The India Civic Summit 2025, held at the Bangalore International Centre by the Oorvani Foundation, was themed around citizen-led action for climate-resilient cities. Through discussions and workshops, speakers and participants shared experiences to explore ways to make cities more sustainable and liveable. The event also spotlighted community-driven initiatives in addressing climate and civic challenges.
Gautam John (CEO, Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies), at the summit’s concluding address, appreciated the invaluable work done by Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) – being the invisible infrastructure that enable citizens, citizenry, and cities to function.
Transcript
0:00:07.9 Host: To conclude this session as well as the India Civic Summit 2025, I will invite Mr. Gautam John to come and talk to all of us and leave us with some of his thoughts on active citizenry in general. Gautam John is the CEO of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies. Prior to this, he has spent several years with the Akshara Foundation building the Karnataka Learning Partnership and at Pratham Books. He was also a TED India fellow in 2009. Gautam, please take the stage.
0:00:43.4 Gautam John: I apologise. For those of you who were expecting Rohini, it’s me. I am neither as smart nor as wise, but I will try and channel her wisdom. Second, they promised me I would start the session. Now, I have to speak after Dr. Narayan and after all of this amazing work that happened in this city. So no pressure.
But I do want to say that for a philanthropy whose entire reason for being is based on the idea of Samaaj being foundational to recognise the raw energy, passion, talent, and interest and care that this room represents is both humbling but also deeply inspiring. To say that Samaaj is foundational and to say that citizens must co-create solutions and to say that citizens must participate in governance, is almost glib because this is what it takes to do it.
0:01:39.0 Gautam John: It takes patience, it takes perseverance. It takes patience, perseverance, and a whole lot of grit. In the face of immense structural challenges to hold fast to this work. And if you’ll forgive my language, I just want to say, thank you for giving a shit, because this work isn’t easy like Dr. Narayan said, like many of you have acknowledged, this work isn’t easy. It’s often thankless, and it’s almost always, how to say, invisible. And it’s not always easy trying to be the invisible infrastructure that makes citizens, citizenry, and cities work.
0:02:24.0 Gautam John: It’s not often easy to be invisible and not thanked, not recognised. But I do want to say it’s moves all of us forward. Like we saw the amazing examples of the organisations from Bangalore, Chennai, and Mumbai and across the country, it’s this spirit and this latent interest in what keeps us together as a society that moves us forward. And what I do want to say is really that we as a philanthropy but also we as citizens recognise that this work matters and your work matters. Every effort, no matter how small, has a way of expanding beyond what we can see. And while Gandhi may have never said, be the change you want to see, it’s true that change ripples from inside out, not necessarily from outside in.
0:03:16.4 Gautam John: Change doesn’t happen because someone grants it from above, it happens because people like you insist that it happens from the ground up. Thank you for your commitment, your energy, and for proving that the most powerful solutions often start with the Samaaj. Thank you very much, and thank you to Oorvani Foundation for holding this space, for all of us, all of you, and for doing it year on year. I look forward to next year. Thank you.
At the Hearth Summit Bangalore 2024, Rohini Nilekani (Chairperson, Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies), underscored the importance of building robust support systems for changemakers, social sector professionals & leaders committed to betterment of samaaj. She articulated the progression from empathy to action, distinguishing empathy as the understanding of others’ suffering and compassion as a vital next step that enables purposeful and impactful action. Concluding her keynote address, Rohini urged individuals to prioritize well-being—beginning with themselves, extending to their organizations, and ultimately fostering it within their communities. https://youtu.be/UVoNLYR8sRU
00:00:00 Rohini Nilekani: Ellarigu namaskara…everybody doing well? Good. So, I know it’s been a wonderful two days. I know you’ve had all kinds of workshops, a lot of breathing, a lot of singing, a lot of sharing. And first let’s just call out the Wellbeing Project and everybody who participated to make the Hearth Summit so great.
[applause]
00:00:29 Rohini Nilekani: Thank you all. It’s very important. I’m very proud to be part of The Wellbeing Project, on its advisory board. It’s a global institution funded by several donors – with a single purpose of understanding that changemakers, social sector leaders and those who work to leave society better than where they found it – themselves need some support and help. And I think it’s really time to shine that spotlight because all the surveys that I have seen where social leaders and people working in those nonprofits around the world or even frontline workers, whether it is nurses, doctors, teachers, the levels of stress that they admit to are really off the charts more than in the corporate sector, more than in any other sector because it’s not been a topic that’s been brought into the sunlight for too long.
00:01:32 Rohini Nilekani: So I’m very glad that that is finally out in the open. Many organizations are now talking about it around the world and I think it’s part of a movement for all of us understanding and creating tools to manage stress when we are working at the frontlines of social change. So, I’m very happy to be part of this and to see the response of the Hearth Summits all over the world where people are themselves coming to curate, themselves coming together to find safe spaces to share, to feel safe and brave enough to talk about what is bothering them, to open up without having any fear of being rejected or misunderstood.
0:02:17 Rohini Nilekani: So, first of all, I’m so happy that this space is there. I was just in a workshop on competition and we were able to talk through our fears of competition, through our hope that the social sector will also learn to see that competition exists and not to have so much aversion to some things which are real but not necessarily so much part of our world. So, I’ve come to say, we all hear you, those of us…the donor space is opening up to this all over the world which is very important where donors are beginning to understand that unless the people of the organizations that we are funding are themselves not well, how do you expect them to look after the wellbeing of society? So, you will hopefully see more of that but you also need to bring better ideas to donors on exactly how do you present the idea of supporting wellbeing. So, it’s beginning the movement. I hope more ideas will come out, more, I hate to use this word but that’s how the real world operates, more investable opportunities for the wellbeing of social sector professionals and that should be a continuing journey.
00:03:31 Rohini Nilekani: So, I’m here to talk of the way I am seeing the world. I think one thing most people have realized is that to do the outer work, you have to do the inner work ’cause otherwise you’re going to hit a wall, you’re going to hit your own wall, you are going to become the limitation to the ambition of working for society. So, I’m sure you’ve had many of these discussions. I’m not going to give you advice but two things I will say. One is, I think we need a global movement for body intelligence and what I mean by that is, this thing is actually the only thing that you come with and go with in the whole world but so little we know about our body.
00:04:14 Rohini Nilekani: No, I’m not talking about my clothes, I’m talking about my body. That’s what you’re born with, that’s what you’re going to die with and yet too many people don’t understand how it functions. There is enough medical knowledge to now even know what to do to make your brain function better but we haven’t…we talk about all kinds of intelligences but not enough about body intelligence because rooted as we are in our body, and the self is the body, the brain is in the body, the more we learn about our body, the more we can first of all be kinder to it, which I’m still learning to do, and we can also use its miracle.
00:04:52 Rohini Nilekani: The human body is an absolute miracle. Use this miracle to help us to be more stable, more calm, more efficient. And also to understand things like, that’s very much there in the Buddhist literature, the difference between what all of us feel, that’s why we have chosen to be in the social sector, all of us feel empathy. You all feel empathy? Raise your hands, those who think you feel great empathy. Yes, exactly, all of us feel a lot of empathy but we also know that empathy by itself is not enough.
00:05:29 Rohini Nilekani: Sometimes empathy can take you in the wrong direction because you can feel pain too sharply, you can feel other people’s pain too sharply, you see yourself in that sufferer’s shoes and sometimes that makes you less able to act. So the difference I think between empathy and compassion is – empathy is a starting point. Empathy helps you to understand the suffering of others but then you need between empathy and action, you need compassion which is a little bit of detachment from empathy. You need to step back a bit so that you can show compassion through action to actually be able to help.
00:06:07 Rohini Nilekani: You know in the old days when I used to go and be in many situations of extreme poverty, whether it was Bihar or Bengaluru, in every part of the country when I started, there was poverty. Now in South India, you don’t see so much poverty and in fact in much of India. But I used to literally come back shattered, I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t know how to care for myself when I came back from those field trips.
00:06:33 Rohini Nilekani: And I think I developed very poor coping mechanisms and I’d get short-tempered or angry with other people who have nothing to do with the cause of that problem. And it took me a long time to realize this difference which I’m sharing with you because if you want to be efficient caregivers of society, then you know that we all have to learn better to care for ourselves. And so just keep reading on what I just said, even I’ve just started reading about the difference between empathy and compassion. Let’s develop our compassion better so that we can act and not get drowned in our empathy which we seem to have a natural talent for.
00:07:15 Rohini Nilekani: The second thing I want to talk about is hope. I’ve been saying this everywhere, that sometimes and I think young people are showing this with very high incidence of mental stress, depression, anxiety, fears, insecurities, especially the one billion young males of the world who are at extreme risk because the world has changed so much especially for men in the last 50 years. I think there is a sense of deep anxiety and it always shows up in the politics developing around us. I think though that it is very important, especially for all of us.
First, of course, you have to learn in your own way to care for yourselves and The Wellbeing Project has a lot of tools, suggestions, frameworks that are being put out. But secondly, can we make hope the new religion? This is a religion which does not divide. It can only unite. And when I say hope, keep the faith in hope, I don’t mean it as some kind of false optimism or even some very false cheerfulness or anything or even a false cynicism, to counter a false cynicism. That’s not what hope is.
Hope is the energy, the fuel inside you that gives you every morning the energy to do right action. It gives you the humility to know that no matter what things are going wrong, even the smallest action, we can’t understand the consequences. Whichever right action you can do with your conscience, with your heart, it will eventually go into a pool, a sea of right actions by others.
00:09:01 Rohini Nilekani: We can’t 100% say what the outcome will be but doing that right action with hope is always going to save you from hopelessness, is going to save you from the dark of despair. So if we can keep hope as the new religion and develop the faithful around it to support each other, as we see darkness emerge and as we see things going wrong, there is injustice in the world. Our job is to put out a little more justice wherever we can. There is going to be darkness in the world. Our job is to light a few lamps.
00:09:38 Rohini Nilekani: That brings me to my third point, which is I have been seeing, yes, I have known thousands of people and hundreds of organizations in the social sector, first as a journalist and then myself as a social entrepreneur and then as a philanthropist. I have met the most marvelous people in the world in all these organizations. Many of my mentors are leaders of organizations that have created real positive change. But sometimes I think looking at the world today, looking at what’s going on, I want us all to also think about, yes, we want to light lights in the darkness and we should.
0:10:21 Rohini Nilekani: Nowadays I wonder, maybe we need to look at the quality of light that we are putting out. Is it the bright lights of the urban city where even owls can’t nest at night? Is it what is called light pollution, where the real light of the stars is not allowed to filter through? Is that the kind of light we are creating when we are trying to create light? Not intentionally, but unintentionally. Maybe we need to think a little about this.
And what I mean by light pollution, we all do work with right intent, but sometimes we don’t have the right grammar of our intent to take the power of our intent forward to the right place. So how can we together do that more consciously? Because otherwise to me light pollution is all the polarization that we see in the world.
00:11:15 Rohini Nilekani: Light pollution from the social sector may be that despite our desire for justice, equity, fairness, opportunity, etcetera, are we also by mistake, contributing to judging the other side too harshly and therefore breaking the pathways to bridging the gaps between all of us. That’s what I am, and I won’t elaborate on all the other pollution, but maybe you all can start thinking about it. What kind of light do we want to put out in the world? Because if we put out the wrong light, the polluter also is affected by the pollution as much as those who are affected by the polluter’s pollution.
00:12:00 Rohini Nilekani: So maybe we ourselves, because we are talking about our own wellbeing, maybe if we are putting out the wrong quality of light, it is too harsh back on us. Every time in my life when I have judgingly pointed out a finger at everybody and I get angry easily, so I do that a lot. I’m trying to be smarter at 65. By the time I’m 65 in my next life, 100% I’ll have got there. But I always find three fingers pointing back at me and I have to stop and say, that’s not what I want to do. I don’t want to create a chasm between me and another person, another idea, another institution, another thought. I want to create a bridge. And my world, how I hold myself, is going to make the difference between whether it’s going to be a bridge or it’s going to be a broken down highway.
00:12:51 Rohini Nilekani: So let’s think carefully about the light that we spread. Because the real light possibly we want to see is the light coming from the stars above. Please do look after yourselves. Look after the people in your organizations. Create small spaces to talk about this light that we all try to light. And let wellbeing become a cornerstone. Every time you discuss budgets for the year, talk about your plan for wellbeing for the year. Let’s make this a global movement for changemakers to first be well so that they can take care of the wellbeing of the Samaaj.
Wonderful. So now that all of you have been part of this summit, you’re all now certified to take the idea of wellbeing forward in your organizations, first for yourself, in your organizations, and then into the community. Let’s keep the flag flying. Let’s keep the gentle light burning. And, also never forget that we can retreat into nature to give ourselves the most solace. It doesn’t matter if you live in an urban slum. At least in India, there will be one bird and one tree, definitely a few cockroaches, ants and spiders. They are also part of nature. We can learn a lot from them. So let’s find in this ancient country of ancient stories, let’s each find our own story to tie to so that we can weave a web of stories and connections for everyone to work on their own wellbeing.
