The intersectionalities of caste are as real in the Indian Start Up sector. The Baniya is as powerful as ever. The Agarwal, Bansal, Sangal, Sethia etc. Business models are pretty standard too, as the source of capital behind the thinking is the same. Some things are never ‘disrupted’ for all the chatter about disrupting the status quo. Man, disrupt the traditional cash castes.
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.
Demonetisation as Technocratic Imagination
Technocracy is a definite political imagination where outcomes dominate process, where pain of common people are trivial for the larger good. This also presumes that marginal communities are incapable of taking decisions for themselves. In short, the rule of the elite mandarins, and politics is performance. Technocracy is not a silver bullet for the divisive intersectionalities of everyday politics of life; caste, economic inequalities and race. Often on the ground execution needs buy in from communities of practice such as bankers in case of demonetisation. Demonetisation is reflective of this technocracy.
The intersectionalities of US Statecraft
The Republican Senator on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee from Colorado brings up FCRA curbs and fund freeze on Christian Education NGO Compassion International in India during the Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State Confirmation process and asks the US to write to the counterparts in India to unfreeze it. Global Politics from DC to Boulder to Delhi and its intersectionalities (Foreign Policy, Evangelical Faith and NGO land) never ceases to fascinate me.
The Ascetic and Demonetisation: Ethnographic notes from the Field
Even Swami Sampurnanand joked about Demonetisation in a short talk on Science and Swami Vivekananda at Hindol Sengupta’s ‘The Modern Monk’ in Delhi today (10-01-2017) that the impact of Demonetisation on Ascetic life, that people who used to donate 1000 rupees, do not even donate 100 now, as small daily expenses are covered by donations. The small saved up reserves are worthless where as the wealthy are not impacted. Demonetisation is a cross cutting lived experience phenomenon, from the saint to the sinner.
A critical reading of ‘Beyond Bollywood’: The Musical
It was a nippy cold morning in Gurugram, near to the IFFCO Chowk Metro Station is an artificial and odd structure modelled after a grand Indian Palace functional as an Amusement Park. It is Traditional Indian Culture (a broad category) meets Disneyland or Universal Studios on a far more moderate scale called as Kingdom of Dreams. The Shah Rukh Khan promoted venture, is better known for its as unreal it can get ‘Culture Gully’ or Culture Lane which is a mega food court with counters of traditional food from all corners of the country, pretty much like a Singaporean Hawker Center, only far more fancier (reminded me of the Chinatown food street after it was sanitised for the tourist crowd).
This commoditization of culture, packaged for the MNC working Global Indian, short of time to connect with one’s traditions, in a systematic manner with fresh natural jaggery infused tea (Gur wali chai) and piping hot Jalebis available at astronomical prices as the musical ticket prices. Blingy over the top, very Bollywoodish take on Indian traditions.
In this context, the musical ‘Beyond Bollywood’ is set; a very over the top performance. Excellent dance sequences especially the Kathak by Aditi Mukherjee (Jasvir Shergill), is a stand out. The engagement with the audience, is rather refreshing with performances from the trampoline and the dholak from the middle of the auditorium.
The storyline is quite scripted and squared; the tension between a NRI Dance artiste (Shergill Junior) looking to rediscover the traditional in India, and a folk dancer turned urdu spewing choreographer (Raghu) who takes the NRI Dancer on a cultural tour of India. She wants to learn the traditional to restore and pay homage to her mother’s legacy at the Indian Dance Theatre of Munich (an obvious lift from the Great Indian Circus of Chicago from Dhoom3).
Demonetisation jibes at a musical: Beyond Bollywood at the Kingdom of Dreams, Gurugram. Politics is culture and culture is politics. Modi ji has captured the cultural imagination.
There is the not so funny gay joke angle of the theatre owner and the the titillating dance sequences from ‘Baby Doll’ and ‘Tip Tip Barsa Paani’. But the stand out is the exposure to the Chaw Santal Dance of Bengal and Lavni of Maharashtra. An entertaining two hours of non stop energy and amazing dance talent. It is reducing these dance forms to an accessible manner for the mainstreet audience. The mode of cultural production is commercial but it is indeed encouraging to find dance artistes finding the correct platforms. Now, have to attend a Navdhara Dance Theater performance soon.
Indian Media: Ask the right questions please?
