The Story of my Experiments in Freedom Inclusion and Unity
[Music]
[Applause]
good morning
good afternoon good evening what does
creating impact mean to you
to some people it’s about creating money
creating wealth
for some people it’s about the
betterment of society working on
development
for some people it may be about
recognition or fame
perhaps due to some artistic talent or
some scientific talent that you want to
pursue
for some people impact may just be
improving the lives of just the
immediate people around them their
family and their friends
regardless this is one of the most
important questions to think about
and for me personally as i’ve spent the
last 20 30
years of my life building a career uh
clearly the most important motivator for
me
has been this notion of helping to
create development
and specifically sustainable development
and what exactly does sustainable
development mean
as many of you will be familiar it has
to do with reconciling the economic
the environmental and social aspects of
life and bringing them together
this may seem intuitive and natural but
it wasn’t always the case
in 1987 the united nations put out a
document called our common future or
agenda 21
which first talked about this definition
of sustainable development
and you’ll notice that it did not use
the words environment
or growth how did they talk about it it
called it
meeting the needs of the present without
compromising the needs of the future
and this is what shows us that it is
indeed possible to bring together what
are considered
till then competing ideologies and
actually create a blend
which is better than the sum of the
parts the field and i work in impact
investing
is the same on one hand we focus on
making profits and supporting good
businesses
and at the same exact time we’re looking
to create social impact
these are not two mutually exclusive
goals but they can be done together
now before i share with you my own
journey in terms of the specific stories
of creating impact
i just wanted to share briefly about my
background so
i was born in india but i’ve lived half
of my life outside of this country
mostly in the united states and my key
lesson in life has been that most of us
are shaped by two fundamental forces
for which we have to give credit and for
which we must be conscious
one is of course the education that we
have and i’ve been very fortunate to
have
a very high quality and liberal
education and the other of course is our
families
a lot of our human psychology is formed
as children based on what we learned
from our parents now i’ve been
more than fortunate in this regard my
father is an economist he used to work
for the indian government
he actually happens to be the man who
authored agenda 21 and the word
sustainable development
and worked in the u.n for many many
years on the programmatic
issues of economic and social
development and my mom is a social
activist
a scholar of islamic studies and someone
who has
encouraged me and my brother to have a
lot of exposure and travel both in india
and outside to ym so many times people
ask
why did i come back to india at the
young age of 25 when i was living in the
us
having a green card having a great job
and so forth and the answer is one
obviously because
i saw opportunity but also because of
these values that were ingrained in me
as a child
which really gave me the inspiration to
want to do the kind of work
to drive sustainable development in
india
the constitutions of our democracy
france the united states and even south
africa post apartheid
all start with the same three words
liberty
equality and fraternity which is what
we’re calling
freedom inclusion unity and this is
basically the three broad domains of
social science which is
politics economics and social issues
and it’s very important and very useful
to have this bifurcation
because they’re fundamentally different
sets of issues
it comes in that sequence first you need
political freedom
so think about nationalism trumping over
imperialism then you need economic
liberty
and then choices around what economic
framework society is going to follow so
capitalism
versus let’s say socialism and thirdly
you need
some way of improving the social harmony
amongst people
so think about issues of racism misogyny
patriarchy
and so on and so forth how do we remove
all these barriers so these are three
very distinct sets of issues
and you have different type of
professional actors different types of
thinking that goes into working on each
of these so i’d like to share with you
now some of my
experiences what i’m calling experiments
in working in each of these three areas
so first let’s talk about experiments
with freedom or political engagement
now the key insight that i want to leave
with you is the importance of political
neutrality
it’s very very important especially at a
young age not to
identify yourself with a particular
ideology institution or political party
but really focus on the issues it really
depends in a particular case
you could have one side that is right in
another case you could have another side
that’s right
and often it’s not about binary left
side or right side
but about the shades of gray and the
nuance of public opinion
so i in my life have had the good
fortune of working with governments
as a policy advisor both with the upa
government
and in my current political nba
government but at the same time i’ve
also done a lot of political activism
again against the last government for
example think about the protests that
happened in 2011
because people were so fed up with
corruption and currently
many many people talk about rising
intolerance they talk about specific
policies which are unjust
so the point that i want to leave with
you is it’s very much possible to engage
both in policy which is to work with the
government to help your people
and in politics as a political activist
in the extent that you want to share a
certain view share a certain ideology
or protest against what you consider as
a justice both are very much possible
the other thing to remember
if you’re interested in issues of
promoting human freedom
is that you don’t have to be restricted
to india if you take our immediate
neighborhood
and you take our labor to the west
