Author: changethinker

Born and raised in Mumbai, India with an undergrad degree from Oman and a masters degree from the National University of Singapore. I am an Environmental Professional with a passion for Sustainability, Social Innovation and Governance related issues. A Change Agent in the making who believes that small is beautiful and that impact can be achieved -one soul at a time.

Cafes as sociological sites

Cafes are sites of urban aspirations in India. The overpriced Latte, is at the intersection of food, clean cool place to sit, a toilet, good looking crowd, or at least the expectation of it. The vernacular meets the global, the chai latte is still inferior to the cutting chai at ten percent the cost. The ‘Welcome to Starbucks’ in a very desi manner is heart warming, while the patrons are snooty at best with the bohemian attire, excellent hair off a catalogue. The beverage is really the minimum denominator, peripheral but the core.

Unnecessary media coverage 

I am amused by the reporting of tightening of NZ/Australia/Singapore citizenship/visa norms in the Indian Media. Every country has their own set of requirements and they are entitled to do so. The obsession with such news is unnecessary. There are too many agrarian issues to cover out here.
One of the major reasons for the tightening is the inability of migrants to integrate and live within ethnic ghettos all their life. The effort on the Migrant to integrate is a lot more, as changing the colour of the passport should mean more.

Non Profits: Avoid the Glitz

Too many non profits with glitzy communication, fundraising pages on crowd sourcing websites, bespoke walking tours and talks at elite events and memberships at clubs. Talking about disruption, but fail to gauge intervention contexts. The CEO Saviour mindset, is toxic. Vendor bills are not cleared (including mine with numerous requests, you know you are). Concentrate to stick out and create impact instead to taking up numbers for your glossy website.

Memory, Migrant and Modernity 

Modernity for an economic migrant internal/transnational is a mirage, something he tries to achieve while being disadvantaged apriori by starting off afresh. He remains on the edge/peripheral areas of home-adopted lands, which is entangled in memory, alienation and in a perennial endeavour to be the other. This alienation is washed down with some money, which enables him to earn a living. Identify and Actualisation are relegated to the residues of dreams, rather than lived reality. The flights back home and crossing passport controls are rituals connecting the continuum of past to future, with the emergent present a buffering work in progress. For the second generation, like me, attempts to embrace the passport home are wrestling experiences, while chameleon mode on, languages flow, places seem familiar but as the old Arab proverb informs ‘ home is where the next meal is’. Nationalisms are luxuries for a migrant. Long distance expressions of belonging through shares, likes and retweets are construct imaginations of texts, sounds and images. In a volatile world with closed doors, the returnees jostle, with the realities of what was once home, which they left, hoping not to come again. But, politics trumps destiny, but is Home limited by a travel document? Millions struggle as this question lingers, with cancelled work visas and rejected PR’s.

Start Ups need to appreciate the power of cultural context

The Snapchat CEO comment is reflective of two strands: He does not understand India enough and in turn Snap does not prioritise India as a strategic end market. On that point, he is justified in business logic. But, the Digital is not bereft of sentiments. The nationalistic outburst, was obvious in the hyper amplification of digital, where even a weak noise is enough for a twitter hashtagged trend. These flash in the pans are PR disasters, though far less severe than United. The neo nationalisms of the Asian Century discourse, collide with neoliberal shared economy cash, where demographics ultimately win. The power centers in the digital era are Delhi and Dalian, rather than Dallas. India has many issues to sort out, but the assertive Hindu nationalist (read keyboard warrior) middle classes will not take such indignation lying down.

India and China are decolonising by colonising the Digital space by the sheer gravity of numbers, and the marketplace is destiny in commerce. Big digital firms better coach their CEOs in the lingo of Peking and South Block, if they are to navigate the legal labyrinth of archaic laws and regulatory swamps that enmesh the conjoined worlds of technology, politics and society.

Interrogating the ‘idea of a new India’

The Idea of the ‘New India’ has to be unpacked, into its aspirations, desires and limitations. This New India is unabashedly Hindu, high on growth and increasingly assertive.

