Dhauli

Dhauli.

A lone king, standing on a hill, surveying the bloodied fields below him, reflects on the price people have paid for his grand ambitions. Too much. Dramatically, he speaks into a bubble, renouncing war with the words, "All men are my children, and just as I desire for my children that they should obtain welfare and happiness both in this world and the next, the same do I desire for all men."

Step out of the Amar Chitra Katha, and drive a short distance from Bhubaneswar and you stand before these words. Dhauli is where Asoka's 1st Separate Rock Edict is carved.

The edict is now protected by a glass case but it's still thrilling to peer through the glass and imagine someone read these words out to a stunned, benumbed public.

The Archaeological Survey of India has manicured a little patch of garden around the otherwise harsh rock and as you climb the ledge above the edict, the view is pastoral, even bucolic. Lush fields. Coconut trees. Some signs of human habitation. A far cry from the comic-book illustration of bloodied bodies strewn here and there. The earthquake and tsunami that have struck Japan even as I was traveling to Dhauli have probably left those scenes in their wake.

I try really hard to imagine that moment, that epiphany. But even the faint memory of these words does not actually move me as much as I want to be moved. Perhaps it's the effect of the kitschy looking Peace Park that looms over the rock edict at the top of that hill. Perhaps it comes from the complete lack of interest and enthusiasm of the driver who really doesn't care that war was renounced here. Perhaps it's the boys-on-a-binge tourism that I see, pausing at the edict lackadaisically before proceeding to the Kitsch Park (which I must confess, I couldn't bring myself to visit--it may be quite nice after all!)

[ <-This is the elephant carved on top of the rock where the edict is carved.]

The second separate Rock Edict at Tosali is where Asoka had carved: "All men are my children and just as I desire for my children that they should obtain welfare and happiness both in this world and the next, the same do I desire for all men. If the unconquered peoples on my borders ask what is my will, they should be made to understand that this is my will with regard to them --the king desires that they should have no trouble on his account, should trust in him, and should have in their dealings with him only happiness and no sorrow. They should understand that the king will forgive them as far as they can be forgiven, and that through him they should follow Dhamma and gain this world and the next.


For this purpose I instruct you, that having done so I may discharge my debt to them, by making known to you my will, my resolve and my firm promise. By these actions, my work will advance, and they will be reassured and will realize that the king is like a father, and that he feels for them as for himself, for they are like his own children to him."

Horses, water and Queen Mary's College

Posted first at the PSW Weblog.


"You can drag a horse to the water; you cannot make him drink.”

I cannot write a report about the 2011 quiz without remarking on the participation issue. We invited almost 40 colleges. 10 colleges registered after an official invitation and poster went to the principal, calls were made to the union secretaries and to our friends in the faculty. The students were supposed to register at 2:30 p.m. At 3:30, half an hour after the first round was scheduled to start, only three teams had registered.

Our volunteer made a round of calls, only Ethiraj picked up. They weren’t going to come, but did not think it important to let us know. The Stella Maris and WCC cheering squads–barely three-four people anyway–showed up. The teams did not. We still have no calls or email messages from them.

For Prajnya, this is not an isolated experience. We have the same problems for every programme we conceptualise for students. This is the first time that we have faced it on this scale for the quiz.
Apathy in itself is lamentable. After all, these are the people to whom we plan to repose a great deal of responsibility in the very near future–work, family, social. But the lack of consideration and the absence of accountability are far more frightening to me.

These are the people who will work jobs? Have children? Run the world? What if they don’t feel like showing up one day? Will they just leave work and family in limbo? Every single student carries a mobile phone and has an email account. They could not call or email or sms us to say they would not be coming?

We are a small non-profit and invest very scarce resources into creating opportunities for students, from whom our only expectation is that they should bring themselves to the programme. For yesterday’s event, we had prepared three substantial quiz rounds, plus back-up questions, which took about five long days of serious preparation, even with contributions. More than one person worked on this quiz. Our volunteer made innumerable calls and a few visits in between his classwork at the University. We ordered snacks for fifty. Used up our small stock of printed certificates (which we cannot reuse now) to prepare for 20 participants. And how do I describe the loss of morale for all the people who were so enthusiastic about this programme? They are also young, and I want them to continue to feel like whatever they contribute matters.

Why the Prajnya Team loves Queen Mary’s College

As a contrast to this picture, I want to tell you why we love working with Queen Mary’s College. Queen Mary’s in its time was a very prestigious institution, but that really is history. Today, South India’s first women’s college is a very poorly resourced, poorly maintained institution, but with the gift of teachers who are unbelievably dedicated and students who are hungry for opportunities. Whenever we suggest an opportunity to them, they are enthusiastic and fuel the programme with warm and eager participation.

For yesterday’s programme, we had hired their hall. When I walked in to set up, there was a small group of students sitting quietly, with the professor we usually work with. They were very subdued, in low spirits. One of their colleagues, a young hostelite, was killed by a speeding vehicle when crossing the road in front of their college… injured a few days ago, succumbed to her injuries the day before the quiz. They said, hesitantly, we are in no mood to participate, we will help you set up. I cajoled them into putting up a team.

And they did. They stayed. They participated. They smiled and did not let on to the others that they were grieving. They were good hosts to those who had come to watch. Principal, professor, students, staff… made us feel like we were welcome and that they valued this event.


The principal had spent long days at the General Hospital while her student battled death. The professor we work with had coped in the hostel with grieving girls and police questions. The principal stopped by as we set up to apologize for not coming—she was patently exhausted but gracious. The professor stayed through the quiz, to offer us moral support.

This is college spirit. This is the real stuff.

And when the quiz participants told the quiz master, they wanted careers in social work, I wanted to say to the college and parents: you did really well raising these girls. They fill me with hope when others in their generation make me very afraid.

