GAURAVSIKKA.COM

Much of my free time now goes into reading and learning about community building and citizen movements. One of the pioneers of this field in India is Ramesh Ramanathan, writer of the Mobius Strip column for MINT and founder of Janaagraha, “A movement to include people’s participation in public governance, which has now evolved into a robust institution for Citizenship and Democracy.”

Besides his groundbreaking work, Mr. Ramanathan is able to go past the superficial issues on hand and articulately identify what really ails our political and social system. Three recent articles in particular provide great insight into issues that are on everyone’s mind since the 26/11 attacks.

1) Our politicians are useless but are we responsible citizens of the largest democracy in the world?

For years, India’s upper classes have been waltzing through life making minimal contact with the government. We have been going above the government, below the government or around the government, but we never really engaged with the government.

Last week in Mumbai, all that changed for India’s aspirational class.

We’ve come up against the one issue where we can’t dodge the dependence on the state: terrorism. Suddenly, we are waking up to discover that the same state that we have ignored for the past 60 years is necessary for us to make sense of our lives (a visceral glimpse into the life of the poor). And with it comes a whole new definition of the citizen-state relationship. This is existential exfoliation.  (more…)

2) “I want to make a difference but don’t know where to begin.” For those who get past this initial conundrum, it’s a struggle to become relevant!

On the politician front: many politicians have told me over the years that the urban middle class is irrelevant. Politicians are market players, they react to the signals they receive from the people. So, this observation is not a value judgement, it’s a statement of reality.

Politics in India is still substantially driven by identities of caste, subcaste, subcommunity within that. Elections are like chess games, with each major party watching whom the others are nominating in each constituency like hawks and then working to break the numbers: getting relatives from the opposition candidate’s family to stand, incentivizing some independent candidates to step up, buying off others who could swing key blocks. With each move, the calculated aim is to splinter the electoral math and nudge the needle by the barest minimum margin for victory. (more…)

3) So then are we living in a false democracy? Read this story about a murderer from India living a new life in Dubai.

“But this is strange, are you blaming India’s democracy for you being a criminal? You are the one who committed the crime. So they should have caught you and put you behind bars, is that your complaint?”

“Yes! How can people get away? Here, if I had done anything similar, I would have lost my life. Maybe if they had caught me when I was doing petty crimes, I wouldn’t have slid down this path. Dekhiye, we all want to live good lives, but majboori hai. We need to know that the system works. Bura insaan bhi sudharna chahta hai. Everyone wants to reform and live a clean life. But if the system allows you to remain bad and actually makes things worse and forces you to take the wrong path, where is the hope? (more…)

The Economist’s recent special report on India, “An elephant, not a tiger”, probes into the country’s economic, social, political, and geopolitical affairs, providing insight into how India will fare in her quest to become a superpower. Despite all its chaos, bureaucracy and occasional violence, India has had a remarkably successful past few years, but can we cope with the economic downturn? Shocking, depressing and hopeful at the same time, these are stories that most Indian are accustomed to. Nonetheless, it’s clear that India faces daunting challenges going forward and here are some highlights from the report.

POVERTY

• According to the World Bank, in 2005 some 456m Indians, or 42% of the population, lived below the poverty line. In 1981, by the same measure, the numbers were 420m and 60% respectively. The government’s own estimates are lower. But everyone agrees that poverty in India is falling much too slowly.
• The effect: India has 60m chronically malnourished children, 40% of the world’s total. In 2006 some 2.1m children died in India, more than five times the number in China.

LABOR

• Some 65% of Indians live on agriculture, which accounts for less than 18% of GDP. Therefore the biggest challenge will not only be to create more productive jobs but also to upgrade skills of the large labor force through education and training.
• Roughly 14m Indians are now being added to the labor market each year, and that number is rising. Half of India’s people are under 25 and 40% under 18. Therefore the pace of development has to be rapid in order to mobilize the youth population.
• The manufacturing sector has its own complexities; to escape throttling labor laws, Indian entrepreneurs tend to keep their operations small: 87% of manufacturing jobs are with companies that employ fewer than ten people.

