Gandhi- Why i want to remember him today

There is no surprise in remembering MK Gandhi today. Its his birth anniversary today and it is only fashionable in intellectual circle to use his name either by name-dropping or using it to effect. However, today is a genuine desire to write about my thoughts about him and my following of him.

I am no Gandhian by far. I am not even a staunch believer in his ideology or ideals. It is not that i have not tried but i have tried and often failed to come close to him but have been attracted to his persona in more ways than one. It is this substance that i want to talk about here.

MK Gandhi was introduced to me , as he is to every Indian child, as the Father of the Nation, The one man who almost single-handed led the nation to independence through the early half the last century. He first struck to me as a Man who did a lot for a nation - one of the biggest nation's in the world even then. This could be done only when someone was larger than the self and had subdued his Ego. This was my first impression of Gandhiji. A little later i learnt the concept of a hero and i discovered that Gandhiji was a hero in the true sense cause he led a scattered nation. A nation scattered by geography  castes, classes, rulers of princely states, religions, faiths and beliefs, cultures, languages and occupations. Gandhiji successfully led this Scattered nation to give us one whole .. a holistic India. HE suddenly appeared inhuman to me. a HERO. He was a modern day Sankaracharya who was omnipresent in every nook and corner of the country.

Gandhiji was becoming larger then life for me when i learnt of the story of the little boy who used to eat a lot of jaggery and Gandhiji being unable to give him advice as he himself was fond of sweets.. the humility and simplicity of Gandhiji was the next feature that made me realize here was a man who retained his simplicity of the heart and yet rose to become Great and a leader in terms of thoughts, people and nations. for the first time in my life i believed that it was possible to be simple and great at the same time.

As i grew up and joined an engineering college , i was introduced to terms like Gandhian Philosophy and Gandhian Economics and for the first time became aware that here was a man who was deeply academic , well read and truly knowledgeable. What made Gandhiji stand out for me was that he was a man of wisdom whose knowledge did not start nor did it end with theory but was always put to use in practice in matters of everyday life as easily as in matters of extraordinary circumstances. Unknowingly Gandhiji had taught me that  if i cant put to use a knowledge i have it is pretty much useless to myself first before it is to anyone else.

As i completed engineering , as fate would have it no way else , i was offered a job 15 kms away from the land of Gandhiji's birth Porbandar. There my weekly outings for sanity and escape from the drudgery of Job were to Porbandar and often to the Home of Gandhiji now converted into a museum  I started buying his books and reading some of them and i was introduced to Gandhi , the author and thinker and researcher in action. I fell in love with his clarity and style. he would introduce a phenomenon and then immediately delve into its many aspects clearly listing each and then belaboring to list the various dimensions in each of the listed aspects. the meticulousness could not be escaped and i fell for it . I had learnt the difference between a thinker and a thought leader. Only later i realized i was only starting to learn that difference. I still hold his meticulousness at writing with crisp clarity and simple language and sentences as my ideal.

The visits to that home and followed by visits to many libraries where his works were stored including visits to the sabarmati and kochrab ashram in Ahmedabad left me amazed - a man with more than ten thousand volumes of meticulously written works that were crisply conceptualized and molded into simple words and sentences of at least three different languages. How on earth could a man who was a public figure like him manage to achieve so much ? Those were the days without computers and rapid technology and yet this achievement is almost unparalleled today.

These are the small nuggets and many such similar nuggets join to create a halo around this person that i see him in a different light and revere him for what he was and what he has helped so many people to be. In a way i ask myself would i write this blog so freely if it were not for him and the independence struggle ?

To sum it up. Even today when someone talks to me about "Äction-research" i acn actualyl think of no better example than  the Father of the Indian Nation - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and in that he taught me why he said "My life is my message."

Musings from the Year Going by

Musings from the Year going by

This year is about germination and to an academic germination must be synonymous with thoughts and a lot of thinking .. So this year has been about a lot of thoughts up in my head and they continue to dance day in and out up there.

Thoughts about reframing and focusing where i ought to ..  India and the knowledge and wisdom that has existed here for a long time and how NEW but similar wisdom must be created to tackle situations and catapult the country and more importantly society into a new but correct direction. I call this the need for indigenous wisdom. It has been bothering me for quite some time and i am trying to build a group of like-minded individuals fro a collaborative set-up on this.