Rohini Nilekani (Chairperson, Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies) in her concluding address at Mannotsava: National Mental Health Festival, highlighted the critical need for public engagement platforms that make mental healthcare more accessible and engaging. She reflected on the significance of uniting doctors, academics, mental health practitioners, civil society organizations, artists, and the public – to foster collective approaches aimed at enhancing both individual & community well-being, parallelly strengthening samaaj.
Transcript
0:00:13 Rohini Nilekani:Ellarukum namaskara. How are you? Okay, I’m glad to hear that. Really, thank you all. Good things must come to an end. But in my experience, the best endings always have new beginnings. So I wrote these few notes just now for the end – it’s not too long.
0:00:33 I hope that with all your support, that the end of these two days of the first National Mental Health Festival will actually become a new beginning for a movement that continues across the country. We need many more of such festivals, celebrations, melas, sambhramas, to recognize the need for understanding and protecting our own well-being, our own manasantulana, and that of those around us because we don’t live alone. So thank you all.
0:01:04 Thank you all, first, to the people of Namma Bengaluru, for showing up in such large numbers and participating so fully. Thank you so much to NIMHANS for hosting us here, for being a strategic partner in this lovely campus, and in such a calm, serene and beautiful organised space. Thank you, NIMHANS.
0:01:28 Thank you so much to NCBS, our strategic partner, who have given so many inputs and so many experts. Thank you so much. Without you, it would not be possible. Thank you to all the agencies because the collaboration here is so evident, right? So thank you to all of them. And of course, thank you to my team. Stand up all of you, please. I’ll quickly say it, how much work they have done for this, I cannot even tell you. Natasha, Shruti, Sahana, Tanya, Gautam, Abhishek, Suresh, Srinidhi, Mable, and everyone else. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
0:02:06 So, I learnt so much in these two days and I hope all of you did learn something. I learnt about young people’s alienation, but I yet witnessed their extreme engagement right around me. I learnt that the arts are critical and that Kathak, for example, can help in treating Parkinson’s. I learnt that people, and I met many in these last two days, with their own terrible personal tragedies, can still overcome their own adversity to help others in the mental health space. Yes, I met many of them and some of them are right here. I learnt that there are doctors without borders, but that we people create our own borders to keep mental patients and mental illness out of our sphere.
0:02:54 I learnt that Rahul Dravid can hit sixers outside the cricket pitch and give us life lessons. I learnt that digital futures might create mental health issues, especially for young people, but that technologies exist that will help fill the gaps in the delivery of mental health services. I learnt that we are all communities of fate, but that we can also become communities of care, because no one is alone and we are all more than our illnesses.
0:03:27 Most of all, I learnt from the experts here, the development sector practitioners, the artists, the academics, and people like Dr Shyam Bhat, that if we can all develop our ‘body intelligence’ – I like that phrase, I’ve been thinking of it for a while, body intelligence. And body, of course, includes our mind and our brains, then maybe we can all learn how to do better self-care, to do less self-harm, to know ourselves better, to love ourselves better, and therefore, know others better, and love others better, and develop our maitri, sahanubhuti, and karuna. And so that we can have much more, this empathy, we can spread the empathy.
0:04:09 I am a yoga practitioner, and one of the most simple and elegant sutras in the Patanjali Yoga Sutras for me has always been, “Heyam Dukham Anagatam”, which means, that which can be prevented, that sorrow, that harm, that pain, which can be prevented, should be. And that’s where samaaj comes in. Can we prevent, protect, reduce the harm? Maybe then, if we can learn to do that, as some of the doctors said on these panels, we can reduce the mental health disease burden of our country.
0:04:41 And as Shyam rightly said, India matters greatly in the world. When we already had very simple understanding of the kleshas that all human beings experience, Avidya, Asmita, Raga, Dvesha, Abhinivesha, and some pathways beyond to improve that were also presented to us by sages past, Ahimsa, Satya, Asteya, Brahmacharya, and Aparigraha. We know all these things. So India’s ancient wisdom matters as much as the modern knowledge, thanks to NIMHANS, thanks to NCBS, thanks to many other countries, is developing at a pace in this country, absolutely at the cutting edge of modern knowledge.
0:05:21 So if we, following in that way, if we can create a public movement… I’m samaaj first, and I really believe it’s the samaaj that can drive change in the world. If we can create a public movement to understand and celebrate mental well-being, celebrate mental well-being, then it can become a global movement too. It won’t happen automatically. It will take Samaaj, Sarkaar and Bazaar. Sorry, I have to slip in that phrase once in my speeches.
0:05:50 Rohini Nilekani: But to end, it seems to me, like something has begun here in these past two days. A little lamp has been lit in this…just before the festival of light begins all over our country. We hope many partners will come forward in the next few months to take this one lamp and turn it into a big sea of light, dispelling the darkness that mental ill health can bring to both individuals and to our whole society. Please join us in this movement. Dhanyawada. Namaskara.
Rohini Nilekani (Chairperson of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies and Board Member, Science Gallery Bengaluru), in her inaugural address at the exhibition launch of Sci560 – an exhibition that uncovers Bengaluru’s rich scientific legacy – speaks about the city’s impressive military-industrial-academic complex. She emphasises that in order to cultivate a robust scientific temper among citizens, there is a need to create platforms that foster meaningful engagement between the scientific community and the public.
Transcript
00:00.00 Emcee: Ms. Rohini Nilekani, the Chairperson of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies and Board Member, Science Gallery Bengaluru, has been crucial in the ideation and creation of Sci560. The exhibition is a result of her vision for the public to engage with science in our city. I now invite Ms. Rohini Nilekani to deliver the inaugural address.
[Kannada]
00:00:47 Rohini Nilekani: My heartfelt gratitude, first of all, as Kiran (Mazumdar-Shaw) & as Dr. Jahnavi Phalkey also said, to the Government of Karnataka for its absolute vision to be a founder-patron of the Science Gallery Bengaluru, only one of six such galleries in the whole world. Thank you, Sir. Thank you to the continued patronage. They are giving us corpus money, they have been supporting the founding, they have made permissions possible, every kind of support, and we are truly, truly grateful on behalf of the whole city of Bengaluru. Thank you, Minister.
00:01:26: It’s not just that, actually. The state government across the last few decades has left no stone unturned to enable the making of Bangalore and its reputation as a science city. It has been an active partner in many academic and research institutions, nurtured public libraries, recent initiatives such as providing telescopes in schools and colleges, setting up science centers and planetariums in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities – Karnataka is not just Bengaluru. Conducting rural innovation summits and tech summits, they have been doing an amazing job to empower Kannadigas, our people, to make them active stakeholders in scientific progress. So Science Gallery Bengaluru…
[Kannada]
00:02:14: So, it is really very important for me, when Kiran asked me a couple of years, three years ago, to be part of the founding team.
[Kannada]
00:02:25: One is, it’s a fine example, as we just said, of a public-private partnership. And two, because I truly believe, and this is my message really, that the city’s elite, who have benefited so much from this city, need to step forward to create more and more public spaces for all citizens to engage in and to build the future of this very great metropolis. So let’s hear an applause to that. Let the city’s elite come forward.
00:02:52: You know, exactly 40 years ago, in 1984, Nandan and I came to this city first. I came as a young journalist, and while Nandan was busy setting up Infosys, I was reporting and writing on the city, learning rapidly about its people, its culture, its institutions, its politics. It rapidly became evident to me that this city has a rich history of innovation and inquiry.
00:03:16: This is a city of pioneers, risk-takers, leaders, thinkers, a city created by its very diverse public, that’s all of you, and who come not only from the corners of India, all corners but also many parts of the world, like our guests on the stage today. And I believe, I truly believe that it is this blending of diverse streams that makes this beloved Bengaluru of ours now spread way beyond the four pillars of Kempegowda to become the home to a constellation of institutions of theoretical sciences, astrophysics, engineering, biological sciences, design, aeronautics, mental health, neurosciences, nature conservation, you name it, and of course, the very many institutions of art and culture. Yet to me, it seems like many of these institutions are very far removed from the lives and aspirations of ordinary citizens.
00:04:06: If we want all Bangaloreans, the old Bangaloreans and the new Bangaloreans who come in every day, to take pride in this city, to contribute to this city, and to reimagine its future together, we must do something intentional to build a deeper connection to these institutions. As our minister said just yesterday, we need to spread a scientific temper among citizens. In this post-truth world of social media, igniting a passion for science, which of course remains true no matter how many opinions you circulate on WhatsApp University, imagine if we can unleash a revolution about our sense of wonder, our sense of possibility if we can restore our idealism and humanism through the study of science.
00:04:54: What could we unleash, we the citizens of this once and future city, if especially our youth were nurtured in a spirit of inquiry and curiosity, and especially if they had greater access to public open spaces to collaborate, to discover the workings of the mind, the brain, the marvelous world around us. Imagine what a city Bengaluru could be. These questions have actually been growing in my mind for several years. And I’ve been wanting to create a space where the citizens could come together with the scientific institutions of the city.
00:05:26: And finally my dream has come true, thanks to Science Gallery, thanks to Dr. Jahnavi Phalkey, and most of all, thanks to the collaboration of the many science institutions of this city. Last year we had an informal lunch and brainstormed, what can we do to bring science and the city closer together. What you’re going to see as you walk around the museum is a result of that marvelous brainstorming lunch.
00:05:48: The group enthusiastically signed in to the idea of collaborating, curating an exhibition like this, and they came up with the idea that they will bring one artifact each, which represents their institution and sparks more curiosity about what lies behind the walls of these amazing institutions of Bangalore. So fast forward to one year, and here we are at the opening of Vigynana 560. Very happy to see, very happy that Dr. Jahnavi Phalkey and team have put it together so quickly. I do hope you will all come together, spread the word. Many of you have heard me use the words Samaaj, Sarkaar, and Bazaar before. This exhibition and the gallery in which it is hosted, our beloved Science Gallery, is exactly what can happen when these three sectors come together. And at the end, I would really say…
At the 2024 Skoll World Forum, many conversations turned to the importance of collaboration in the face of widespread disruption and social unrest. Don Gips and Rohini Nilekani came together to explore philanthropy’s role in activating and accelerating change through networks, partnerships, and knowledge sharing.
Addressing the power imbalances in philanthropy, Rohini emphasized the need for trust and risk-taking, and the role of wealth in enabling positive societal impact. She encouraged philanthropists to invest in ventures that may be imperfect, using philanthropic capital as risk capital. Both Don and Rohini stressed the necessity of collaboration across sectors (society, government, and markets) to achieve meaningful societal change.
They also announced and discussed the newly created Center for Exponential Change, a network supporting systems orchestrators and helping changemakers overcome gaps and scale their efforts.
Featuring Rohini Nilekani, Chairperson of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies Former journalist and current Chairperson of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies and Co-founder and Director of EkStep, a non-profit education platform. She also founded Arghyam, a foundation for sustainable water and sanitation that funds initiatives across India.
Featuring Don Gips, CEO of the Skoll Foundation Leads the Skoll Foundation’s work investing in, connecting, and championing social entrepreneurs to create transformational social change around the world. His experiences span public service, politics, business, finance, and technology.
Don Gips: I could not be more excited than to be here today with Rohini and with all of you. She truly is one of the great voices in philanthropy. And I’ve gotten to work with Rohini in a number of projects, but in preparation for this conversation, I listened to her speeches and I read her many writings, and I realized I speak in prose and she speaks in poetry. And she did it again to me this morning in another meeting we were in.
Across her career, she’s been a journalist, an author, a children’s book creator, a champion of education, a bridge builder, and currently Chairperson of the Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies Foundation. We, at Skoll, have been incredibly fortunate to get to partner with Rohini and with the Nilekanis. We’ve co-funded at least a dozen organizations. We, both, are part of Co-Impact. And today, or this week, we announced the Center for Exponential Change that we’re working on with Tulaine, New Profit. There they are.
Rohini Nilekani: Chris.
Don Gips: Yeah. Chris, and we think it will help drive change for systems orchestrators, and we’ll come back to that. The work that we both try to do is about trying to transform the factors that destabilize society. Polarization, misinformation and disinformation, inequities across gender and class, and the sweeping burnout of change makers. I see Aaron somewhere there, Wellbeing Project, which is helping us with this. We can’t wait to hear from Rohini about her views about creating change at scale and tackling these global crises. And I’m sure we’ll solve all of this in the next 45 minutes.
Rohini, I’d like to start with a personal question. As a role model for many of us in philanthropy, and a leading female philanthropist, can you share more about what led you to this field in your journey with philanthropy?