EDUCATION

• By one estimate, which may be optimistic, only 20% of jobseekers have had any sort of vocational training. If India cannot find employment for this lot, poverty will not be reduced and India may face serious instability.
• India is already worryingly violent. A Maoist insurgency in eastern India, which Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh has called “the greatest internal security challenge we have ever faced”, is an obvious ill omen. Where it is spreading, in poor, agrarian and broken places, the “invisible threads” that bind India, in the phrase of Jawaharlal Nehru, its first prime minister, are almost non-existent.
• A combination of all the above factors could lead to social unrest, starting out as mini-revolts that we’re beginning to see across the country. What is being termed as Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW), could be a serious threat to India’s stability if the Government does not implement bold reforms.

INFRASTRUCTURE

• As the River Ganges in Varanasi enters the city, Hinduism’s sacred river contains 60,000 faecal coliform bacteria per 100 millilitres, 120 times more than is considered safe for bathing. Four miles downstream, with inputs from 24 gushing sewers and 60,000 pilgrim-bathers, the concentration is 3,000 times over the safety limit. In places, the Ganges becomes black and septic. Corpses, of semi-cremated adults or enshrouded babies, drift slowly by.
• Besides the religious implications, this is a result of India’s execrable sanitation methods. By one estimate, only 13% of the sewage its 1.1 billion people produce is treated.
• India’s urban roads are choked: the average speed in Delhi has fallen from 27kph (17mph) in 1997 to 10kph.

POLITICS

• Of the 522 members of India’s current parliament, 120 are facing criminal charges; around 40 of these are accused of serious crimes, including murder and rape.
• In the 2004 election Congress and the BJP mustered only 283 seats between them, a record low and only 11 more than is needed for a majority. As a result, most energy is lost in keeping alliance members of the coalition government happy, causing friction and disharmony.

ECONOMY

• The RBI has already revised its forecast for GDP growth this year downwards, from 9% to 7.5%, and even that may be optimistic. Most independent forecasters see a further drop next year, possibly to 5.5%.
• The case for optimism: Until recently India’s investment splurge has mostly been covered by domestic savings: as a share of GDP, savings have risen from 28% in 2003-04 to 35.5% last year.

WHAT LIES AHEAD?

India has managed to grow rapidly for the last 5 years despite all these hindrances, but the global recession has caused the first net outflow from Foreign Institutional Investors (FII) in 11 years. This credit freeze will create complications in the Government’s ability to raise capital and sustain growth levels that are imperative for the 14m people joining the workforce every year. The need for reform is urgent and we need to do our part as citizens to instigate change.

Personally, I was extremely disenfranchised by our governance recently and wondered if it was worth voting in the upcoming General Elections of 2009. I wondered if change could really come about with no party challenging the status quo of corruption and incompetence. But that is foolish. We do have some intelligent leaders that care about India’s future but are constantly bogged down by bickering from alliance members. It’s time to set aside our regional differences and unite as one nation, recognizing that the right to vote is our greatest weapon in a democracy!

My feeling is that we have enough headroom to grow despite macroeconomics factors but we can’t afford another coalition government at this stage. If we can go out to vote in record numbers next year and either the Congress or BJP win a majority in Parliament, I’m confident we’ll start seeing reform from the Center.

Cast your vote, don’t vote your caste!

Here’s a quick update on the Rise Up India initiative. I pitched the idea of a social platform to promote civic and political action to both the Professionals Party of India and Ashoka. PPI sent me an “Awareness Release” (attached below), which I urge you to go through and send to your family and friends.

I await further contact from PPI’s General Secretary and Head of Election Strategy about possibly meeting with their core group at their next gathering in Mumbai. I also spoke with the Ashoka team in Delhi which seemed receptive to the idea but still await feedback from the Mumbai office.

Professionals Party of India: Awareness Release (Post 26/11)

A few days back I seeded the idea of “Rise Up India” (RUI) in response to the Mumbai terror attacks. After evaluating the reactions of people, I believe the site needs to focus on 3 key areas: idea forming, education and action.

There is a massive outpouring of ideas, emotions, and a will to contribute, but there will be a big drop-off on how much of this will convert to action. Therefore it is critical to collect these ideas while the sentiments are fresh and riseupindia.com can first launch as a social platform to share and rate ideas in a Digg format.