There are thoughts about this one input in life and its multiple metaphors possible - WATER. This has been on the mind for some time and small beginnings were made and then have been sort of cold for some time but a lot more needs to be done and soon this kettle will be brewing up a lot.

There are thoughts about the spirit of the individual amidst situations of collective irresponsibility and apathy. this leads me to the thoughts on entrepreneurship in agriculture and the general  apathy that some sensitive individuals in my generation are worried about - the rural-urban divide and many such divides.  These thoughts have precipitated into action that has seen me launch two electives in as many years at IIMA (http://www.iimahd.ernet.in)  as a faculty . Last year i made a beginning with "Agricultural Entrepreneurship" as an elective for the students of the Agri-Business Program and followed it up this year with "Bridging the Rural Urban Divide" (BRUD) for the PGP or MBA students in General Management.

Yes there will be questions and thoughts on how broad and deep is my definition and coverage of Agri-Entrepreneurship and that will be an area of concern for me always. That is essentially a quest that is best defined by the curiosity. i worked for about two years to figure out that there was very little relevant material that existed in this sphere especially if i were focusing on India and would usually confuse itself with a) BoP markets and b) Agri-business and worst of all be devoured by c) Social Entrepreneurship.  The latter being my fear because almost half of social entrepreneurship is in the Agriculture domain and often does well for society but not enough for Agriculture cause it is seen more as Social than as Agricultural Entrepreneurship. This does not really help the domain of agricultural or the people involved in it and as such became the cause to salvage Agricultural Entrepreneurship from Social Entrepreneurship and merge it only where it made sense.

I also anticipate more questions about BRUD starting with if it is about BoP markets.

In this blog piece i think i can take on only this one question. BRUD is not really about markets at the surface or by the looks of it. However it is every bit about a large chunk of BoP markets as it takes a Sociological Orientation mixed with Management Objectivity and Economic Rationality and tries to learn more from Tacit Knowledge than hard coded Explicit Knowledge. It is also about psychology and Individual Dynamics as it is about Organization Behavior and Institution Building and therefore contributes to Consumer Behavior and Segmentation for various BoP markets.despite this It also takes a holistic perspective and doesn't look at Rural areas as only markets or suppliers but looks at them as both supply sources as well as possible markets. The same is true for Urban areas. But this is what the homo-economicus in us wants us to understand. This is also about different world views and multiple divides that separate the rural and the urban areas of the world and India in specific. It is also about various aspects of each of these divides but integrates them into interconnected Divides. This is the challenge that we look at in the first half of the course.

The second half talks about some broad solutions at present. More broad than deep at present as the deeper solutions are more complex to understand and also so specific at times that they don't really make an impact at the holistic level. The second half of the course picks up 7-8 such approaches and these are discussed to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each .

The course ends with the project presentation that runs parallel to the teaching.

I guess this is good germination as of now but the nurturing is yet to take root.

Welcoming the Year of the Growth

This comes in very late for a year that might be so important.. but better late than never.. this continues my tradition of naming every year and working it around a theme and that helps me organize my life. A quick recap on this :-

2006 - The year of the 'Transformation'
2007- The year of the 'Rising'
2008 - The year of the 'Making'
2009 - The year of the 'Realization'
2010 - The year of the 'Blossoming'
2011 - The year of the 'Consolidation'

and now it is only likely that after consolidating .. new life and new beginnings ought to be made in this year.. and yet there has to be a precursor to growth. This year can be nothing but the year of the 'GERMINATION'.

'Germination' arises from preparation and also sowing of seeds and irrigating them . The Vedas says that new life is created only when fire and water come together . Thus this act of germination is going to be interesting for the times to come. What we sow is what we reap and out of what we sow .. we germinate few ...and even fewer see the light of day and grow into something tangible and productive later on with time.

Germination is therefore the cusp for the past and the future and is firmly the present and this is how i can expect this to be. However, Germination can be a lot more and can be described in many other ways as well and only time will tell how this turns out to be in actual apart from expectations. It is this very uncertainty about germination and life that fascinates me as a cause for evolution and therefore survival. I am also eager to learn what changes in this process necessary for survival and being poised for growth.

I look forward to new beginnings which might be small but are connected to the strong branches of the past and grow to become the strong branches of the future.

To sum it up, Germination can be representative of precursor to growth, life , evolution, survival and success, and a cusp between the past and the present. Germination also represents a lot of fulfillment of hope and faith and leads to expectations. Only Time will tell how this goes for me and all those with me..