pakistan of course we’ve got a very
troubled relationship with this country
and it excites strong passions across
the board
now i have been very fortunate i’ve had
the chance to travel to pakistan more
than five times in my life
starting with when i was as young as 25
years old in 2005
i went there as part of a group of nris
and nrps
who traveled there collectively as the
first ever expatriate
indo-pak peace delegation visiting
political leaders and civil society
leaders on both sides of the border
and basically making the case saying
that if pakistanis living in new york
london canada abroad
can get along and you know be happy why
can’t the people of india
and pakistan also similarly give up the
state and this is very distinct from the
political issues
so we can still have differences with
them one kashmir
for example we went to srinagar and we
met uh both the horizon friends
as well as you know people on both sides
of this issue you’ve got to travel all
over pakistan as you’ll see in some of
these pictures
not just to the wagon border in the
major cities but even to the cairo bus
and the pakistan afghanistan border and
similarly our pakistani friends came to
india
and visited all the different cities so
initiatives like this
are also a great way to engage key
issues that you’re passionate about
without having to directly get into
politics yourself
now moving from the issue from freedom
to unity
or fraternity which is bringing people
together
social justice removing the hierarchies
and the divisions and the discrimination
that we have in our society
for example towards women towards
certain castes towards religious
minorities
towards lgbt towards children towards
all people
any instance of people expressing hate
right because we as human beings stand
for the opposite
so ultimately social inclusion is
probably the most important value
but it’s hard to figure out what to do
here rather than you know just
advocate for certain causes i did a very
interesting experiment in the space
which is i set up a cultural center in
uw called whatsapp
now this was a building which had three
floors it was an art gallery
it was probably one of india’s first
co-working spaces it was an event space
and had all kinds of activities we were
publishing a comic book we had a polling
platform
uh we were doing multimedia and so on
and so forth and the idea here was to
really connect across the social divide
to middle class the middle class and the
lower middle class
so think about your driver or your main
son when he or she goes to the mall
he may have some pocket money that he
you know wants to go in there and buy
something
but socially he may be discriminated the
guard may not even let him in
that is unacceptable so what what subhan
tried to do was it took all of these
best practices like ted
like the kind of things that people like
you and me are very much used to and
exposed to
and try to take this to the masses and
give them access to all of these things
and it was a very very interesting
exercise and it really showed the power
of when you move beyond some of these
political and economic issues and
directly connect with people
what is really possible and finally
coming to the issue
of economic inclusion or giving people
access to
incomes now this has to do both with
growth and equity now i work in a field
known as impact investing
which is basically focused on taking
private capital this could be
philanthropic capital or commercial
capital
and investigating businesses which are
providing access and affordable
services to low-income people so think
about affordable education
affordable healthcare affordable
financial services affordable housing
again the same thing that you and i take
for granted but delivering those at
quality at
scale and at the right price to the
people who don’t have it
or helping the low income populations
increase their incomes
or increase their life inputs so think
about sectors like agriculture
or even think about sectors in the urban
economy like an uber driver
or any kind of a great caller or blue
collar job now what impact investing
does is it mobilizes a lot of private
capital into this and you have impact
funds which take this capital
from abroad from institutions from
developing agencies
from private investors and asha impact
has created india’s first such platform
for taking money from indian business
leaders from h i’s and wealthy families
and directly investing this into high
quality social enterprises in india
working across sectors and also a small
think tank which is taking the lessons
from these social enterprises to the
government
because ultimately the government is the
biggest impact investor right they have
the budgets to really make change happen
at scale
so it’s not just about getting capital
but about using that capital to figure
out
what are the right innovative business
models to address some of these social
problems
and when those solutions are identified
taking that to other people in a
collaborative manner so that the
solution can be scaled
because ultimately that’s what all of us
want is to help address some of these
huge problems our society is facing
so now those are some of my so-called
experiments what does this mean for you
as a millennial i’m sure you must have
heard from many many people that you
know millennials are different from
older people
whether that’s better or worse people
debate but i wanted to give you a
slightly different perspective rather
than just this binary
for one between millennials and what are
called baby boomers there’s a third
category
which is gen x and technically i fall
into that but i’m bored in 1980 so i’ll
actually be at that threshold
and similarly for you folks who are
currently in high school
and going to be going into college and
into the working world
you guys are at the end of the
millennial cycle so now there’s going to
be another generation that comes and you
guys are going to be at the edge of that
so most important is to understand how
do people from different age groups
think differently what do they value
differently
now as you can see here millennials
strongly value individuality
and they believe that people should be
rewarded based on their contribution