The Indian media is concerned about H1B visa crackdown by the incoming Trump Administration rather than questioning the rhetoric of growth spewed by the IT sector, where as the disruption is on the door. The cloud and automation chipping away at BPO jobs, data analytics and machine learning already mainstreamed, and 3D printing impacting manufacturing, the media surely has more important angles to cover.
Quoted in Forbes series on Demonetization again
Thanks to Wade Shepard, i was quoted in the Forbes series on Demonetization again.
As Monishankar Prasad, a New Delhi-based author who is currently traveling India researching the on-the-ground impact of the demonetization phenomenon pointed out:
The unbanked and informal economy is hard hit. The poor do not have the access to structural and cultural resources to adapt to shock doctrine economics. The poor were taken totally off guard and the banking infrastructure in the hinterland is rather limited. The tech class has poor exposure to critical social theory in order to understand the impact on the ground. There is an empathy deficit.
“In the long run, this is nothing short of a revolutionary measure in moving a traditional cash centric economy to a fourth industrial revolution era. It’s audacious, brash, and a future-centered decision, which has changed India, its people, politics, and money game forever,” Prasad declared. “India will be ‘before demonetization’ and ‘after demonetization,’ BD and AD.”
However, there are obviously still many cogs in the works before India can truly depend on its digital financial infrastructure, as Prasad discovered during his travels:
India is lived in the hinterland. Even when the card terminals are available, the telephone lines are not robust enough, as they are prone to weather centric disruption. The pharmacy today, in North Kolkata- Laketown, the card machine was out of order, the e-wallet application was working after four false attempts. The area has four pharmacies as it is around a prominent medical center, and only one had a non-cash option. In short, the transition is far from complete.
The link :
I am also working on a longer read on the lived experience of Demonetization and the frictions at the intersection of social justice, technology and governance.
Demonetisation in the popular imagination
The authoritarian imagination is now pop culture: Stand Up Comics Bharti and Krishna, on Big Boss mimicking 500 and 1000 rupees notes themselves, quipping that the 2000 rupee note has chips in it that can report excess notes, shine in the dark and what else not!
People on Big Boss being comically critical of demonetisation and PM Modi having a New Years Eve National Address. The discourse has indeed changed forever.
Dangal: more than mere sport
It is the year of the sports film, Disney has another winner after Queen of Katwe in Dangal. A technically efficient film, is a study in to patriarchy and poor sports administration more than the wrestling sequences. The underdog comeback narrative stays on course as in Mira Nair’s Queen of Katwe, or in the Malaysian Soccer Film Ola Bola. Geeta and Babita inspired Sakshi,are true trailblazers. Aamir Khan stays on his ‘intolerant’ ways challenging cinema, bringing an international film to our screens. Two years of work, is reflected on every sequence in the film. Aamir Khan digs in as the middle aged Mahavir Phogat, and lends a character which makes him the spine of the film. The sport sequences feel like live sport, and not filmy. Must watch, Sultan is a pale shadow in front of this film.
Writing as Politics: Six years of questions and critical conversations
I started this e-platform as a online note pad cum thought repository after years of writing on social media, debating and curating platforms for change. I am a strongly opinionated person, and radical politics is something which i believe runs through the little small talk that we spew. The banter, the sexist jokes, the acceptance of decisions that are questionable. So writing for me is not mere text, but as access points into an alternative imagination, alternative discourse which makes us think, question and evaluate our choices. Change Thinker has since then evolved into a platform for driving conversations for social change through writing from Film to Public Policy. Films are grossly political as is text. I have gone on to write for other media platforms (Huff Post, Corporate Citizenship, Alochonna) and have been interviewed on crucial issues of the day (Food Security Bill, Demonetisation) on Al Jazeera International, BBC World and Forbes.
Digital space is far from radical although politics is embedded in to every search through skewed algorithms and automated propaganda on Twitter, leaving the corporate media machine aside. As the noted Journalist P Sainath quips, which i will paraphrase: Digital is reflective of the biases in real life. AirBnB and Uber are instituting anti discrimination policies to safeguard against biases. How many startups in India have grievance redressal mechanisms as per the Company Law 2013 and Women Harassment Act 2014. Questioning the rhetoric, is the beginning to create a better world. Call the Bluff. This platform is not a PR job. This is activist writing towards a normative politics. Thank you Friends for reading.
Change Thinker 