We are proud to have in the Prajnya Archives photographs of flag hoisting on Independence Day 1947 at Queen Mary’s. We are proud our quiz in the centenary year of the observance of March 8 as International Women’s Day was in this college, full of spirit.

Founder's Blues: Sometimes you wonder why...

Sometimes you wonder why you bother. This week, I have been wondering why I started Prajnya.

Entrepreneurship, business or social, is a very lonely experience. So is a scholarly career. Stuck between both, trying to make them work, I wonder why I bother with the work that benefits me the least. The scholarly career holds a lot of space, maybe is predicated on a healthy sense of self-doubt. Building an organization requires you to fake confidence most of the time. Confidence in your vision. Confidence in the society where it is rooted. Confidence in those around you.

Actually, you have to fake confidence that there are people around you. Most of the time you are alone. Trustees, partners, volunteers, potential donors, resource persons, even beneficiaries and end-users... they appear and disappear. Cheshire cats. Scarlet Pimpernels. Desert mirages. You think you imagined them. You imagined them in order to indulge your delusion/ego/both. I am pretty sure I did.

Today, I cannot remember why I started on this road.

***

We could have created Prajnya as a Section 25 non-profit company, a society or a trust. We chose the last route because it offered the most freedom. The auditor warned me repeatedly that it would be very hard to shut down.

So here I am. Without an easy road ahead. Without an easy escape.

***

And no answers. Don't ask me about "no answers," I probably can't answer that.

It's a vicious cycle--no money, no people, no office, no space, no hub, no community, no support, no money, no people, no office... you pull off miracles in the first year or so, and then it becomes really hard. Your presence, reputation and workload increase much faster than your resources. And certainly, they have taken a toll of my physical, fiscal and inner resources.

***

Some weeks, I really can't remember why this seemed like the thing to do. What was my expectation of myself? What was my expectation of others?

To be very honest, my worry all along was embarking on this course in a city where I have no friends. But here I was. And I wanted to start before I was too old to take a risk. I still don't really feel like I have friends here--almost eight years after I moved and five years after Prajnya's deed was executed.

***

I take great comfort, even pleasure in reading about the teething troubles others faced--from Rukmini Arundale to Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev. I seek courage in their continuing growth and success. But I am neither unique like Rukmini Devi nor enlighted like Sadhguru. Does that diminish my survival prospects and those of Prajnya?

***

Like Abhimanyu in the chakravyuha, I figured out how to get in. I cannot go further. I cannot get out. I will not be rescued. And I will not be martyred. Middle-aged female Abhimanyu.

***

But if tomorrow you told me to pull down the shutters, could I? Would I? (And believe me, if I chose to do this, the same family that now supports me, would celebrate my release from anxiety and stress as well!) But would I?

I don't know. I can't remember why I chose to do this, I can't think of why I cannot leave.

I can only write this post in the hope that someday it offers comfort to another person in my situation.

One more gone... K. Subrahmanyam

In just one fortnight, India has lost two very important contributors to foreign policy and security thinking, both from the same generation in a manner of speaking: Dr. Bhabani Sen Gupta and Mr. K. Subrahmanyam. One, I knew well and the other, I had read and met but did not know. Dr. Sen Gupta's passing away is a personal loss but Mr. Subrahmanyam's death also feels significant.

I had seen both their by-lines when I was in college. KS used to write for the TOI edit page which was then one of the best in the country (yes, this is true!). BSG used to write for India Today. They represented very different views of the world, and as I began to study international relations, came to symbolize opposite positions. I identified Dr. Sen Gupta with the position that came more naturally to me: conciliatory, pacifist, anti-nuclear. Mr. Subrahmanyam's positions on most things brooked no compromise, no adjustment. As a very young student, it was easy to cast them in good-bad, hawk-dove moulds.

As the years have passed, I see shades of grey everywhere and shy away from these absolute positions. What I recognize is that both of them were very true to their temperament and worldview; they spoke the truth as they saw it, without compromise and without pandering. It is their integrity that I recognize, the specifics of each one's various positions are truly details that will now only interest intellectual historians writing about the security discourse in India.

At one time, both Dr. Sen Gupta and Mr. Subrahmanyam were towering public intellectuals writing on foreign policy and defence. Both had the ear of government, with Dr. Sen Gupta (like others at CPR) being closest to the  VP Singh-Inder Gujral governments. Mr. Subrahmanyam's influence remained unabated till his last breath. Architect of many of India's foreign policy positions and author of the security doctrine drafted a few years ago, his was usually the most dispassionate articulation of India's interests in any situation. 

Both of them mentored so many younger people, both of them lent their intellectual services and integrity to build important public policy research institutions. Dr. Sen Gupta retired from the seminar/policy circuit to the point of being reclusive in his last years. Few have written about him, to celebrate his life and work, to express their gratitude. By contrast, many articles and tributes have been and are being written about Mr. Subrahmanyam, even as I write this. This is the way of the world: to sometimes fete, to soon forget. My guess is both of these brilliant men knew this. But it makes me sad.

I am very sad that we remember selectively, that we forget easily, that we seem to lack gratitude... and saddest that the qualities that made scholars like Dr. Sen Gupta and Mr. Subrahmanyam deserving of the epithet "towering" seem rare and also anachronistic in this age of two-minute noodle opinions: the patient, disciplined devotion of a lifetime to learning and honing.

All of us who work in the area of security studies and foreign policy, regardless of what we now write about or what our political opinions, have learnt a great deal from the writing of Dr. Sen Gupta and Mr. Subrahmanyam. All of us are now bereaved, having lost two teachers in quick succession.

What is the dakshina that we now have to offer their memory?