The educational aspect of the site will include community outreach sessions. A learning forum where people can learn from experts of crisis management, and those who have gone through attacks, whether they come from NYC, Palestine, Jerusalem, Spain, London, Bali or Sri Lanka. And then in the long term, there needs to be learning cells/democratic two-way dialogues set up in universities and colleges across India, so that everyday youth begin to learn the basics of citizen-driven governance: how to start a non profit, what public administration means, how to handle a disaster/attack, what it takes for a democracy to work in the 21st century, etc. We’ve learnt the hard way about the consequences of not having such systems in place.

The reason for our government failing in its response to the terror attack is a lack of leadership, probably stemming from the fact that Shivraj Patil had no experience in crisis-management. This meant that the NSG, MARCOS, QRT, ATS, and Mumbai Police didn’t have an overriding commander to direct operations and combine resources. Don’t even get me started on our “commander-in-chief”, PPP.

Simply put, I want to create an action-oriented social platform to breed young and able politicians who can bring a change in governance. Most people want to participate in politics and contribute to change but don’t necessarily know where to begin. I want to use the power of social media and the Internet to usher in a new wave of politics. Barack Obama is a true new media politician and fascinating lessons can be learnt from his campaign about grassroots action.

We will create a social platform through which “citizens” and “candidates” can register based on their constituencies. They will be urged to post issues and grievances that are being ignored by their local authorities—infrastructure, security, legal, social, disasters and the like. These issues will be seen by our “potential candidates”, either recruited or from the community at large. They will accept “open” issues and embark on the challenge to solve this issue facing the community.

The candidates will be responsible for building a swat team, marketing, PR, and raising funds. They will also be assigned experienced mentors from the site who will guide them through the campaign. Each detail of the campaign will be highlighted and documented by the candidate’s staff as well as citizen journalists using social media tools such as YouTube, flickr, wikis, twitter, and blogs. Once the issue is “closed”, the constituency and a special panel will vote on the candidate’s performance and assign them points based on a specialized rating system.

Where do we go from here? Social action is not enough, we need erudite leaders who can use tempered judgment and political theory to implement effective public policy. There is no doubt about the caliber and success of Harvard University graduates and the like. I’d like the same opportunity for the site’s candidates if they are to lead the world’s largest democracy. The first phase of community service can be seen as the vetting process, similar to Obama’s time on the ground in Chicago. Two years after creating positive change in their communities, I hope these candidates can get the best education possible by setting up foundations/scholarships with premier universities such as Harvard. Education is THE ONLY way we can eradicate poverty and the hatred that fuels terrorism.

Requirements and next steps for the project:

• My twitter pal Palam has agreed to help build the architecture of the site but we’d need 2-3 more programmers to help with the framework.
• If multiple people work on the project, we’d need to use a tool like Subversion to share, update and track all code changes. It would be very beneficial if we can find someone with experience in managing projects using this software or the like.
• Designers who can create an inspiring brand identity that will resonate across the country and transcend all mediums.
• Online and offline volunteers to launch and promote a pilot project (possibly for a Mumbai constituency).
• Leaders/fellows who can inspire teams in these key categories as a massive offline operation will be required to fuel our online activity.
• If you’d like to contribute in ANY way please email me at blog AT gauravsikka.com, leave a comment below or find me on twitter.
• Once we have some volunteers in place we can setup a wiki to begin formalizing the site framework and figure out how it will interact with our offline agents.
• There are many such forums and groups cropping up but we’d need to combine and operate under one banner because there is only one vision for New India. Someone suggested that we provide this social media support to an existing party like the Professionals Party of India. I like the idea. What are your thoughts?

RISE UP INDIA: Bring Change to Governance

Disclaimer: Many thanks to Priyanka Joseph for her ideas on education and community outreach, which I have shared in this post.

For all the lives lost in the Mumbai terror attacks of 26/11/08.