Rohini Nilekani: First of all, thank you, Don. Thank you to all of you for coming. It’s a real honor for me to be on this stage. Skoll is the place to come to if you’re in the social sector, anywhere in the world. So thank you for that, for 20 years. That’s awesome. Thank you. Like everybody else, I came to philanthropy, well, I came to philanthropy because nowadays you can’t do philanthropy unless you’re wealthy, okay? In the good old days, you could be a philanthropist just by loving other people. Now, you have to be a philanthropist when you get wealthy.
So before I became a philanthropist, I was what you call a social entrepreneur. I was a journalist before that and set up two or three organizations in education. And then I co-founded something called Pratham Books, which I urge you to look at because we started out with the mission, a book in every child’s hand. And today we have books which are contributed to — from all around the world, for little children in 350 languages, because it is out in the creative commons and it is a societal mission around the world. Those books are free to read. If you have a child in your neighborhood, a nephew, a grandson, please pick up a story from storyweaver.org.in. After that–
Don Gips: That’s incredible.
Rohini Nilekani: Yes, it has been quite a journey. And after that, since the money I sensibly invested in my husband’s company yielded a little bit of something, I put it all into my foundation, which worked on water. But what I learned along the way is that wealth comes, Don, with extreme responsibility. And that I do believe the role of wealth in society is to enable society. Yes, you can buy a few Ferraris or whatever you want to, Lamborghinis or a couple of diamond necklaces, but after that, what are you going to do? And I don’t see why societies and nations will allow runaway accumulation of private wealth if the responsibility of that wealth to make societies better is not visibly seen.
And so, I think, as I learned the ropes of philanthropy, I got very excited in the topic today that, how does philanthropy enable change at scale? And that’s why we started the center this morning together.
Don Gips: It’s such an incredible story and such an incredible impact that you’ve had. And just even the language you just used, when I first got to Skoll, one of my team members, who’s Hawaiian, taught me the word kuleana. Kuleana, with great privilege comes great responsibility.
You know, we so admire your approach to giving and we have learned so much with you, listening and learning and taking risks, trusting your grantees and the openness with which you’ve approached your philanthropy. When you signed the Giving Pledge, you quoted John Adams. I love this quote.
Rohini Nilekani: Yes.
Don Gips: “Power always thinks it has a great soul. There’s great danger that I will fall in love with my own virtue.”
Rohini Nilekani: Yes.
Don Gips: What have you learned about how philanthropy needs to grapple with its own power to listen better to its partners and take more risks?
Rohini Nilekani: To be very honest, and this group knows this very, very well, especially if you’re on this side and looking for money, I’ve been on both sides, I think wealth comes with extraordinary power and you know this as well. And we have to be very careful. I don’t think that power imbalance ever actually goes away, but even so, you can hold that power a little better. So I believe that the first thing in that redressal of the imbalance is if you know how to listen and if you know how to trust.
At least in these 30 years, I have learned that if I start with trust, I end up with even more trust on both sides of the equation. And so, I think that’s what I’ve learned, that philanthropists need to learn how to trust. At the get-go, it’s very hard to let go, but you learn it as you go along. And that is a goal that actually philanthropy must strive to reach, to create a system of giving or granting where the philanthropist and the foundation can learn to let go. Learn, let go, learn, let go. And we’ve tried to do it, you don’t always succeed.
The other thing I think is, and this many people have said that philanthropic capital is risk capital. And if you don’t invest in ventures that may fail, that may not succeed, then you’re just simply not doing your job as a philanthropist. And yes, always keep a mirror in your bag, in your house, next to your bed. So before you go to sleep, you can just take a quick look. Has my head swollen a little more today? I would suggest that. What about you? Tell me the truth about how you feel about the power you hold.
Don Gips: Since I took this job, I’ve become more handsome, taller, more intelligent. It’s amazing how much people compliment me.
Rohini Nilekani: By the way, you’re looking really good today.
Don Gips: Thank you. You know, I’m going to tell a little story because it hit me. So last year when we were having the closing event, a woman on crutches came up to me and said, “You know, you guys did this amazing forum, it’s so great, but you’re not doing enough around disability.” And it like hit me like a rock. I was like on my high and all of a sudden, I realized we really haven’t even had the conversation. And by the way, anybody who misses tonight when Eddie gets on stage to talk about it, we’ll see we learn this lesson.
I was talking to, I was describing this deep listening and that we need to do it. And I was using this as an example when I was talking to some of the Skoll Fellows on Monday. And all the people in the room had this look on their face and I’m like, “What’s going on?” And Lizzie, who was the woman who’d come up to me a year ago raised her hand and said, “I’m the one who approached you.” If we don’t listen, we walk into this world with our preconceived notions of who we are. And we, to your quote, we all think we have so much virtue. And it’s only by that humility and listening that we grow and learn and get better at this incredible gift that we have for philanthropy.
Rohini Nilekani: Yeah. One of the, when I set up my foundation, the very first grant we made, which was a big grant considering that we were just on our, that person, Mihir Shah came to me and said, “Please never think of anybody as your grantee and don’t behave like a donor. We are going to be partners in this and always remember that.” So I think I value that first lesson I got when I gave out my first big check.
Don Gips: Yeah. I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about collaboration. And we both have gotten to work together because we are collaborating. The Center for Exponential Change, which we announced today is a global action hub for systems orchestrators supporting their efforts to build a better society with speed, at scale and sustainably. Can you say more about how collaboration can help us meet today’s unique challenges and how will something like The Center for Exponential Change help us collaborate more effectively?
Rohini Nilekani: Yeah, I think we all know this, but it’s, something, some truths can bear constant repetition and one of them is that you simply cannot achieve meaningful societal change without collaborating. First of all, collaborating with the people in whose name you are working. Sometimes even social change, entrepreneurs like how I was and am, we forget that we are representing and when representing, you have to be even more careful to be accurately representing. So your first collaboration has to be with that.
And then of course, all down the way, you have to be able to collaborate. In any societal change, you need Samaaj, Sarkaar and Bazaar, society, state and markets to contribute to their role in effecting change. You need to be able to collaborate across these three sectors. You need to be able to collaborate with other donors. And the good news is, Don, I’ve been watching this space for a while, I think finally, we philanthropists have, in India, we call it a tube light, a little slow, but it comes on eventually, have learned that we must learn how to collaborate better. And that’s why so many global new institutions like Co-Impact and so many others that are a lot.
And collaborating, of course, again, means you have to let, keep your ego a little at the back, towards the back burner. You have to really appreciate that other people bring something to the table and it’s not just you, however smart you are. And that, because you have learned to do that, you are going to be much more effective than you could possibly have been. And I think we’ve had enough of, and that’s why we collaborate so much.
The Center for Exponential Change has come out of a long journey. We are co-founders together with Institute Bejo and New Profit, who are in the room here. And you will hear more about it in the days to come. And we all hope you will join us. There’s going to be a website where you can give us feedback. We want to hear from you. The goal is that all of you change makers, sometimes there are gaps that need to be filled. You’re full of your passion, your mission. You know where you want to go. And some gaps are there which are not filled.
It could be that as leaders, you feel very lonely. It could be that you want to be tech-enabled, but don’t know how. It could be that you need a little help re-imagining the scale of what you want to do. You may need to find others who think like you, who have the same ambition. We hope that this center will help you.
There are four donors who brought in us a decent amount of money to begin with, which is $40 million. All of it is directly going to go into paradigm grants to social change organizations that are looking to go to the next level. Sanjay Purohit is in the room. Priya is in the room. Those who want to talk to him, please do so. Sorry, Sanjay, but that’s what we hope to do. I don’t know if we will succeed. We will try very, very hard with all your support. And Don, if you could tell us why you joined this effort, because you’ve been in many collaboratives. Why one more?
Don Gips: Well, let me take a step back in answering that. So I’ve been in philanthropy now five years. I’ve been in government, the private sector, civil society, and now I actually get to give money away. And first of all, it’s so clear that the problems we’re facing, as you just said, Rohini, all need, if one sector’s working alone, we’re not going to get there. You need government, you need the market, you need civil society working together on any of these intersecting problems. I think, and when I got to philanthropy, it literally is the most fragmented sector I’ve ever been in, and it’s very personal.
Philanthropists are giving in their own image or vision, but because of that, for our grantees or our partners, as you are so correctly, we’ve got to get rid of that word of grantee. Your original grantee or partner taught you that. Our partners have to go door to door to door. Instead of finding that single place, they can go to get funding, and then they have to file, okay, this one wants this impact report, this one wants that one, this one needs this in their grant agreement. As philanthropy, we need to get better at working together so that those in the field can make a difference.
When we came into Skoll, Shivani, who’s our head of strategy, and I, Jeff asked us to sort of rethink what we could do to make a bigger impact at a faster pace. And one of the things we found as we went on a deep listening tour to one of your earlier points was, as we talked to the people we’ve been funding for years, our partners, many of them were shifting out of running their own organization to saying, how do I change a system at scale?
Rohini Nilekani: Correct.
Don Gips: How can I be what we’ve called a systems orchestrator, somebody who, unlike in the musical orchestrator where the conductor’s out front, be behind, but helping, as you beautifully said, weave that web of connectivity that drives change? And we’ve been on this journey, and we’ve been working with Bridgespan on doing research on this, and then all of a sudden we get on the phone with Sanjay, and he says, “We think systems orchestrators are these really important thing,” and it was like a light bulb went off that we could get to work with you guys. And through your generosity, helping set up the center to provide, because what she didn’t say is they provided the funding so that the infrastructure can get built. So that whenever we find one of our partners who’s a systems orchestrator and can use this, all the money goes directly to them. So a round of applause for that.
Rohini Nilekani: That’s Nandan Nilekani, my husband, and I, and a whole team behind it.
Don Gips: Well, yes, and it takes a village to do all of this. I’d say the other thing, because I think it’s really important was not having this be a globally north, global north-led initiative, but truly having it be a partnership that crossed continents was sort of Sanjay’s vision and your vision, and I think it’s very powerful. I know we’re learning in every one of these conversations by being a part of that.
Rohini Nilekani: Thank you.
Don Gips: Which actually leads me to one more question before we open it up to the audience, so you guys start thinking of your questions. SaveLIFE, who will be accepting the Skoll Award later today, and many of our awardees have come from your early investments. As we see an increase of local, national, and regional funders, can you share a bit about the important role you see more proximate and place-based funders playing and driving impact, and what is the ideal role for global philanthropy in collaborating with these more proximate funders?
Rohini Nilekani: Yeah. No, that’s a very good question. I think it’s very, very important for local social organizations to find local support. It’s harder, because sometimes the more established global foundations are literally more generous and quick to give grants, small grants, in the global south. But I’ve come to believe that it’s very, very important to get local funding, and which means it’s a challenge to social leaders of non-profit organizations that we have to learn to tell our story better to the donor community around us.
There’s a lot of wealth being created in many countries in the global south, but there is still not a practice of this kind of modern philanthropy yet, and I think it behooves us all in this wonderful new world of communication to tell our story in such a way that we bring small and local donors along with us. The minute they come into this sector, there is so much reward that comes from that initial giving that they will want to give more and more, and I think global philanthropy can unlock local philanthropy. I know we’ve tried to do it in different ways and had different levels of success.
Certainly the Giving Pledge is one of many such organizations, but you know, there is so much more capital to be unlocked. Even in the Giving Pledge, there’s half a trillion dollars sitting all dressed up with nowhere to go, and I think it also is up to us because sometimes small social sector organization bemoan the lack of funding. But I think we also need to go out there and bravely tell our story in a way that we can be heard.
When I say we, I seem to be talking all over the place, but you know what I mean, that funders like me also need to hear your stories more. Sometimes they don’t reach funders, so that’s something. So how can global philanthropy, which is already so good at pushing out the money, how can it help local philanthropy to hear those stories better and carry them along? If Skoll could come to many countries and say, “We are here, now you join us,” which you’ve already been doing in some places, I think we need to unlock local capital for local work, especially in this very, very critical human decade where we all have understood exactly how interconnected we are, even as we are trying to tear ourselves apart with polarized ideologies.
Don Gips: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. And just from our perspective, we’ve learned so much doing this with you and with philanthropists around the world. Every time I go, travel, and it’s not enough, so Shivani’s going to make me go travel a lot more next year, the insights and the local understanding is so critical, and that support, and just an encouragement to all global funders to find those local partners.
Rohini Nilekani: Absolutely, because we can all be unified in our missions. We all have similar ideas of equity, justice, freedoms, and so many other things, right? But we cannot be uniform in our solutions. The solution has to be in context, and therefore it will be in a myriad different diverse ways. And funders also have to be very sensitive to that. Please don’t try to push one solution down the pipeline. Please let the funder community learn that our job is to distribute the ability to solve, to restore agency, to uphold dignity, and to create more choice. So I think, I think you need to create a conference. It’s easier to tell you than to do it myself.
