we have and rejuvenate what we had.

Samaaj

Let’s take samaaj first, which includes all of civil society – citizens, communities, civic organizations of all kinds and also their leadership.

Tribal communities, whose ancestors knew the jungle like the palm of their hands, have lived in our forests for millennia. Even today, more than 500 tribal groups, like the Bhils and the Bodos, the Mizos and the Meenas, the Gonds and the Garos comprise 8.9% of our population.

Yet today, most of them do not live inside the forest anymore. A report released in 2018 by the union ministry of health and family welfare shows that there are fewer and fewer eyes on the forest, so to speak. More than half the country’s 104 million tribal population now resides outside India’s 809 tribal majority blocks.

As more migration inevitably happens away from forests, as young people take up opportunities in more modern, urban settings, how much knowledge will be forever lost as the primary stakeholders of the forest become deracinated and uprooted from it? We can’t know the answer.

Clearly, tribal youngsters see little hope in and reason to remain in deep association with the lands of their ancestors. The Forest Rights Act and the Community Forest Rights Act have been painfully slow on delivering on the promise of rights to the land and to its produce.

But surely there is enough scope to do more. Some states are trying. There have been many partnerships between the forest department and local communities and CSOs, to increase livelihood opportunities for tribal people. Many have been absorbed in the forest department itself. Some small-scale efforts have succeeded in including them in ecotourism. Yet, none of this response is at the level of the problem, and none of these innovations are sufficient to incentivize the next generations to stay back.

So, if tribal communities can no longer be the primary stewards of the forest, can we imagine other positive scenarios?

First, we can support more CSOs and research institutions to generate new knowledge and practice around conservation. We have a rich history of people’s struggles like the Chipko movement. But of late, the trust between CSOs and the government has broken a little bit. It is time to restore that trust and showcase hundreds of examples from around the country where CSOs have helped in eco-restoration.

For instance, Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF)’s work in Valparai, a small town in the Annamalai Hills of Tamil Nadu, is a remarkable example of how states, markets, and civil societies can collaborate to restore degraded ecosystems. Once a pristine forest ecosystem, Valparai became a monoculture tea plantation. Together with the local government and communities, NCF persevered for years to convince tea plantations owners to set aside a portion of their land for ecological restoration. Today, Valparai has successfully witnessed the return of several endemic species and measurably improved carbon storage in the area.

Second, we can do much more to include urban residents in the stewardship of our biodiversity. After all, we all depend indirectly on forest resources, no matter how far from the jungles we may live. For energy and food, for water and medicines, and for so much more. Never before has there been a stronger need to tell this story better.

The good news is that cities are being reimagined the world over. They no longer need be so separate from the idea of rural or green. There is a massive public demand for more open, green spaces, for more tree cover, for cleaner air, for better mobility. Politicians always respond to such public pressure. This can result in better public transport, more electric vehicles, more parks, more trees and so on. Alongside this development, we may see urbanites getting reacquainted with the pleasure of being with trees and birds and of being nurtured in nature. That, in turn, can nudge them closer to a new form of environmental stewardship.

Last but not the least, there is great hope that young people will step up to the challenge. India has the largest cohort of people under 35 years. Slowly but surely, they are sensing the deep connections between their survival and that of our forests. World over, youngsters are leading the movements against a particular version of modernity and materialism. India’s youth will ask bold new questions, and many will take a new bend in the road towards more sustainability.

Sarkaar

Hopefully, the sarkaar will aid and abet them.

This is the UN Decade on Ecosystem Regeneration. This is the year for COP 28. This is the time to move forward on our commitments to sequester 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030 through enhanced tree cover and restore five million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2030.

India is somewhat unique in both its challenges and opportunities for this.

The challenge before us is to continue to develop economically as well as ecologically. No country has had to do that with such an agonizingly sharp understanding of the required tradeoffs. Not even China.