Give Peace A Chance - John Lennon

Ev’rybody’s talkin’ ’bout
Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism
This-ism, that-ism, ism ism ism
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

(C’mon)
Ev’rybody’s talkin’ ’bout
Minister, Sinister, Banisters and Canisters,
Bishops, Fishops, Rabbis, and Pop Eyes, Bye bye, Bye byes
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

(Let me tell you now)
Ev’rybody’s talkin’ ’bout
Revolution, Evolution, Masturbation, Flagellation, Regulation,
Integrations, mediations, United Nations, congratulations
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

Ev’rybody’s talkin’ ’bout
John and Yoko, Timmy Leary, Rosemary,
Tommy Smothers, Bobby Dylan, Tommy Cooper,
Derek Taylor, Norman Mailer, Alan Ginsberg, Hare Krishna
Hare Hare Krishna
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

I’m at a South Bombay location as i type this. It’s been 16 hrs since Mumbai was attacked in most unprecedented fashion, yet the city remains under siege by a terrorist group. Nonetheless, away from Colaba—the epicenter of the attacks—there is light activity on the streets and most stores are open for regular business.

The audacity of the terrorists is alarming and there is no way to comprehend their motives or the negative impact it will have on the sub-continent’s stability and geopolitical relations.

Finally given a chance to get away from the sensational news reporting and endless #mumbai twitter stream, I have a moment to reflect, meditate, and pray. My thoughts immediately go to the innocent lives that have been lost to this atrocity and I pray for their families to find strength to persevere through these testing times. Setting aside all political malaise, I salute the brave men and women of the Mumbai police, NSG commandos, Naval marines, Anti-terror squads, and soldiers of the Indian Army who are risking their lives and going on the offensive to protect the people of India. Despite numerous terror attacks on India in the recent past, the government seems to lack adequate anti-terror strategies and infrastructure. But that hasn’t stopped these brave men to step in the line of fire to save Mumbai from total anarchy—no matter how primitive their support and protective gear.

Sitting at home last night I heard two loud blasts at 22:20, which was around the time I read @kapilb’s tweets about similar noises he was hearing. I tweeted about it and a flurry of tweets followed about a firing at Leopold’s Cafe. I put on the TV and watched in horror as the despicable events began to  unravel. The western world awoke unawares to the situation and turned to twitter for an up to the second update steam. I too was up all night live tweeting the developments as they broke on local news channels like Times Now, NDTV, and CNN-IBN. Various sites picked up my tweets for reporting purposes, CNN.com and Mahalo.com being the most notable. In fact, I was even called through the night for updates on the standoff by radio stations in Edmonton and San Franciso.

I’ve always been a huge Twitter fanboy but am still marveling at its worldwide adoption over the past several hours as an instant communication and event tracking tool! Tipping point for twitter? I think so. Here’s a CNN article that also heralds today as “the day social media appeared to come of age and signaled itself as a news gathering force to be reckoned with.” See for instance the way @Vinu risked his life while gunfire was being exchanged to bring us these photographs no sooner than the news broke.

Shockingly, the terrorists, all between the age of 20 and 25, exposed themselves completely while carrying out their heinous crimes. It’s discouraging to see young citizens getting disenfranchised by the system and rebeling so vehemently, especially in a country whose promising future lies in the hands of her 500 million youths. It doesn’t apply directly in this case, as most leads are not pointing to home-grown terror but its rise in India is a known fact. So what can we do about it? How can we include the youth by allowing them to express their emotions positively and make them feel like they’re making a difference or being heard. We often complain that the politics in India is outmoded, so how do we inject verve into our politics by making the youth feel like they have a duty to fulfill? After all, didn’t Gandhi say “Be the change you wish to see in the world?” I think that time has come for India. Barack Obama did it in the US and I’m certain that out of a population of 1 billion, someone can challenge the status quo and lead us towards real growth—socially, politically, and economically.

I recently purchased the domain riseupindia.com to build a social network to galvanize the large youth population in India and harness its diverse talents. I hadn’t thought through it, but now seems an opportune time as any to seed a discussion to build this idea in a collaborative format since many people are uninspired by the politics and leadership, or lack thereof, in India.

How can we build a social platform that will help increase transparency in our politics and give youth a real chance to lead our country in the forseeable future? I’d love to hear ideas and find folks to collaborate with. For how long can we have 81-year olds as leading candidates for our head of state position?