Don Gips: Can’t we do it with each other?
Rohini Nilekani: Where social sector leaders get to train donors.
Don Gips: I think you just created a, we’ll have to do that next year at the forum. I’m going to open it up for Q&A. They’re going to run around with mics. We got a couple, let’s turn on some lights so I can see. We got a hand there. Right there we had a hand. Where else were there? There’s one up there. Let’s start wherever you guys can get to first. Of course, everybody’s in the middle.
Nidhi: Hi, thank you. I’m privileged to be here.
Don Gips: Say your name and organization too, please.
Nidhi: My name is Nidhi. I represent, my dream is to make sure on the Indian streets women and children can walk safely without the fear of sexual harassment as safe as we all walked at 10 o’clock, 12 o’clock in Oxford. So I work with various organizations. One of them is Arpan, who I support. So yeah, my question is a difficult one and it’s a question of the six people we were on the table yesterday at Exeter College. Lovely Harry Potter type dining hall. So happy we were there. And I had someone from Nigeria, Germany, Spain, United States, London, India. And what we were discussing is this.
We are on this platform. There’s so many of us here. There’s so much power, money, doers, everybody in this room and there’s so much conflict in the world, which is creating more problems and it is taking us away from achieving the SDGs all of us are working together. So where can we take the plea to make that collective power work for everybody so we can persuade the governments and those leaders to cease fire? So that’s my difficult question. Sorry, but I just hope we do something together.
Don Gips: Do you want to take a stab at it?
Rohini Nilekani: I think you go first.
Don Gips: Oh, great.
Rohini Nilekani: I’m empowering you to answer first.
Don Gips: Oh, why thank you. I mean, this is a, look, I’ve said it from a stage yesterday. I don’t think I’m an old guy, so I’ve been around a while. This is one of the more challenging contexts any of us have ever worked in. We have global crisis. We’ve had conversations here about Gaza, where Ukraine is like the big sucking sound for resources and causing huge pain. And those are the ones we’re all talking about. From a numbers perspective, Sudan, Haiti, DRC are even worse.
We need to empower the voices in this room. That’s what we try to do with our philanthropy, to help shape that. You heard Mary Robinson yesterday from the stage talking about this need to build this collective power. I wish we had the answers, because we’re obviously not doing enough and not doing it fast enough, given the scale of what’s happening geopolitically.
I also, this is my own personal belief, and not necessarily, I’m not speaking on behalf of Skoll, although that’s going to be hard to do when I’m here at the Skoll World Forum and CEO of the Skoll Foundation, but I think we’re also operating in an information ecosystem that is driving these divisions at an incredibly fast pace. And misinformation and disinformation were already bad, and AI is making it an accelerant to that fire. And so, at least at Skoll, we are trying to think through what can you do to rebuild a healthier information ecosystem?
I spoke to our grantees earlier in the week, and I was talking about this article I read in Axios about the US media ecosystem, but I think it’s true globally, where in the US, we used to look at the world through several windows, television, radio, print, and the article said each of those windows has been broken, and it’s now we look at the world through shards of glass. It was a very powerful analogy. And then they went through sort of who the influencers were in each, as they saw it in like the 12 segments of the US population. I have to say, I didn’t know who 90% of them were. I found my little shard of glass. All the people I read, and they were in one of the shards of glass that was described in this article.
And the other thing I don’t think we’ve understood, and I see a few of you with your phones, that’s how we get our news and information. It’s through these little windows and snippets. And how do we address that? Because I don’t think until we address that and figure out how to tell narrative in a more powerful way that gets through in those screens, we’re going to start to break down some of those divisions. And I’ll say one more thing, because it’s something I struggle with.
In a democratic society, there is no arbiter of truth. So it’s hard to say what’s misinformation, what’s disinformation. In an authoritarian society, somebody gets to decide the truth that people are going to be told. So in this information ecosystem, those social media tools can be very powerful in an authoritarian society, and they can be used to divide a democratic society. And I think this is a fundamental challenge. So if anybody has solutions, come find me afterwards, because I’m all ears.
Rohini Nilekani: Yeah. No, I don’t want to evade the question. I would say I don’t know. I am, this is way above what I’m able to do. But I’ll tell you what I believe in. And you talked of shards of glass. The Japanese, I may be mispronouncing, is it kintsugi? They would take the shards of glass, repair them, and create something whole, new, and beautiful with gold.
Don Gips: I told you she was a poet.
Rohini Nilekani: Well, you know, I can do as much poetry as I want, but governance has to be done in prose.
Don Gips: Yeah.
Rohini Nilekani: But maybe together we can take these shards of glass and do kintsugi. And you know, who can do it? We can’t expect our leaders to do it. We have to do it. And that’s why at the core of my philanthropy is the firm belief that states and markets have been around to serve society and not the other way around. Right? We are not born to serve the markets. We are not born to be subjects of states. The states were created, markets were created to serve all of us as human beings and citizens. So it’s we who have to take back certain things that we have yielded in terms of our collective power to act.
And I think I don’t know how to avert wars, but I do know that every day’s, every person’s work every day is to restore community, be it just in your family, but be it in your neighborhood, be it at any level, but to restore the human-to-human connection that we should not be ashamed to talk about. Yesterday we heard such beautiful words from so many people on the stage and not to let, well, sometimes men–
Don Gips: Almost always men.
Rohini Nilekani: tell us otherwise. So I think that’s the work and you all do it every day. So I don’t want to lecture you on that, but however long it takes, that is the work ahead.
Don Gips: Beautifully said.
Rohini Nilekani: Thank you.
Don Gips: Question over here and then there are other hands up behind.
Angela Nguku: Thank you. My name is Angela Nguku. I come from Nairobi, Kenya. I lead a movement for women and girls working to advance their rights at agency from an asking and deep listening approach. I really acknowledge and appreciate what you’ve said, Rohini, and thanks for what you’re doing across the world. That deep listening is really, with intentionality to hear, understand and act is really important. And that systems change from what I’ve heard since the time I came here. This is my first time at Skoll and I’m really like wowed by what is happening. If we really want to impact, we have to start with a few things that we must change. And one of them is deep listening.
Embracing those who are doing the work and trusting that they know the solutions. That volunteerism is exhaustive and that passion cannot pay bills for those doing the work. And that sometimes we need to acknowledge that even after three years, four years, when the funding is over, the people are still living the solution, the context and the realities and we must acknowledge that they are the people who understand the solutions.
Yet a lot of times you hear that we need to embrace new actors in this space, but a lot of times what I’ve observed over my last 16 years of working in this space is that philanthropists most of the times are the ones who perpetuate the usual suspects. That you block out the new actors in this space, but by continuing with the same, same people doing the same results over and over and not getting new results.
The question that comes to my mind and I’m speaking on behalf of almost over 120 networks of women and girls that I work with in Kenya and across Africa, how then do we stop that? How do we remove ourselves from where we are and move closer to the new actors in the space and be able to be ready to do things differently? Acknowledging that it will take something I had today morning, a multi-solve approach, intersectional approach in how we do things and those usual suspects might not really be having the answers to that intersectional lens of looking at things? And are philanthropists really ready to listen, understand and act with those new actors in this space? Thank you.
Rohini Nilekani: I’m not quite sure I got the question. Is how do philanthropists?
Don Gips: I think how to, was the question how to get philanthropy to reach out to new actors in the space?
Angela Nguku: Yeah, a lot of times there’s a lot of the usual suspects that you know that I am Rohini, philanthropist and I only give money to A, B, C, D. Anyone coming to the space is blocked and these people also become the new, the big brothers syndrome comes in where you become the block.
Rohini Nilekani: So how does philanthropy stay more open–
Angela Nguku: Yes.
Rohini Nilekani: to new actors?
Angela Nguku: Exactly.
Rohini Nilekani: Yeah, no, I think that’s a very good point. Any good philanthropy, any good philanthropic institution should be able to constantly re-strategize based on what it is seeing and hearing in the field. And definitely they should. And I think it is time for more conferences in the world where philanthropists can be held publicly accountable, not by, please, no stone throwing or anything, just a very friendly–
Don Gips: Yeah, don’t like, we’re still up on the stage.
Rohini Nilekani: friendly, civilized learning sessions. I think sometimes we don’t know what other people are thinking of us as philanthropists, right? It’s not possible to do that 360-degree listening all the time. But I would say for sure, Skoll has pivoted, I have pivoted often, our teams have pivoted often, because you come somewhere and you say, you suddenly find how much you were missing all this while. And I think, again, I’m telling you, stories need to reach the donor community. They don’t reach enough. So maybe we need to do a little more brainstorming on how to do that in this time of our global situation. I’m sorry if that’s not a great answer.
Don Gips: First of all, one of the hardest parts about this job is, there are so many more organizations that we end up not being able to fund than those that we fund. I mean, civil society is so vibrant around the world and it’s very hard for all of us to find who we should be funding and where we go. And I think Rohini’s 100% right. It’s through deep listening that we figure out how to keep getting better at this. And we have a long way to go to get really good.
I do think one of the things we’ve done at Skoll that I would encourage others to do, and it’s part of the reason I’m here on the stage with Rohini, is we’re 60 people, is the total number of staff at the Skoll Foundation. We’re all based in the US. Yeah, we’re a global philanthropy. We try to learn through, we call them proximate funders, that’s why I’m on the stage because I can’t, I don’t know enough to know who the right organizations are, who are making a real difference around equity and change in Nigeria. But we’ll fund the Tutu Fellows or African Visionary Fund who are closer and can build out that network. We give up our control to them and then it also, selfishly, it builds a great pipeline of organizations for us to look at for the types of organizations who’ll be on the stage tomorrow or tonight, wow, we’re already into day two, receiving the Skoll Award.
So I think as philanthropy, we have to think about this as an ecosystem. We all have a role to play, but I think those of us in the Global North in particular should share some of our power with the more proximate leaders in philanthropy who are closer to the ground.
Rohini Nilekani: Yeah. Maybe we also, a little bit, might have to reset our expectations of the donor communities because I think donors also struggle to be relevant. Power of intent is very often there in the donor community, but it’s not necessarily, many donors I know are usually very wealthy individuals who’ve done extremely well in the financial sector or the corporate sector, and don’t necessarily know how to effect social change here. They try, but they bring some of those ideas here, which don’t necessarily make sense here. And it’s a journey to reach a point where you finally understand that what works in markets may not work in civil society. So I think a little bit of allowing the journey to happen.
And in any case, we all know that it’s not like the rich are going to come and save the world. Okay? Eventually it has to come up from below. And in the old days, or still in many parts of the world, the power of voluntary movements, where it’s not necessarily about writing a proposal and getting a check, but voluntary local public movements are incredibly powerful to effect societal change. And later on they can become institutionalized and look for grant money. But again, I repeat, starting from society, from our human connections with each other and repowering that engine of human beings and citizenry to address some of our problems seems to be incredibly important to reaffirm today.
Don Gips: 100% agree. Oh, 10 minutes, wow. And just one second, then I’ll get to you. When I look around the room, I see all these dandelion pins on people, it’s a sign of that type of movement. No funding. They’re just getting out there, building a movement that’ll wake up philanthropy and it’ll wake up government and it’ll wake up the private sector.
Roopa Dhatt: I should say, it must be serendipitous since– My name is Roopa Dhatt. I was on the table with Nidhi so we were meant to be. The woman who spoke before me is talking about women’s movements. And I myself founded a movement almost a decade ago and it was by chance. I describe myself as a physician by hobby and now leading one of the fastest growing women’s movement in health around the world. We have 57 chapters. It’s my first Skoll Forum. So again, thank you for the invitation. I’m coming here as a first-time grantee.
I’m feeling very inspired because this room feels like a room which is converted. I don’t feel like the odd person saying that I’m leading a movement. And I also want to just really acknowledge, Rohini, your remarks on the role of women’s leadership so resonate, but it’s resonating throughout the forum. And that’s the problem we created Women in Global Health to solve. Women deliver health, men lead it. And until women are actually leading at health at all levels, we’re going to keep missing out on those health solutions. So that’s a big problem that I’m here to solve. And I hope that many of you will reach out to me.
But turning to the topic at hand, one mind shift that I’ve gone through is, when I started Women in Global Health 10 years ago, I was thinking it was going to be a two-year campaign. That’s all it’s going to take. But now here I am crossing a 10-year milestone next year. And as we talk about the role of philanthropy and I think all types of partners, how do we get you on the journey with us for the long-term change?
We know social change does not happen overnight. We also are seeing all the tensions, the surface tensions that are taking place. And with that, we need systems change. And I really appreciate the, again, being in a place where people believe in system change. How do we get philanthropy to also be with us on the journey long-term, get multi-year funding and be committed? Thank you.