which is significantly different from
how boomers think who really values
success
and who really believe that people
should be rewarded based on experience
and generators believe that people
should be compensated based on merit
but look at the link to the freedom
inclusion unity the boomer generation
was understandably focused on issues of
political freedom right they’re the
generation that achieve nationalism
freedom from the british and uh
political freedom all across the world
the next generation which is people
slightly older than me the gen xs as
they’re called
were principally focused on wealth
creation both for themselves and for the
rest of society
which was very very successful but it
also created a lot of problems that we
face in the world
and your generation which is the
millennials is most focused on unity
which is a wonderful thing
so by definition you are a much more
empathetic population
less racist less misogynistic less
violent
right so these are the things that you
have to be conscious of and leverage
and also try to understand that what are
some of the things that you can learn
from other generations and find the best
of all words
and a final point to consider as we
think about the role of the youth
is the so-called demographic dividend
which some people have warned could be a
demographic disaster
and here’s why when you look at the huge
number of youth that are present in
india
why people say that our economy is so
well poised because if you have fast
growth and a large number of young
people
it’s a recipe for huge social success
and transformation but if you don’t have
those jobs and you don’t have social
harmony
the exact opposite is the case and you
have large scale social strife
and destruction now look at where the
demographic dividend sits in india
for the large high growth high growth
growing states like
gujarat like in delhi the demographic
dividend is over as of today
- for some hybrid growth states like
karnataka or maharashtra it continues
for another 10 years
but the bulk of the dividend is sitting
in the low growth states in the low
income states of bihar
of madhya pradesh of chattisgarh or
charlotte
and this is the fundamental problem
facing our country unless the youth in
these regions
get incomes and get jobs right now you
see them migrating to other parts of
india
coronavirus has you know deeply and
painfully exposed this issue
so this is the this is really the
challenge and the crisis and the
opportunity of your generation
which is how does the youth not just in
the elite uh
you know cities of india in the delhi’s
the bombays the bangalores
succeed but how do you get the entire
youth and particularly the youth
in the most deprived places how do you
give them access how do you give them
opportunities
without that our country is going to be
in serious trouble going ahead
and one final piece of advice as you go
forward find your inspiration
and try to create change in the world
you must be objective you must look at
both the pros and the cons rather than
getting carried away
and thinking that things are all good
and the technology is going to solve all
of the world’s problems
or that things are absolutely terrible
and you know that nothing is possible
now look at the three fundamental issues
we talked about freedom inclusion
and the good and the bad the good is
fairly evident right
which is that we are a democracy and
that is no mean feat
for a country with so much poverty so
democracy is probably our biggest
strength
second is of course economic growth that
if we talk about 580
economic growth even in the diminished
reality
that causes huge social transformation
over multiple decades
thirdly you talk about the social
progress that has been seen
people are a lot more aware they’re a
lot more assertive
you look at the metoo movement you look
at the black lives matters movement
and you look at all kinds of social and
progressive movements that are going on
around the world in india
facilitated also by technology and
communications which is a key part of
a lot of the good that is happening but
in the same three buckets
we see enormous problems on the
political side you see a deterioration
of independence
of fundamental institutions which
support democracy
people of course talk about the media
but you also have police force right
which is supposed to work for the people
not the politicians the independents of
the courts
the the rbi even the army so these are
the fundamental things that make a
democracy
if they’re not independent if they’re
not strong then you don’t really have
democracy
of course on the economic side people
talk about the vast inequality that is
there
and there’s a moral imperative on all of
us to use the economic growth and the
wealth creation
that has come before us that is going to
come now to improve that situation and
not allow inequality to stand
to such an extreme extent anymore and
finally on the social
side right whilst you have progress you
still have huge amounts of patriarchy
and oppression of women and you have
this rising so-called intolerance
and that is not a political statement
it’s just a fact right that when you
have racism when you have hatred
when you have people trumpeting their
religion over their national or their
civic identity
that is not okay so it’s very very
important for you
to be honest to be objective and to be
able to look at both the good and the
bad
and think clearly about what really is
happening for only then can you figure
out what you want to do about it
so in conclusion i’d just like to give
you one final
piece of advice from the father of our
nation
gandhi someone who i consider to be a
hero and you would have noticed that the
title of his talk is similar
to his own notion of doing experiments
with the truth
so i would implore all of you to find
your passion
to be extremely honest with yourselves
look at both sides of the story
be willing to recognize that social
change is difficult but it is possible
you have these three broad areas
politics economics
and social affairs into which you can
get involved so most importantly i hope
that you find that inspiration
and that you’re able to be the change
that you want to see thank you very much