It’s 5pm. I look out of my airplane window to see Manhattan’s breathtaking skyline against the impending sunset. Far into the horizon I notice luscious hues of orange, yellow, and red. We’ve just taken off and and the plane feels like it’s floating towards this paradise. Time stands still… It’s a new beginning. Within minutes the colors begin to melt away and the sky is engulfed in darkness. The journey begins. The journey from New York to Mumbai. The journey from America back to India after seven years. The journey to find my new life adventure. The journey to fulfillment.

I had decided over the summer that Mumbai with a teeming population of some 15 million, its expanding financial and entertainment industries, and enigmatic promise would be my next stop after Bangalore, Ann Arbor, Prague, and New York. The city whose essence NY Times writer Anand Giridharadas captures so wonderfully:

Here the highest social boast is that you “just got back” from abroad; the loftiest praise for a restaurant is, “It’s like you’re not in India.” Mumbai’s globalized class hungers for it to be a world city, and its leaders pledge to make it Shanghai-like by 2020; the plan is, to put it gently, behind schedule. (full article)

Similarly, my decision was met with much cynicism amongst my friends back home: “Why leave America?”, “Enjoy one of the worst cities of the world. It’ll destroy your soul. Have fun!” So why am I doing it? What am I looking to get out of it? I can’t foresee the future but as I was deliberating these thoughts, I chanced upon Tony Robbins’ provoking TED talk, “Why we do what we do, and how we can do it better.” Littered with nuggets of wisdom, it gave me perspective and a chance to reflect on what I was doing and where the motivation was coming from.

Over the past few years especially, I haven’t taken conventional paths when presented with a decision. When most of my friends were clamoring to business school, I opted for film school. When the same friends were headed to Wall Street internships, I moved to Prague to shoot a film and then finally ended up at a comic book company after graduating. Being a startup, we were hit by the financial crisis this year and I decided to move on.

Evaluating the decision through Tony Robbins’ six basic human needs, I’m definitely looking for more uncertainty at this formative stage in my career. Life in New York was getting predictable and I missed the chaos of India. Chaos breeds creativity but on the flip side, getting things done can be draining.

As Giridharadas goes on to say:

Mumbaikars, as they are known, cannot resist one another, cannot resist Mumbai. Those who crave departure could depart if they wanted. They are still here. The newly arrived could have stayed in the villages, basking in their certainties. They too, choose to invest themselves here.

Neither investment is total, unreserved. But Mumbai works on the agglomeration of these hopes: Because so many cast their lots here, it becomes a place worth casting lots. The longer you remain, the less you notice what Mumbai looks, smells, sounds like. You think instead of what it could be. You become addicted to the companionship of 19 million other beings. Surrounded by hells, you glimpse paradise.

Then there is the need for achievement, which will lead to significance and fame. That said, I strongly believe that given appropriate educational and cultural backgrounds, there is a window of opportunity for faster rates of professional growth in emerging markets like India. Finally, when one can take the need for connection and love beyond the familial context—by embracing cultural and geopolitical roots—contribution beyond ourselves (to society) will begin to emerge. Call me an idealist but Barack Obama’s recent exploits have really shaken me up from the inside to take part in pro-social activities and get involved in the political landscape of my country.

I’m on the journey to discover my destiny but somewhere in between I see those glimpses of paradise. Maybe that is the final destination!

A google search for “Obama” returns almost 500 million matches, so what’s left to say about the 44th President of the United States of America that hasn’t been said already? Charismatic, suave, determined, unifier, eloquent… I’ll probably run out of superlatives before the list is complete. Hell, even a search for “messiah” has Obama in the top 5 results. The illustration above by artist Patrick Moberg deserves special mention for his poignant representation of the event… seriously, anything is possible! Here are some more memorable pictures from the Obama campaign over the last couple of months.

Billions of dollars have been spent on this election, millions of words written, as many pictures taken and numerous tears of joy shed in response to Obama’s urgent message to usher in a new era of change and hope. Obama resonated with a new America—one that the Republicans were completely out of touch with—a new America that responded with unprecedented enthusiasm to elect its first black President.