Don Gips: You want to tackle that one?
Rohini Nilekani: Well, I think a little bit you’re talking to the converted. They do, systems change over multiple years and we try to. We’ve been exactly trying to do that. But more and more philanthropists who are coming to this idea. And let’s watch over the next four or five years. I think you’re going to see much more philanthropic capital coming into systems change kind of work, more patient capital. I truly believe it in my country, there’s a lot of new wealth. And that new wealth is not attached to traditional family ideas of how to spend it.
There’s a lot of freedom and a lot of openness. And they are clearly seeing that we need our problem solving to be at least as fast, our solutions to be at least as fast as the pace at which the problems are growing. So they are very, very interested in this sort of thing. I see a new era of philanthropy coming in. Yeah.
Don Gips: And if I can just add to that–
Rohini Nilekani: And I hope the Center for Exponential Change will have a tiny role to play in that.
Don Gips: I was in Brazil this year. I can’t remember, I’m losing all track of dates. And some of my people who taught me while I was there are here in this room. And I couldn’t agree with you more. Next gen philanthropy, they’re not as patient. They want to, I mean, they’re not as happy with the status quo. They want to change the status quo.
Rohini Nilekani: Yes, yes.
Don Gips: And they’re taking a much more systems change lens to their philanthropy. And some of them who’ve inherited wealth are pushing their parents or their organizations, let’s switch the lens. Let’s figure out how we partner with those who are driving this change and accelerate it.
Harsha: Hi, sorry. Hi, my name is Harsha. Sorry, I was very anxious. So all of these kind people have come to support me to ask the question.
Don Gips: Uh-oh, this sounds like a troubling one.
Rohini Nilekani: Yeah.
Harsha: No, it’s very easy. And I think, so I’m a 21-year-old social entrepreneur, hence the nerves. And thank you. And I run an, oh. And I run a social enterprise that works with over 50,000 students, Gen Z’s to incubate at risk students into social entrepreneurs. So we develop profit generating social entrepreneurs from students who would otherwise have dropped out of school, gone into social crime and so on. And we currently operate in 26 countries. And we’ve been around for the last nine years. So when I founded it nine years ago, I was 13. People didn’t take us seriously.
They told, oh, thank you. No, but when I founded it at 13, people didn’t take us seriously. They told us we were way too young and to go out there and get some traction. Nine years later, 50,000 kids later that we’ve impacted, we have government contracts, we have Fortune 500s that have come on board, we have had Ivy League institutions, research published about us, they still say we’re too young. And a credit to Skoll, Skoll has been one of two foundations that have taken us seriously in the last nine years. So thank you.
But the problem that I see with a lot of youth is, it’s either completely ignored. They tell us come back when you’re older or it’s tokenized and it’s put up, but everyone says very cute, very good job, but no one takes them seriously as partners, as implementers, as people who have voices and real experiences to share. Many times we’re all lumped into one big group, which is people who have been running organizations for six months and for five, six years and therefore we don’t get the support we need when we’re actually at the, I would say, later stage than some organizations.
So what can we do to be changing perceptions about this simply because I think my face kind of betrays me a little bit when they see us and as much as I know a lot of good people want to support Gen Z, I would like to figure out strategies to make it easier for philanthropists to be able to do that in an effective way.
Rohini Nilekani: Okay, we have only two minutes so you should quickly talk.
Don Gips: Oh wow.
Rohini Nilekani: Yeah.
Don Gips: You have to answer though.
Rohini Nilekani: No. Most of the, in one of my portfolios called Active Citizenship, I think the average age of the partners is about 23, 24, 25. So I think the world is, in my country, 55% of the people are below 25 years. We have to encourage youth leaders and they are the future, they have to be part of this slightly sad future we have left for them, my generation, so all support to youth leaders, 100%.
Don Gips: You know, when I talked about those shards of glass, it was, reading that article was like a realization for me that the world I grew up in is no longer the world that exists and if we want to change it, we’ve got to start listening to youth. And I hope you’ll teach us how to do that better because we’re too old, or I am, she’s young, but I’m too old.
Rohini Nilekani: I’m young. Rohini Nilekani: Don, we have one minute left and I was a journalist and once a journalist, always a journalist. Can I ask you a question?
Don Gips: Yes.
Rohini Nilekani: CEO of the Skoll World Forum, maybe people haven’t heard you answering that. You’ve been in Samaaj, Sarkaar, and Bazaar, civil society, government and markets. Out of those, which was the most impactful role that you have had in your life?
Don Gips: You caught me off guard with that one. I thought I was going to tell you all to go to the next event. They’re all different. I had the incredible blessing to work for President Obama and President Clinton. It’s pretty hard to beat in terms of impact and feeling like directly responsible. But I actually think this job is the most rewarding, not because of what I get to do, but because I get to see all of you at work out in the field.
It is so moving and it gives me hope that we can actually fix some of the problems that the first questioner brought up and that the youth are reminding of us that if we’re going to get through this, it’s by the people on the front lines building these movements. And being in a position to help them get there is probably the most rewarding thing I can do.
And let me tell you, walking around this forum, I’ve been driving my staff crazy because I like disappear. And I’m just walking around trying to listen to the conversations because they inspire me, they give me hope, and they let me know that there’s a brighter future ahead. And so, thank you to all of you.
Rohini Nilekani (Chairperson of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies and Core Founder of AIP), in her Keynote Address at the launch event for the AIP-BCG report, “Wealth with Purpose: A Report on Private Indian Philanthropy,” emphasised the critical role that the report will play in expanding the understanding of philanthropy in India. She also spoke about the importance of collaboration between samaaj, sarkar, and bazaar in addressing complex social issues.
The launch was held at the Motilal Oswal Tower in Mumbai in July 2024.
Transcript
00:00:00 Rohini Nilekani: Namaskar, how are you all? It’s wonderful to be in my native city in the monsoon with the sea looking so beautiful, and yet we are not flooded out. What better can you hope for in this beautiful city of Mumbai? It’s wonderful to see this room, as Ajay said, of people who have understood the true meaning of using their wealth for societal purpose. And thank you, Ashish, thank you to the whole team for putting together this report. I have read it. It adds substantively to the discourse on Indian philanthropy. Congratulations, and we look forward to much more because there’s going to be lots more to uncover about the journey of the philanthropists of India.
0:00:49 So I thought most of you are very well-versed in what is happening in philanthropy. Many of you are doing most amazing, innovative work as your journeys in philanthropy move along. And it is a journey. It’s like climbing a steep ladder. It’s 32 years now since I started working in this space, and every day I learn something new and aspire to do something more. So in this journey, all of you know, you’ve read many reports, you’ve done a lot of research in your own philanthropy. So I said, what is the one thing we all don’t talk too much about that I should broach?
0:01:25 And I thought that some of you know that I keep talking ad nauseam about Samaaj, Sarkaar and Bazaar. But I realized that in this journey of philanthropy, Ajay spoke about how we as philanthropists can work together with Sarkaar to do systems change. And he described a lot of the leveraged work that they are doing with Sarkaar. But I realized that many of us have not talked enough about the role of Bazaar. Without Sarkaar, Samaaj and Bazaar working together, there is simply no way we can solve the many, many societal, complex issues that face India today. As we grow economically we also want to have our society develop so that everybody in India, all 1.4 billion of them who are standing outside these hallowed rooms have a chance to sit at this table along with us. Isn’t that the final goal? That all of society should have the same opportunities, at least.
0:02:27 In that journey, civil society organizations and philanthropies have learned in the last 20, 30, 40 years, especially to work with Sarkaar. And indeed, there are thousands, if not millions of champions within government who are working together with civil society, Samaaj institutions and philanthropic foundations to help achieve scale in poverty reduction and increased all sorts of societal goods. However, we have not learned how to work with a very key component which all of you, most of you in the room represent, which is the Bazaar. Now why is that?
0:03:08 I think it is because we have not, civil society has not managed to make Bazaar enough of an ally in this journey. I must say that many of you will agree that many of the societal issues that are created are…many of them, not all of them, but many of them are actually negative externalities of the Bazaar. Whether it is societal issues of labor, livelihoods or it is environmental issues, many of them stem from inside the fences of Bazaar.
0:03:46 And again, I’m not trying to bring anybody from Bazaar down. I’m a very happy shareholder of the Bazaar. I think the results of Infosys came out today. Vallabh Bhai, I haven’t seen them. I hope they were good, but so I’m not at all anti-Bazaar. I’m saying how can we all together learn how to tap the Bazaar as a more of an ally? And I think there are many synergies possible that in this journey of wealth with purpose that we can unlock. I’m going to give you two examples from my experience.
0:04:17 So tomorrow, in fact, I’m going to co-host together with Rainmatter Foundation, somebody here from there. A climate leaders meet. Some of you will be there, together with the India Climate Collaborative. And we all are very acutely aware of what’s going to happen with climate change, especially in this extremely critical decade of human development. And this India Climate Collaborative was set up together with the Tata Trusts, the MacArthur Foundation, EdelGive and us, and this collaborative hope to build India’s climate ecosystem and harness the climate philanthropies potential working with government, business, civil society, etc.
0:05:09 This is a classic example of how we can pull in Bazaar from both inside and outside. 2-2.3 times is the growth of fund flows towards climate action just in six years, between 2017 and ’23. Earlier, climate action represented about 1-2% of overall philanthropic funding. But it is increasing very rapidly because of this kind of collaboration between civil society organization and Bazaar organizations. And I believe that we need much more such collaboration where, while Sarkaar, of course, is going to be the dominant player when it comes to funds because they have the most money, I do believe that we can unlock much more when we use Bazaar as an ally.
0:06:02 Today, Bazaar knows very well how climate change can affect everything in its supply chains, right? More and more and more people come and say, “How can we be much more sustainable end to end?” And I think here is where there’s a very close possible relationship between civil society organizations working at the first mile to limit the impact of environmental destruction, working together with the best intentions of Bazaar to certainly reduce the damage that is coming our way and to create a future very different from the future that we fear.
0:06:40 A growing body of research has demonstrated how greater respect for CSOs and civic freedoms increases actually the Bazaar’s potential, financial investment, facilitating economic reform, reducing social unrest, and allowing both ideas and resources to spread at unprecedented rates. There was a 2018 paper called the Business Case for Civil Society, which shows that the work of civil society organizations can reduce the cost of corruption, can help businesses be sustainable, can enhance investor and employee and customer relationships.
0:07:22 Remember, civil society organizations also help to maintain societal harmony. And business houses know very well that in the absence of societal peace, it is really very hard to conduct business. So there are many synergies between the civil society sector and the Bazaar sector, which I think remain underutilized. And I think we should start thinking together, how do we create better synergies between these two sectors?
0:07:51 I would give one example of an organization called Agami, which we fund through the Access to Justice portfolio. It is dedicated to accelerating innovation and law and justice in India. Some of you might know of their excellent work. Since 2018, they have also played a critical role in developing the online dispute resolution (ODR) field in India. I’m sure you all know that ODR is a public facing digital space in which parties can convene to resolve their disputes. Agami has been nurturing early-stage startups, Bazaar sector startups in which they can build a compelling narrative around the potential of ODR to unlock support from key stakeholders in government, in the judiciary and in the private sector.
0:08:40 The partners by the way, include NITI Aayog, the judiciary, ICICI bank and many, many startups. ODR is not far removed from our lives as we think. Dispute resolution costs borne by citizens and business have resulted in an aggregate loss of $56 billion to the Indian economy, and that means it comes close to 1.88% of GDP. Not at all a small number. And if we can improve online dispute resolution, can you imagine what ripple effects come down into society?
0:09:16 So there are such innovative possibilities where you bring Samaaj, Sarkaar, of course Sarkaar is there, but Bazaar together to solve some of our problems. And I have become very interested and would be very happy to hear from people in the room as to how we can bring Bazaar into a much, much closer relationship with both Sarkaar and Samaaj. I urge philanthropists and business leaders to think more about this.
0:09:46 I think in the report I was very struck, hundred HNIs were interviewed and more possibly, and you’ll be hearing much more so I won’t waste time on telling you more about the report, but what was interesting to me is the forms of giving were as diverse as Indian society itself. And it is our diversity I do believe, which allows us to experiment and innovate and successful models to be adopted. So there’s much more work to be done, but it seems the most heartening thing in the report, as you will hear, is that most wealthy people want to give more, faster and better.
0:10:22 So can you imagine the opportunity as India grows wealthy? Unfortunately, it is likely that a small portion of India is going to grow wealthier faster than everybody else. We cannot keep staying so far away from what was so beautifully described just now about the districts, for example, and the people for example, that are left behind. We have to pull up other people along with us. That is the purpose of wealth creation in society. No society will allow runaway wealth creation unless it is seen as a societal good. No nation will allow only a handful of people to grow wealthy and use wealth only for themselves without bringing in all forms of restraint.