The last state of the forest report released by the ministry of environment, forests and climate change in 2021 shows that the growth of India’s forest cover has slowed to an eight-year low, with only a 0.22% increase in the two prior years. The next report will tell us whether that trend has continued. We also know that the report is produced through satellite imaging, has included plantations and urban tree cover and, unlike our tiger census, is not really verified on the ground. In addition, the report reminds us that by the end of this decade, 45-64% of our forests may be impacted by climate change.

Nobody understands all this better than the forest departments at the centre and in the various states. They have had to be a voice for voiceless flora and fauna.

Yes, people talk of a colonial hangover, of too much concentration of power, of a perceived lack of trust between the department and forest dwellers or farmers, etc. And yet, when we understand the complex challenges forest department officials face nowadays, we can sympathize deeply. They have to guard against invasives like lantana camara, and prosopis juniflora, to name just two. Many ornamental plants were brought in by the British in the 19th century. But these exotics have no natural pests in the subcontinent, and they have taken over vast tracts of the forest. They have to continuously deal with the pressures of encroachment, poaching, increasing human-animal conflict, low budgets, lack of sufficient biologists and veterinarians and so on, while still fulfilling the demand for more trees and tigers, more rhinos and now cheetahs, too.

Plus, their responsibilities are now leaking out into farms and habitations outside their jurisdiction. They have had to innovate so that more constituencies become vested in forest ecosystems.

I have personally witnessed many such efforts. Recently, in Madhya Pradesh’s Pench Tiger Reserve, deputy director Rajneesh Singh took me to see the elevated corridor created by NHAI across 29km of the core forest area. This has kept the forest intact, reduced conflicts and accidents and has left a viable corridor for animal crossings, which are abundantly proven through camera traps.

The sarkaar’s role in forest stewardship cannot be exaggerated. There is much scope to re-imagine this responsibility, overhaul the structure of forest departments, and co-create something more suited to the needs of this critical human century. Governments need to integrate environment issues better across ministries. They need better data science to monitor and protect the forests we already have, and more bold policies on new, private conservation.

While trying to lift the remaining millions out of poverty, and to increase per capita GDP, India has pushed for a scorching pace of economic development. For that, we have had to make some difficult tradeoffs and dismantle some environment protection laws. Yet, we all know that India cannot cut off the very branch it is perched on. The Union government has often voiced this concern and tried to better balance growth of the economy and growth of the ecology. To succeed, it will need a deep partnership with market forces.

Bazaar

Finally, then, let us come to bazaar. How can markets and companies become better trustees of the environment?

Is it time to amend our laws and policies and allow private citizens and companies to use their lands for afforestation and renewal? Prima facie, no prior legal permission is required by the landowner to grow forests. However, there are legal consequences once a forest is grown on non-forest land. Forests are protected under complex regulations and court orders, impossible to fathom.

There is a clear opportunity for more enabling policies, as in many other countries, to allow private entities to use their lands for conservation, without attracting penal provisions or the threat of a takeover by the forest department. There will also be cascading livelihood benefits for landowners and, especially, local communities from ecotourism.

Similarly, corporations can play a big role in conservation. Many are trying for more sustainability inside their fence and across the entire supply chain. In addition, they are greening their campuses to mimic ultra-dense mini forests. With the right policy frameworks, this trend will only grow.

Very little of the approximately ₹25,000 crore of annual corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds goes into carbon sequestration or environmental research. There is a huge opportunity to change this.

It is estimated that a fifth of the population depends directly on the ecosystem services that forests provide. And there is much potential to raise the standard of dignified living for millions through conservation itself. For example, we export about $100 million of honey every year, which helps the livelihoods of thousands of small farmers and beekeepers while improving the prospects of pollination. These are investible opportunities.

Indian remains one of the rare countries where, despite such population pressure, we have retained so much biodiversity all around us. But we cannot pretend that our cultural traditions and reverence for nature will protect us while we chase a western development model. We must now create new practices that enable each one of us, whether in samaaj, bazaar or sarkaar, to become a steward of the forests that will heal us as we heal them.