Personally, I’ve been in the US for seven years and last night I really wished I could vote for Barack. I like what he stands for—he understands that the world is now globalized more than ever and America needs to reassert herself as a respected hegemony. He challenged voters to restore the American Dream and they responded in overwhelming fashion. As a young guy setting out to build my career, I feel deeply inspired especially given the timing of this historic moment. I recently decided to move back to my home country of India to pursue entrepreneurial projects, reconnect with my roots, and promote social change so we can eradicate poverty and dogmatism. India too faces a defining moment in her history; with a phenomenal 500 million youths under the age of 21, the country needs leadership to leverage and mobilize this massive youth population.

Barack Obama’s campaign is a testament to the tenacity of the human spirit to overcome the most daunting obstacles. Such human beings come around once every generation and I hope Obama’s journey inspires more individuals around the world to rise up and make a difference in their communities. Obama has reminded us of the potential of grassroots campaigns and that we all have a part in creating a free and peaceful world.

The two-year long show is over, now let’s get to work.

GO BARACK YOUR WORLD!

There are few words to describe how brilliant this is! Available here.

“My friends, stop it… my friends. Arrrrrrrrrghhhh!!!!!”

Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. Their aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion. This year’s topic is Poverty.

Growing up and living most of my life in India, I’ve always had a close view of how disparate the distribution of wealth is in the world. The most disconcerting aspect is that most people are there due to circumstance and that it could very easily be me. Yes, I agree I’ve worked hard to reach where I am but much of the world’s poor may go through a lifetime without getting an opportunity to work or display their talents and at most times oppressed due to their lack of resources.

Take for example this recent article about the shocking treatment of the poor in India.

India is changing so fast that it is starting to look like someplace else. Skyscrapers are sprouting. Towns are ballooning. The young date, drink, smoke freely. But many of the people who are making the new India new - from the stockbrokers to the bedecked socialites - are responsible for preserving a certain gloomy element of the Indian past: a tendency to treat the hired help like chattel, to taunt and humiliate and condescend to them, to behave as though some humans were born to serve and others to be served.

Again, not so surprising for me—I’ve seen it happen often and find it deplorable. One can only wonder how long the poor will remain patient and quiet—in India there are numerous stories about mini revolts sparking off in retaliation. We don’t need more strife and internal fighting, even if we can’t make monetary contributions, we should embrace the moral right to respect human life.

One observation that’s amazed me in my travels around the world is that children, no matter how poor their family, still manage to go about their daily chores with a smile and frolic with their siblings and other street kids. It’s that very innocence, that pure pleasure of life itself, that we tend to lose once we’re entrenched in the greedy quest for wealth. I’m not advocating that we donate all our life savings to charity and become ascetics but rather detach ourselves occasionally from our daily pursuits and understand the need for a more equitable distribution of wealth for the world to prosper. Our strength is in our people and right now millions of them are dying in abject poverty.

Dealing with poverty can be depressing but with this video I’ve tried to capture some of the happier emotions that can inspire ourselves to seek out that same unperturbed joy by limiting our needs and contributing our excess towards uplifting the marginalized. The recent financial crisis has taught us many lessons but the most severe being that many countries have been living way beyond their means and for the most part, at the expense of the less privileged. Lifestyles will have to drastically change to fix this mess and I hope we can all evaluate our lives and make a commitment today to make a positive impact on our environment and the people around us. I hope you enjoy the video… please pass it on, and keep smiling!

The song in the video is Bob Sinclar’s “Give A Lil’ Love”, a DJ who “aspires to bring people together by making music with hope and energy, music that can be shared across the world.” Check out “Love Generation” which also has a similar theme. Here are the lyrics for the song in the video:

now you and I
can get together
let us start a revolution
change this world
to what it should be
and forget all this confusion

we could live together
for the sake of love
what are we fighting for
oooh now
we could start heeling today

if we can just learn to give
give a lil’ love
you and I can change the world
live a lil’ love
make it better if we try
show a lil’ love
let your love rain
let it rain down on me

now if we wait and do nothing
then what about their future
how can we look in to there eyes
and say we love our children
we can make it better
feel the love inside
forget foolish pride.

Here’s an action list that can help you get involved. Another great site that I use is Kiva, which helps you make loans to small business owners in third world nations. It involves concepts that I find very inspirational: fortune at the bottom of the pyramid and micro-finance. I would welcome a discussion of similar new business ideas, ones that we can collaborate on and implement collectively.