0:11:10 So I won’t belabor that point too much because I’m already in a room of the converted. I don’t need to urge you to do. But there is always scope to do more. We struggle to do more, Nandan and I struggle. How can we give back more? We have signed the Giving Pledge. We have a long way to go to finish it, hopefully in our lifetimes. So always looking for more and more opportunities to collaborate at the systems level to create exponential change. For that, we have set up The Centre for Exponential Change very recently, and we hope to be able to take at least 10 societal entrepreneurs to significant scale in the next 3-5 years, in 3-5 countries. But that kind of imagination is needed to be unleashed throughout the chain.
0:11:57 Even if you’re beginning at the first step of philanthropy, I urge all of us, successful entrepreneurs, all of you to start thinking scale at the get-go. I’m not suggesting you launch millions of crores worth of ventures, but if you start to imagine, even if you’re supporting one child’s scholarship, think because you have this much, you have the wherewithal, you have the education, you have the networks, and you have the intent. How can you put all of that to think what will it mean to take your passion to scale? Your organization need not scale, but your mission can scale in collaboration with a hundred other entrepreneurs like yourselves.
0:12:39 So we have started looking at how do you scale? And we’ve come up with a framework, not the framework. And some of the elements of that to think about is how do you design for scale from the get-go because pilots succeed, and scale often fails. So knowing what works at scale rather than scaling what works, how do you put technology to work for you? Not be led by technology but be enabled by technology. How do you distribute the ability to solve? How do you create a system which is unified in its vision but not uniform in its processes? How do you therefore leverage the wonderful diversity of India to solve in context? How do you unleash, how do you distribute the ability to solve? This is the kind of, a few things I’ve told you about a process by which we can really scale every good idea that exists in this room.
0:13:41 Without belaboring too much because we are already a little behind schedule, I’m going to leave you with one thought. I love being in nature. I love everything from tigers to ants and the beautiful diversity. This is one country in India. Never forget that as you step out even into the city of Mumbai, India is the one culture, the one country in the world where despite so much population pressure on our land, we have nurtured flora and fauna diversity almost unparalleled in the world with this kind of land pressure. And that comes from a deep culture of respect, a deep culture of understanding the nature cannot be separated from human beings.
0:14:24 And for me, that is one of the most inspiring things in my life and work. I always look to nature for inspiration every day. One of the things I’m fascinated with is spiders. And spiders have been around for a hundred million years, much more longer than us. There are dozens of species that are doing miraculous things to build their webs and catch their food. And I always used to wonder, how is it that a tiny little spider manages to make a web from here to there with empty space in between? How does the spider cross from here to there with his web?
0:15:00 And then I read up about it and found that yes, the spider is capable of spinning different kinds of yarn with different stickiness and strength. He’s all ready, with the web to be spun, but you know what he has to wait for to go to create a web from here to that wall, for example, while all of us are sleeping at night? He has to wait and wait and wait for a gentle breeze to come along, which allows him to throw the first thread across that yawning gap of space.
0:15:29 And I always said, “My God, that’s so fascinating.” We didn’t realize the role of the gentle breeze in the making of the World Wide Web. And I think, I’ll leave you with that thought, ladies and gentlemen, maybe philanthropy is the gentle web which allows the spiders of Samaaj, Sarkaar and Bazaar to spin the beautiful intricate webs for societal development all over the world.
Let’s be the gentle breeze and use our wealth with much more purpose. Dhanyawad. Namaste.
Rohini Nilekani’s keynote address at Volcon – India’s flagship national conference on volunteering.
This is an edited version of Rohini Nilekani’s keynote address at Volcon – India’s flagship national conference on volunteering.
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Like so many of us, I grew up on stories of volunteerism in my family because my paternal grandfather, Babasaheb Soman (Sadashiv Laxman Soman), was among those clutch of people who were the first to respond to Gandhiji’s call during the Champaran agitation in 1917. Gandhiji said, “I need people here to support this community.” At the time, the whole indigo agitation was over and the people were in deep distress. We forget just how brutal the British rule in India was and Gandhiji just wanted good people to come. So my grandfather was on that first train that went from Beldaur all the way to West Champaran in Bihar to stay there and help build the first ashram in Bhitiharwa, to set up schools, to build toilets, to work with the local farmers, and so on. Why did he do this? Because of the really big question of our times, as Martin Luther King said, which I am paraphrasing – what is it in our lives that we are going to do for others? I think he answered that question himself. He was a lawyer but half the time he was busy getting the two conflicting parties to agree out of court which means he did not get any fees. My grandmother did not like this strategy very much but that is how he lived. And so the most meaningful thing he could do in his life was to join Gandhiji. He remained a Gandhian, working hard for the freedom of our country and he died just before independence but left a legacy that still goes on in our family.
So in my family, this power of volunteering to put society before self was always held up as an aadarsh i.e. a goal, a vision, and an ideal and it has really animated the spirit of all our lives. For me, the highest personal ethic is to volunteer. As we all know the word ‘volunteer’ comes from the French word, ‘volontiers’ which means willingly and that is the most important thing. Willingly, from intrinsic motives, from inside we wish to give of ourselves, right? One’s time, one’s talent, one’s money, whatever we can give to enhance the greater public good. And so this volunteering, it is from self to create society, to create a better Samaaj. It is a very English word actually. If we try to bridge it in our languages, there is no exact translation. So then we will end up saying ‘seva’ maybe or ‘swayam seva’ which means to give yourself forward. But maybe if we were to search for a common animating spirit to bridge these two – volunteering and seva – maybe we can turn to a wonderful word which concisely illuminates the universal truth that I am because you are, right? In the Bantu language, they use the word ‘Ubuntu’ which means you are because I am. And I think that word really captures why this room is so full of people, because we intrinsically understand our deep connections and that unless we keep up the flame of seva, of giving forward of ourselves, we cannot get back the society that we want.
Building Samaaj Through Seva
Seva is as old as human beings are, and even primates do seva in the sense that they serve each other. The American anthropologist, Margaret Mead, said that the first sign of civilization that she could uncover was when they found a skeleton with a healed femur. And what did the healed femur from so many tens of thousands of years ago imply? In much of the animal world, sometimes when a weak animal has a limb that is broken, the other herds move on and just leave the animal to die. But a healed femur means that even when the person could not walk, had broken his thigh bone without which he could not fend for himself, somebody was caring for this person and probably getting nothing back in return. This is what Margaret Mead called the dawn of human civilization – when there was proof of volunteerism, of seva, of service before the self. And ever since then, volunteering has been strong and active in human society all around the world. In fact, UN Volunteers, an organization of the UN, claims that 1 billion people have been volunteering at some point in their lives globally. Now, I am not sure exactly how they define volunteering, but that is one-eighth of the population, that is one-eighth of humankind that has self-declared that they are doing some form of volunteering in their lives. What excites me about that is if each of these 1 billion could inspire just one more each, that makes it 2 billion. And if those 2 billion could inspire just one each, that makes it 4 billion people, right? Imagine, that is half of all humanity and maybe that should be our goal. Even in this room, can we manifest this idea that half of humanity will be trying to serve somebody else, not from morning till night, but at some part of the day? If that is the goal, then working backwards, how do we all have to organize the volunteer movement so that half the world feels animated to give of themselves at some point in their lives? So I do believe that seva and giving of oneself is absolutely critical in today’s time. We proudly live in a democracy and that volunteer spirit strengthens democracy. In fact, it is absolutely at the core of building the kind of Samaaj that we all want to live in.
Democracy is not created for us and gifted to us by leaders, democracy is of the people, by the people, and for the people. That is why people – Samaaj – has the foundational supremacy to keep democracy alive. This democracy of Samaaj goes way beyond electoral democracy. It is not just about voting during every election. Real democracy is about much more than voting. And inside, we all know that. Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, and we cannot forget that, we cannot take our freedoms for granted. And if eternal vigilance in a democracy is the price for our freedoms, then I am going to say today that maybe eternal empathy is the price for a good society. And that is something that we need to remember.
In fact, none of us would be sitting so comfortably and proudly in this room as citizens of a free nation if not for the tremendous waves of volunteerism across the length and breadth of the country for 100 years. Tens of lakhs of people participated in our historic freedom struggle, our unique Satyagraha. And for me, the lasting image is always a very common and powerful one, that of the Dandi March in 1930, when Gandhiji just picked up a fistful of salt against an unfair tax that the British had imposed, which led to the 24 day march from 12th March to 5th April. After that first act of Gandhiji, at the young age of 61, bit by bit, thousands of people joined his brave act of selfless service to the idea of a free nation. These acts are what we must really be grateful for, for all of us being able to sit here today. The young people in the room especially need to look deep into our history books, to really understand what has kept this diverse nation together. A lot of it has to do with the selfless voluntary service of not just countless leaders that made up India’s modern nation, but many, many unnamed ones just like my grandfather.
Another highlight of volunteerism in India was during the ’67-’68 Bihar famine. At that time crops had failed and the weather had let us down. There were policies, perhaps, that needed to have been different, but lakhs of people were facing death by starvation. And that actually became the cradle for the modern volunteer movement of India. I know dozens of people, now getting on in their years, who were so troubled by the fact that people at the time could be so close to death that could be preventable, that they left their cushy jobs. Vijay Mahajan is one of them. It was the birth of the Jayaprakash Narayan movement. That crisis really brought out the humanity in many people and it also birthed many of the nonprofits in India today. So we are all wired to reach out to other humans who are suffering. That is just one example and there has been a tradition of service in our society.
There is a practice in Rajasthan called ‘laash’, where people volunteer to go from one village to the other to create public works, usually around water, such as digging farm ponds and laying roads. It could be any physical public good that is being created and they all take off in their bullock carts or their tractors, go to some designated village, and do Shramdaan i.e. voluntary labour for the whole day. They get a magnificent meal cooked by the local villagers and then they charge back home with the pride of having helped that village create its own new public infrastructure. And naturally, those villagers then similarly reciprocate in a history of mutualism that runs through the veins of this country.
In India today, there are also thousands of organizations, many that are faith-based and ideology-based, that depend entirely on volunteers. The largest organizations in the world are volunteer-based and I think the most scalable thing in the world is actually service. Of course, some things need to be scaled by the Bazaar or by the Sarkaar, but those two sectors came out of Samaaj itself. So in some ways, we can see it as a continuum, that some innovation started through service, through volunteerism, started in the non-profit sector, eventually gets embedded in either Bazaar or Sarkaar. But the most scalable thing in the whole wide world is service to others. Right here in Bangalore we have Art of Living and so many others that get volunteers across caste, class, and religion simply to serve others as much as they can. We all know about the langars and there are so many other examples, more modern examples that I am very proud to have been associated with.
One of those initiatives is ASER, the education report that comes out every year. It is such a simple idea but tens of thousands of volunteers from literally every district of India come forward, go to a village and they have to do a statistical sampling. I have participated in these surveys, where you ask the children of the house to come sit with you and see how much they have learnt in school. And all the children, everybody gathers and it becomes like a festival. And through this, we have learnt that in fact, we have a very long way to go to ensure every child in school and learning well. So this is another example that is driven by volunteer energy and the spirit of that, and shows what that volunteerism can achieve. For me, the ideal volunteer is not one animated by an ideology or a sect or a religion or a faith, but only with the highest form of humanitarianism. It does not matter who is in front of you, which religion, which country, which geography, which choice, which anything they belong to, we see the human in you. As I said earlier, I am because you are, so when I do something for you, it is for both of us together. That is the highest ideal of volunteerism and that is why volunteers do not get paid, someone said, not because they are worthless but because they are priceless.
I know there are many corporations represented here, which have large volunteer programs, which is really good because we are getting more and more data that employees want to work for corporations that do good rather than those that are there for greed. People want to work for corporations that are not only for profit, but there to be citizens of the societies that they participate in. Young people especially want to be very sure that their companies are doing good as much as they are doing well, and volunteering is a huge part of that. But even when people go out as corporate volunteers, can we reach deep into our hearts to find that humanitarianism? It does not matter which corporate logo is on your t-shirt, what you have to find when you go out there is that human thing for which there is no logo except that inside our hearts. So, that is the opportunity really, for corporations today to allow their employees to do much more strategic, long-term work in communities. Because I have absolutely no doubt that if we look at the balance sheets, eventually even that bottom line is going to get enhanced if we look at this frontline.
And as Samaaj, we need to put more pressure on corporations to do better. We need more transparency and authenticity in ESG disclosures, for example, it is not just some whitewashing you put on the walls. It is genuinely linked to the success of your business. And more and more corporations are beginning to see it. Right now there is still a bit of airbrushing going on, but it is up to all of us now to hold companies accountable. Never, never forget that we are Samaaj. We have the power. We must exercise it. And whether they are corporations or the government, they have no choice but to bend to genuine public pressure. So we have just begun the journey where the public is holding businesses accountable to ESG, apart from the government’s regulatory frameworks and it is a journey that has to become more transparent and more authentic over time. Obviously volunteering will be a big part of this and it is up to all of us to find ways to hold corporations accountable and do so without fear or favour.