The Idea of India was the title of a 1997 seminal work by Prof Sunil Khilnani, an India Scholar, which has entered the popular lexicon encapsulating the diverse ethos of India. The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the recently concluded Uttar Pradesh Elections mocked this Nehruvian construct (Secular Liberal Socialist ethic), criticizing Nobel Laureate Prof Amartya Sen, with a ‘Hard Work more than Harvard’ jibe, as the good professor has been particularly critical of Demonetisation and the handling of the university system in India. The Prime Minister also seems to extoll the ‘New India’, often shorthand for the clean break with India’s secular and socialist past, and replacing it with an assertive political Hindu identity for the future, a paradigm being put forth by Modi’s administration. This phenomenon got a booster shot after the landslide election wins in Uttar Pradesh.

The Yogi Adityanath’s (known popularly as Yogi) appointment as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh is a shock doctrine application of a leader with staunch Hindutva credentials. Such a decision would be unthinkable even in 2014. This is keeping in mind the elections in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, as these are the fortresses to be won again. A certain Hindutva politics is mainstream in these states, which border UP and each other. If Demonetisation was shattering, it was certainly ominous of the times to come. Jawaharlal Nehru University, Hyderabad Central University and Ramjas College incidents were blips on radar and 2019 federal elections and beyond shall see bigger big bang reforms. The design and details of which we saw on November 8th @ 8pm 2016 with Demonetisation announcement and with Yogi appointment.

 

These are interesting times for a majoritarian politics with a ‘growth agenda’. Modiji has redefined politics. I see an alienation among voters in the Deep South though, particularly Tamil Nadu’s Dravidian heartlands particularly with the Cauvery Water Dispute with Karnataka and the Jallikattu protests earlier this year, seen as infringement of Tamil Identity. The new AIADMK will lease space to the BJP, if Rajni Saar (the Tamil Cine Superstar) comes on board with Tamil Nadu’s very religious ethic. Kerala with the largest number of shakhas (elementary grassroots units of the Hindu Nationalist Ideological Fountainhead Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or the RSS), is another electoral growth area.

The spaces of resistance will have taken on a subversive, stealthy mode online, as surveillance under the national security imperative will increase. India will have an aggressive foreign policy with defence getting a much-needed push, started under Manohar Parrikar, now the Goa Chief Minister with a cleverly formed coalition government. The fish curry, I guess though lured him away (pun intended).

Mamata Banerjee will face the heat, as Bengal is the final frontier with 42 seats. I am certain BJP Honcho Amit Shah along with the state leadership is working on it furiously with a ramping up of pro Hindu organizational agenda in the past month as evident on social media with an attack on Fish and Tagore, both Bengali icons. This New India is one where the BJP will be the natural ruling party of governance. A very non-traditional technocratic intelligentsia frames the intellectual ballast to this idea of new India with a disdain for the values of the secular, socialist Indian State almost bordering on anti intellectual right wing fervor prevalent worldwide. The popular patron saints of this India are two IIM MBA trained ex bankers Amish and Chetan Bhagat, who write accessible pulp fiction, lapped up by millions of first generation English educated Indians.

A young India is impatient for the modernity, which breathes off tourist brochures in Singapore and Sydney. This modernity is a breach from the slow economic growth of the past seven decades, and is muscular almost waiting for its moment under the bright sun. Whether this new India shall be plural, inclusive and discursive shall be seen in the months ahead.

Reclaim the citizen from the consumer

Law making often lags behind technology, and this loophole in regulation is exploited by neoliberal actors to convert citizens into consumers. Celebration of the gig economy is often premature. Ask the delivery boy for the e commerce ‘App’ economy, who begs for a bottle of water to drink in the 40 degree Delhi heat. The cabbies for Uber and OLA often do not follow the unpredictable Google Maps, and still prefer to ask the corner shop owner for directions. 

The band aid tech industry titans do not get the context. Well, valuations matter more.