(Rohini Nilekani is the chairperson of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies)

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Republished in IDR

Financial Express | The fundamentals of Giving

Op-ed co-authored by Rohini Nilekani & Vidya Shah in the Financial Express

Like the market in India boomed once tight controls were lifted, NGOs and CSOs in the country can thrive, and have more sustainable impact, if donor capital is flexible and NGOs can invest in their own growth.

The number of wealthy Indians has grown by 62% over the last five years, with 1,103 individuals having a net worth of Rs 1,000 crore and more. Thus, a great deal of media attention has been on the growing number of unicorns and billionaires in our country. But there has been little conversation on whether and how some of that wealth is being given away.

To understand philanthropy trends in India, Hurun India, with support from EdelGive Foundation, has been publishing the annual EdelGive Hurun India Philanthropy List (EHIPL), highlighting remarkable givers and their role in the philanthropic landscape and nation-building. This year’s report reinforces some key trends we have witnessed over the last four years. The number of Indians giving—and giving larger amounts—has risen significantly. Total philanthropic donations have more than doubled to Rs 5,666 crore over the last four years. Moreover, in 2018, just two Indians gave over Rs 100 crore. Four years later, that number is 15. The composition of givers has shifted from the traditional base of established, industrial families to first-generation entrepreneurs, many of whom are in the tech industry; 51 in this year’s report are self-made philanthropists.

This changing profile of givers has also been accompanied by a shift away from charitable acts alone—that of giving food, clothes, and scholarships—to funding new and marginalised areas such as environment and sustainability, arts and culture, academic institutions, social reform, and so on. It is extremely heartening to see this upward trend in philanthropy. More support for such causes will help meet the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

As India outperforms other countries in GDP growth, it will be asked how well it is treating its citizens. What are we doing at home to ensure that all people have access to food, education, healthcare, sanitation, and employment? How are we ensuring that they can exercise their rights and fulfil their obligations? What are we doing to address the violence that is inflicted on all those marginalised by gender, caste, class, and religion?

These are not intractable problems, but they are definitely inter-generational ones, and require persistence, patience, and empathy. India has the most diverse and widespread network of civil society organisations that embody these attributes, working in the largest of metros as well as in the smallest of villages. Yet, many of them are struggling to survive in a rapidly changing reality where old funders have receded, and government regulations are tighter.

Can wealthier Indians blessed by the ovarian lottery step up to support good organisations, big and small, so that they can focus on the goals of justice, inclusion, and opportunity for all?

At EdelGive Foundation and Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies—the foundations that we head—we have seen the outsized impact of funding issues that are underserved or neglected. Support to organisations doing work on gender, young men and boys, climate change, social justice, governance, and citizen engagement, and other less ‘popular’ areas, has transformed the capacity and capabilities of both the organisations as well as the communities they work with. Non-profit partners have often told us that this kind of support has made their organisations more robust and the people they work with more resilient.

Thus, the importance of trusting the partners philanthropists work with is evident, as is recognising the difficulties of the field and giving them more room for experimentation and failure. Much like the Indian market—which flourished after tight controls were removed—NGOs and civil society organisations do best when capital is flexible, and NGOs invest in their own growth and development.

More research and data are often needed as well to understand the root cause of different problems, or the efficacy of solutions, but research projects/institutions and think tanks need more backers in India. To strengthen NGOs and community-based organisations, and to build up the intellectual infrastructure of India, we need more wealthy Indians to give deeply and boldly. The EdelGive Hurun India Philanthropy List is one attempt to encourage this behaviour among the wealthy. It was put together drawing upon published sources of information as well as outreach undertaken by the Hurun team with high-net-worth individuals. There exist many more philanthropists than this report captured. Still, it is hoped that by providing annual data on high-value giving, more people might be motivated to emulate their peers and give more of their wealth as a joyful responsibility towards a good society.

Financial Express