So in philanthropy, corporations play a huge role. After all, volunteers also have to eat. Volunteers also have to dress. Volunteers also have children to put into school. And that is where philanthropy plays a big role in supporting the acts of volunteering. And I think in India, this is really a call to action to philanthropists’ foundations in the room. How can we come together to support a national movement of volunteers? How can we help platformize it so that I stop getting asked, “What can I do?” And our philanthropy is not really set up to just take in volunteers. I wish it were because it is a hard thing to do. So how can we knock our heads together to see how is it possible to find or to create a platform? We have a team that we call ‘Societal Thinking Team’, where we look at what architecture is required to create urgent impact at scale, and how we can distribute the ability to solve in context. And importantly, how can we create a technology backbone that allows people to co-create on top of it?
Volunteerism in the Digital Age
One of the goals we must all keep for ourselves is to create that enabling infrastructure so that millions more people can join the volunteer movement. We live in a digital age and volunteering has also gone digital. How many of you have ever signed a petition for change.org? Well, the ones who have not, try it out. Sometimes it can be clicktivism, meaning it is very easy to just say yes or something like that and not to know what happens next, though change.org is quite relentless. It tells you what happens next. And I know the young, enthusiastic founder who set it up, but it is one pathway to start your volunteering journey in the digital age. And it is very important because it is the first step that then leads to the next step. So there are many such innovative apps and platforms that have really increased volunteering in India. And there are more techie volunteers of the digital age. ISpirit was set up purely to use tech talent to help other nonprofits to help ideas develop further.
I know when Nandan set up the Aadhaar team, dozens of highly qualified, highly successful corporate professionals from around the world wrote to him and said, “Can I join and give my time?” Some spent two years here in India, gave up everything that they were doing, often from America and Europe and came and just gave their time and talent to set up India’s digital ID. Similarly, with all the other public digital infrastructure that is being rolled out in India today, India has the best public digital infra in the world because it is all open, free, and unleashing innovation everywhere. It is the foundation of economic democracy in our country and it is powered by volunteer energy. So it is very, very important to understand that.
Talking of technology, all of us sitting here would probably have mobile phones and computers that we spend hours on, and we should all doff our hats to Tim Berners-Lee. He created HTML and http, which is the backbone of the world worldwide web which is really today’s internet. But his energy of society before self allowed the internet to be completely open in the public domain, and allowed people to co-create on it. Just imagine what public good that man has unleashed in the last 30 years. So that is the kind of energy and impact that can come from that creative impulse to do good for others.
So, of course, we need more visionaries like Tim Berners-Lee. Of course, we need more Mahatmas like Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. But you know, there is a bit of both in each one of us. And surely we saw that during the pandemic, when so many of us reached out to help someone else. We have internalized, more deeply perhaps than ever in our lifetimes, how interconnected we all are. No matter if we are rich, no matter if we are not so rich, all of us are in the same boat. Some of us are in the upper deck, I must admit, but we are all rowing in the same ocean. And Ubuntu has come really to the fold. As Mahatma Gandhi said, the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
I must say that sometimes in our philanthropy, I can feel a bit remote from what is actually happening on the ground. And I really got re-energised when I participated in a small project outside my office with The Ugly Indians. It is an organization that allows everybody a chance to participate in just taking agency to improve our own society, our own roads, our own infrastructure. I can do it. I do not need to wait for the BBMP, the electricity board or anybody else. I can do it with you because together we are what makes Samaaj possible. I was able to work for half an hour in the hot sun picking up stones and making what they call a ‘beauty spot’ from an ugly spot. It reconnected me to say, it is so easy to give of one’s wealth and so hard to give of oneself.
One of the things we want to be working on very seriously is how to provide discoverable opportunities to volunteer. Of course, people will volunteer where they are and do what they can, but many people want to do more but do not know how. We have to make it much, much easier for people to consistently volunteer their time and talent. And I think that is not happening. There are many great intermediary organizations in this room, but there need to be many more and then we possibly need some kind of societal platform that allows them all to discover each other. I think that is the work ahead and we are committed to it. The other difficult thing is how to sustain volunteer energy. We need to create the structures around volunteering. How can we continue volunteering in the post-pandemic world? And I hope at the end of this two day conference, I will also learn from everyone. What I can think of is to create the platform for discovery and co-creation and also to enable people to not just see each other’s work, but to create new opportunities. I think that is necessary. We also need to provide people with structuring for more sustained opportunities and we have to make it easier, that is the challenge ahead of us.
Of course, people’s motivation to volunteer might affect this, like students who volunteer very vigorously just before they file for college applications, right? All of us begin somewhere, but somewhere during that journey it becomes its own inspiration. Neuroscience has proved today that we are so wired for doing something good for others, that it actually releases endorphins and oxytocin and all the good chemicals in our bodies. You have to keep that person in it only till he gets that first reward back. And then you cannot stop really, because it is such a joyous thing in and of itself. I think the key thing to us is how do we handhold a person till that point where actually evolutionary biology kicks in? Because we would not be a successful species, if not for the human urge to serve. I think you just need to cross that one point. Even after submitting your college application, if you can make the person do one more thing for its own sake, then we will reach the numbers of volunteers that we want.
And these acts can start small and in the home. There are a lot of opportunities even for 5-6 year olds. My grandson is very animated in his school, he came back one day and said, “I am a nature protector.” So, he is clearly learning something and is motivated to do something to save nature today. Mostly it involves planting trees or understanding bugs or something like that. But you can put such ideas into young children’s minds because they also want to be, they can also see, they can discover themselves by discovering others and doing something good. Of course, there is plenty of potential. And in fact, the new national curriculum framework for foundational learning and early schooling has many of these elements embedded in it. Now it is up to all of us to make sure that they actually get implemented in the schools. So, the earlier you start, the better. And you know how young ones are always trying to train their parents to save water or save nature. I think it is very important to involve them in this wonderful journey of humanitarianism.
One thing we know for sure is that collaboration is key. You can do volunteering alone, like ‘each one teach one’ was a big thing that was working for a short while. And in fact there still are lots of organizations that do that. But organizations and intermediaries are needed to enable good collaboration and not just temporary collaboration. So again, I go back to that, the structures of the intermediary organizations that make it easy to collaborate, right? In any case, if you are doing some task, like building out a public infra, cleaning up a public spot or improving facilities in a school, you cannot do it alone. And I will tell you, if you are a good storyteller, if you can carry your story well, you will attract collaborators very quickly. So one of the things all of us must focus on is to tell our stories much better. Because we believe in what we are doing and what we are saying. We need to hone our skills to carry the message better or to have powerful symbolism. Just imagine what picking up just one small fist full of salt could do. What is the metaverse in 2022 that all of us can visualize together, so that as we take the next few steps, a million people will come along with us. That is the challenge for all of us today.
So let us enjoy, explore, and continue on that journey of giving, and let us really push for half of Indians, that is 700 million, to do some volunteering at some point in our lives and put society first, before ourselves. It is doable if we all do it together.
Namaste, everyone. And wow, it has been an exhilarating one and a half days. Of presentations, conversations, the igniting of ideas , the sharing of experiences and the airing of our hopes and our fears. That too in a place called IF?BE. Which reminds us that IF we can converge in our ideals and our approaches, we can BE successful in our societal mission.
This gathering has been a melange of people and organisations that work in the gender space, with both men and women and other genders, of practitioners and donors, of academics and artistes, and of diverse people all passionately interested in this very human project of together building a more gender equitable world, and more importantly a compassionate, more empathetic society that is both empowered and Co-Powered (a term I first used at one of our similar conferences before) to create the better future we crave.
A big thank you to you all for coming here, for sharing, for helping build together this field of gender equity. RNP does have a special focus on young men and boys, but really it is for the goal of universal equity and agency, and this is one pathway to that, something we see as a root cause to address.
I am so humbled and delighted to see so many organisations that work with women present in the room. Six years ago when I made a rather naive though passionate speech on the need to work with young men and boys, I thought maybe I have burnt some bridges at the bridges conference as it was called, because many of the feminists in the room were clearly worried that I was going to cause a shift away from women’s empowerment. But of course that is NOT AT ALL what I was talking about. I was expressing my concern that if we overlook the needs of half of humanity, we may be missing something crucial in the big picture, and exactly for the women whom we want to empower.
I think recent events, not just in india but worldwide confirm that there is indeed a backlash from increasingly insecure males of all political and religious hues. And all of us here in this room must pay keen attention to why that is happening, and design a non-judgemental, highly creative response to this emergence, not just in our programmatic work, but within each one of us, and in our homes, social groups and in the broader samaaj.
As Rajni Bakshi said yesterday, we should not forget how much has already been achieved. You can never lock up an idea that has already been liberated. Yes, powers that be may try to push women back – in the US, in Iran, In Afghanistan, and here too, but this is like the waves on the Sea in a high tide. As they recede, you see the ocean of possibilities underneath. Gender fluidity, gender equity are now in the body of this ocean, no matter the shapeshift of the ebbs and flows. So let’s make this belief, this hope, a habit, the positive energy that drives our work together. And as I keep saying, we have to be particularly optimistic in a country as young as ours, history tells us how idealistic youth are, how energetic and how determined to make their own futures. Young people always innovate, always find new ways to meet old goals, and I can really see that in this group. So a shout out to the idealism and energy and optimism of the youth in this room, and May you infect us all.
I picked up so many ideas and thoughts from all of you since yesterday. One clear message was that we cannot lump all men together. There are vast power imbalances among men due to caste religion geography and income. We need more qualitative, maybe ethnographic research to understand both the lived realities and the pathways forward. I couldn’t agree more. But as some of us were discussing yesterday, can we create new opportunities from this understanding? Even as we acknowledge and empathise with the harsh conditions in the lives of Dalit or other minority males, can we work alongside them to reimagine their use of power in their horizontal groups, and with the women they live among? If this whole mission is really about reimagined power structures, and not simply about replacing one set of oppressed people with another, then this work becomes incredibly important. So let’s keep these questions and these debates alive in all our gatherings going forward.
Another thread I picked up on yesterday was on funding anxiety. It is hard to find donors for the gender space. While we will do our bit to expand the donor community, and I again call out with gratitude the number of donor organisations represented here, I also want us all to commit to telling our stories better. We need to build stronger bridges to the islands inhabited by the donor community. Good stories are the bricks by which this bridge can be built. We cannot expect donors to fund us just because we are doing really good societal work. We must draw donors to us by the power of our stories, by the analysis of our impact, and by our keen understanding of how this problem affects them and their interests as well. As I have been writing and saying for a while now, we are all interconnected, the elite and the poor and the ones in between. Some of us are on the upper decks, in private cabins, some in the lower decks, some are right at the bottom of the boat, shovelling coal, but we are all perhaps on the Titanic together, and we must all work to steer it away from the iceberg, or we all perish. No one can secede from this task. So there lies the opportunity for us, to share this story and reel in some big donor fish. Donors, I do hope you are coming close to the bait. And don’t worry, we release the catch!
Speaking of stories, I watch this Hindi serial, which is currently the most popular TV serial in the country. Millions of people watch it every day , including many many men, some surreptitiously, as I read in an article. It is called Anupama, and it is on Hotstar. How many of you watch it? I watch it partly to educate myself, partly to keep my Hindi current, and partly because no one in India can really resist high melodrama.
The point of bringing it up is that its story line quite confuses me at times. Sometimes, its ideas are boldly progressive, sometimes confusingly regressive. But maybe that just reflects the state of our society. Many ideas, many centuries, many streams are lived in simultaneously on this land. There is good and bad in all of us. Maybe we should thrive in this diversity, in this confusion, until the clear streams of reason emerge. The good news is that all those ideas, all those view points are passionately aired in this serial, and there too, the arc of its history seems to be towards justice. More power to good stories, I say.
That reminds me of another thing that we have been talking about at this conference. We must remember that there are , many many many 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 with and work with the men who are in this journey. Many of them are in this room, so dhanyavaad to you all. And to our great joy, as we found out in the extensive research work done by our communications partners, Cracker and Rush, some of whose findings are represented on the walls outside, and I urge you to really look at that carefully, apparently many young people now celebrate and idolise a new kind of male, Shah Rukh over Salman earlier and now Ayushmann Khurana. That gives me great hope for it represents new norm formations and new sensitivity and new aspirations, as well as newly found comfort in a more caring, less aggressive, less overconfident maleness. As we heard in Men Ki Baat, Gen Z believes in women’s rights. They need embodiments of this sentiment. So Yay to actor humans like Ayushmann, Ranbir and Ranvir.
And now, as I come to a close, I want to point out again, as I did yesterday, how many senior leaders and established organisations we have in this room, from MAVA and Harish, to Abhijeet and CHSJ, to Sujata and CORO, and many more. Among our many partner portfolios, this is the one where all these organisations already have much experience of working together , and that is fantastic. so while we promise to support the convening, we urge you to take the leadership to continue to broaden and deepen these meetings, to give them a rhythm and a cadence, so that more meaningful work can happen, more bonds of trust can be woven, and this becomes a true, inclusive and strong movement for gender equity and reimagined power relationships. We still have a long way to go, to together create the grammar, the accessible language , the many more approaches needed to make our societal mission a reality, so let’s continue to build, but together.
At RNP, we feel we have come a long way from when we could partner with only one organisation ECF, to get this portfolio up and running. And now look at this room full of possibilities. Once gain, I thank you all, and I say a heartfelt thank you to the team at RNP, in this case especially Natasha Joshi, for working so hard to gather us all. At RNP, we are committed to the journey ahead, and as you will be hearing more of, we are renaming this portfolio because it was getting a little awkward to keep saying how interested we all are in young men and boys! I kid you not, that after some of my phone conversations with my colleagues on this subject, I get ads for dating services! So after the brilliant work done by our agency, we have converged on the word LAYAK. We like it because it means worthy, and the one strong aspiration that young males expressed in the research was to be layak, for themselves, for their loved ones, and for society at large. The word also holds us responsible at RNP to ourselves to be layak for the task ahead. We do look forward to your response and your collaboration.
Enjoy the rest of the meeting, including the film, safe journeys home, and see you again soon. Dhanyavaad and Namaste.
Rohini’s keynote at Indus Action’s Schemes to Systems conference. Philanthropist, Rohini Nilekani stresses on how the voice of Samaaj should be amplified and understood, while reducing the administrative gaps.
Thank you to Indus action and all the people gathered here. A special namaskar to the two senior politicians here – Dr Palanivel Thiagarajan ji and Mahua Moitra ji. Civil society groups must find ways to interact ever more with the political class and the business class – after all we are neither anti-government nor anti-market but we are pro people, pro samaaj. That is the first calling of the civil society sector. And everybody, bar none, is a citizen before they are a politician , a bureaucrat , A CEO or an employee, we are all citizens first, and last too, when we shed our day job identities and go home.
It is now exactly 15 years since I started speaking and writing about the continuum of samaaj, bazaar and sarkaar – and it is a continuum always in a dynamic balance and the continuous quest is to make the balance more just to all . And I have been saying that samaaj must become conscious that it is the first sector and it has to work to make sarkaar and bazaar, which come later, accountable to the larger public interest of the samaaj.
But what is the role of Samaaj actors in times like these, when people the world over, and in India too, seem to be fearful and insecure and retreating to narrower and polarized spaces?
I really believe, and this came to strongly this morning as I wrote this speech, is that today, as always, the role of empathy is absolutely critical. Empathy within, for ourselves, and empathy for others.
This is the important inner to outer journey we all struggle to make as civil society actors, isn’t it?
And in this aspect – how civil society institutions themselves behave becomes important –
How can we avoid the cancel culture so prevalent in the west, how can we reduce otherization? It is hard to eliminate otherization completely perhaps, because humans do seem often to define themselves against something else, maybe even an enemy, possibly as part of our evolutionary biology – but can we reduce this tendency through more awareness of the benefits of coming together ? Can we look outside OUR ideological walls if we want others to look outside theirs? Is it the work of samaaj institutions to create windows in all such walls?
Can we create those shared spaces, which are held without judgement, so we can discover ways to build a better society, a better samaaj?
How do we awake to and help awaken people to see ourselves as more than subjects, more than beneficiaries, more than consumers?
To see ourselves as humans in a complex web of humanity, as CITIZENS, as NAGARIKS?
And then, what are these citizens, these nagariks? What do citizens do?
Citizens are aware, they are alive to what is happening around them socially, economically, ecologically, politically. They belong to a community of other citizens. And it doesn’t matter if that is a small neighbourhood community or a global one, each is important, especially if it has thick bonds. One problem that has emerged is that social media has allowed the thriving of very thin bonds, and that has created groups of people that can be easily aroused to negativity. It is part of the work of civil society groups in fact to help build social bonds that are thick, so that people can work together in more harmony for a common cause.
Citizens, when fulfilling their role, are curious about and willing to participate in the co-creation of a society that makes their own lives and all others better, more abundant, more creative. And after empathy, for me, Creativity is an important word because the zenith, the apex of human history may be the ability of people to generate beauty, through their own talent ,agency and co-operation with the talent and agency of others.
To create is the is to be human. And I don’t mean just art and sculpture and beautiful buildings and things, but also the creation of big new social ideas and societal movements too, that enable humans to take such giant strides of consciousness, as in the universal vote, as in so many freedom struggles, and so much more.
That creativity is the most precious thing for samaj organisations to nurture. And we need to debate much more on how we can generate more sympathy and more creativity as the green fuel for the engine of samaaj as a whole and for CSOs too.
But these are challenging times, and our work is not so easy.
In a kind of reversal of the global liberal order which had perhaps gone stale & lost its relevance, and more importantly, its creativity – we seem to be in the grip of a shrinking of identities to narrow and narrower selves –
From Global to National
From National to Regional
From Regional to Religional
From Religional to the Tribal
From Tribal to ??
For the political class, this narrowing of identities frankly, can be useful, as it creates easy to capture voter groups.
For markets too, it can be beneficial , as it creates good segmentation to capture consumer bases.
In fact, sometimes, I only half-jokingly say –
Bazaar has made the tyranny of choice so complex (even to buy rice, a daily staple we have to choose between price ranges, between polished and unpolished, red and white and brown, organic and non-organic, and so on, endlessly, )& the pandemic has made personal/ family choices in the social space so frightening that people want simplicity in their politics- just delegate to one entity and forget about it.
But this is a cop-out and we must all beware of this trap.
Because when we cop out of being citizens, full citizens, what we are likely to get is a monopolies or monoculture of ideas and of practices that eventually will start to make societies less stable and less sustainable. We all know the cliché of the plantation and the rainforest and most people agree that the rainforest, with its diverse ecosystems is more healthy and sustainable, and so it is with societies too. But to maintain the diversity in society, citizens, unfortunately do not have the luxury to sit back and relax. We have to tend to our social gardens, however small they might be, and in all seasons.
Because, no matter what the benefits may be to sarkaar and bazaar, for Samaaj, and for civil society this shrinking to the smaller self only generates more fear, more insecurity and more divisiveness,
inevitably leading to conflict over identities, ideas and resources.
So the role of CSO’s then is to inspire people to see ever more of themselves in relation to the outer world- through collective action, collective creation, through campaigns, projects ,workshops & more. And eventually all of these hopefully, will foster more empathy, allowing people to see themselves in others’ shoes, even looking to the well-being of future generations, and thus to become the highest embodiment of themselves
Is this all too idealistic? Ye of course it is. But if we together believe in this grand human project – of increasing empathy and creativity in society – even if it takes 25 years or a 100, then we can move inexorably towards this magnificent goal with a feeling of hope and belief that all our actions, however small, like little drops of water – will eventually create the ocean .
Thank you for this opportunity to speak among so many amazing organisations seeking to build active citizenship, and also among senior politicians, whom we look to to help shape a positive social agenda. Dhanyavad and namaskar.
Phase one of Science Gallery Bengaluru’s exhibition-season CONTAGION phase came to a close Sunday 13 June, 2021, with closing remarks by Rohini Nilekani.
The COVID-19 pandemic has sent alarm bells ringing throughout the world. While we have witnessed great socio-political and economic turbulence since the start of this pandemic, we’ve also seen a renewal of trust in science and experts.
This is an edited version of Rohini Nilekani’s closing remarks during Phase one of Science Gallery Bengaluru’s exhibition-season CONTAGION on Sunday 13 June, 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic has sent alarm bells ringing throughout the world. While we have witnessed great socio-political and economic turbulence since the start of this pandemic, we’ve also seen a renewal of trust in science and experts.
* Almost a year of social distancing and isolation has made us value our communities and public spaces. Not only do public spaces build a sense of identity and shared ownership of the city and its environs, they also become a hub for public discourse, engagement, and dialogue. Science Gallery Bengaluru is hopefully shaping into exactly one such public space in Bangalore, alongside the Bangalore International Centre, The Museum of Art and Photography, Ranga Shankara, and many others. Through their exhibitions and programmes, Science Gallery Bengaluru connects with the city, especially its youth, and invites them to make it their own space by crafting a vibrant cultural conversation on science. Bangalore is a leader in science, research and technology in the country, with institutions such as IISC, NAL, ISRO, DRDO, NCBS and with globally renowned scientists such as Nobel Laureate C. V. Raman, Satish Dhawan, Roddam Narasimha, Obaid Siddiqi, and many others who continued to work in our institutions and laboratories. But the mission of the Science Gallery is to take science beyond the hallowed gates and laboratories of these institutions, and out onto the streets, mingling with the citizens, instilling in them pride for the city and a curiosity about scientific research and experimentation, and its importance in our lives.
Science Gallery has a special focus on the young. As we have seen over the past one and a half years, the country’s youth have played a critical role in challenging the public health crisis that we are living through. They have come forward to help in very humanitarian and innovative ways, and as a society, it is our responsibility to invest in them and empower them to become active citizens of the future as well. Working with partners such as Azim Premji Field Institutes and the Agastya International Foundation, Science Gallery has created online learning resources for over 100,000 young people, and training programmes for youth working in underserved communities on COVID awareness. Additionally, during the CONTAGION exhibition, Science Gallery Bengaluru has trained its largest cohort of mediators to date. The mediators are young, enthusiastic people, who have had the opportunity to converse with visitors from across the globe through this exhibition, not just in English but also in Kannada, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and other languages. CONTAGION’s masterclasses, workshops, and tutorials have now become a global platform for young people to be mentored by experts across disciplines.
The pandemic has further exposed the gap between research and the public. There’s an urgent need for strong efforts to facilitate better public understanding and appreciation of science. Young people need to get excited about curiosity-driven science and scientific exploration that could create a better, more hopeful future. This can only occur through a democratic dialogue examining how research intersects with our lives. CONTAGION did exactly this and touches upon this through its exhibits like Ranjit Kandalgaonkar’s ‘Drawing the Bombay Plague’ and Christos Lynteris’s ‘Controlling the Plague in British India.’ They provided a subtle yet sharp commentary on the dissonance between scientific research, the formulation of policy, and its subsequent implementation and impact on society.
The programmes at CONTAGION further highlighted this dissonance and an expert panel of a virologist, a physician, an epidemiologist, and a rural and tribal public health practitioner, led by the immunologist Ajit Lalvani, unpacked this fraught relationship between scientific evidence and the ground realities of pandemic control measures, especially in India today. CONTAGION invites us to think differently, open our minds, and ask critical questions of the world around us. The exhibition also asks us to reflect upon rapid scientific and technological progress to see that nobody is left behind, offering an inclusive vision of the future. We are witnessing the cracks caused by widespread structural inequities in vaccine development and distribution, which Achal Prabhala spoke about in his lecture, and we find a heart-rending experience because of skewed access to healthcare in Basse Sttitgen’s exhibit, ‘Fluid Dialogues’ and T Jayashree’s film, ‘A Human Question.’
Adia Benton spoke of the politics of care in a global health system that is becoming increasingly militarised. How do we make our way out of this? How do we begin to re-imagine the health sciences to integrate human, animal and planetary health. The frameworks of One Health are one way forward and were explored by Uma Ramakrishnan and Michael Bresalier’s talks in the CONTAGION’s Public Lecture series. CONTAGION, as several participants and visitors have said, is timely and relevant, it provides a historical, conceptual and ethnographic context for the pandemic and the pandemics to come. It has shed light and allowed people to be equipped with knowledge and feel empowered when they see that such experiences have happened to people before and that humanity has within us the wherewithal to confront what is in front of us and to prevent what may come in the future.
Science Gallery Bengaluru has chosen to explore transmission as a phenomenon, rather than focus only on disease. By looking at the spread of ideas, emotions, and behaviour, the entire programme provided us with some relief from the relentless and somewhat terrifying news around us, by helping us to put pieces together and take a longer and broader view. Given the difficulty of assessing and filtering vast amounts of information in the public domain i.e. the ‘infodemic,’ Science Gallery Bengaluru also provided a platform for young people to ask questions and engage with leading experts, like Gagandeep Kang and Shahid Jameel. With the generous consent of the artists and scholars that are exhibiting, the exhibition season will remain live with monthly programming until 31st December 2021. Given the crisis that we are continuing to live through, it is vital that CONTAGION remains freely accessible as a public resource and the team will continue to add new resources and new programmes.
