Haiku No. 1

A river so swift
When it paused to think;
Drowned in itself. 

Basecamp

Had a good dose of inspiration last weekend and decided to write after a long long time!!

The flap of the tent lies open

Snow on the mountains have stopped their fall
A new adventure lies ahead
Yet I sit inside—content, straight and tall.
Gone are the goals of being on top
No more excitement to be the first
What has happened to my ambition
Where have they gone, my hunger and thirst?
How right was Rodin when he said
Meditation destroys the arms and the legs
Now the biggest battles I want to fight
They are occurring only inside my head.
I know not what else to achieve in the mountains
I am not sure of what I want to find
Do I simply need a dose of divine inspiration
Or is my fate locked in my thinking mind?
There is no fear of the untaken path
All the tools I need are beside me
But there is such peace in this moment
Of not bounding out to see.
The clamouring bees are up and about
Wind-braving pines begin their morning call
New discoveries and trails with all their promise
Yet I sit inside—content, straight and tall.

Kuari Pass Trek, Day 3, 2011

The Road Not Taken

Thoughts on the play, One Day in the Season of Rain

“Two roads diverged in a wood”, the great Robert Frost once mused in lines I have read since I was a school boy , “And I took the one less traveled by.” A four-time winner of the Pulitzer, he ended his poem with a sigh and with the timeless assurance, “And that has made all the difference.”

Where Frosts’ timeless words egged on many confused souls like me to the gates of individualist adventure, they hid the very human conflict even the most spirited souls experience after taking a tough decision.  It is this conflict that Mohan Rakesh explores in One Day in the Season of Rain enacted by Dubai based amateur drama group, Backstage, over the last weekend.

Fittingly, Rakesh centred his work on the great Indian poet, Kalidas, who is forced to choose between remaining in the mountains with his beloved Mallika or walking the path of greatness by joining the King’s court in the city. Kalidas is initially haunted at the prospect of leaving the familiar; but goaded by Mallika and in a Frost-like moment of inspiration, he embarks on a journey to vast wealth and fame.

Rakesh follows Kalidas in his journey through the proverbial woods, exposing his steadfastness to remain on the path despite numerous temptations to turn back and examining the loneliness of his accomplishments. Backstage’s Asad Raza, who is slow to get into Kalidas’ skin at first, convincingly makes the heart-wrenching confession in the end for how his greatest poems were inspired by his longing to walk the road not taken. At the pinnacle of his career, Kalidas appears more lost and miserable than at the start of his journey, rueing the emptiness of his victories in the absence of Mallika.  The play provides no answer for how one should choose between two roads that appeal equally to the heart. Where I had regarded Kalidas as a self-centred and a flawed hero at first, I quickly realized the flaw lay only in his inability to make an impossible choice.

At the epicentre of Kalidas’ dilemma lay the introverted Mallika, played by Priyanka Johri. There is no doubt Priyanka had large shoes to fill as the lead character (something she did well by appearing on stage bare feet). She ultimately held off the fray of being on stage for the first time ever with unusual composure, managing to even create a lump in my throat in the wee hours of the production. Contrary to popular opinion, however, Mallika left me incensed instead of emphatic. While she thinks like a modern-day, independent woman in love (choosing love in an age of arranged relationships) she appears weak and helpless to the point of timidity in her actions (not learning how to support herself financially). Mallika’s conversation with Kalidas, where she encourages his move to the city, made me wonder if there is such a thing as being too selfless. At what point does one fight for what they love and at what point do they let it go?

As rain pitter-pattered over the speakers in the final minutes of the play I could not help empathize with Mallika’s mother, Ambika, played spectacularly by Jennifer Turkington in the most resounding performance of the production. Ambika depicts the age-old saying “if youth but knew, if age but could”, predicting the disastrous series of events about to unfold in Mallika and Kalidas’ life. While it is easy to mistake her for a pessimistic hag, her character provides the critical but unheeded direction that Mallika’s life craves. Ambika brings Frost’s lofty ideas crashing back to Earth by injecting them with the bitter intricacies of realism. She points to the loneliness confronting Mallika very early as she does to the painful decision of loving a man with an impossible choice to make.  It is painful to realize that the only way Mallika could grapple the gravity of Ambika’s relentless counsel was by experiencing it first-hand when it was too late to turn around.

Why was this play so close to me?  Why did it stay on my mind for many days?  Why did I identify with it so closely? Perhaps because I too struggle with making my mind up like Kalidas or that I find myself as helpless as Mallika ever so often. Maybe it was the sound of rain I have grown to love morphed into a scene of separation and struggle. It is the clarity that comes with writing that helps me answer this question.

One Day in the Season of Rain weakened the pillar of unwavering trust I had built up in Robert Frost’s words since I was a little boy. When confronted with a seemingly impossible decision today, I will look more carefully at Frost’s optimistic lines and ask myself: was Frost’s sigh at the end of his poem one of self-satisfaction at a path well-lived or one of regret for the path that, like Kalidas, he missed taking. And which should I choose?

To a Stranger by Walt Whitman

One of the more endearing poems I have read recently by one of my favorite writers, Walt Whitman.

To all those who travel the world, meet new people and let their imaginations run wild:

To a Stranger
by Walt Whitman

PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,

You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,)

I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,

All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,

You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,

I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only,

You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,

I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone,

I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,

I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

The Sandbox

Welcome to the sandbox
Wont you come and play with me?
The sand is warm, the sun is bright;
We will wander well within sight.

You squint your eyes and purse your lips,
"I only have recess", you say, hands to your hips.
"We'll make it short" I say, as you look to your watch.
You step in: "that suits me, you see I have my life to catch" .

The grains are soft, smooth and thin
You waste no time, plunging right in.
"Lets build some castles high into the air",
Your eyes dance, the wind plays with your hair.

The walls grow taller and time slows down,
How deftly move your hands, gentle and brown.
"This is so much fun!" you finally say;
Clouds gather in the distance, menacing and gray.

The first drops of reality bite into the sand
Recess is over! You suddenly stand.
"I have to go, I have my life to catch"
"We made it short" I smile, as I look to my watch.

Thunder strikes closer and it pours down
Your tiny feet leave marks in the ground.
The sandbox is wet and full of rain
It will be a while before I play again.

I turn back at the castles, they are bound to fall,
Reality lashes at mine first as yours stands tall
For you had built your walls high
And I had built mine low.

The Hero

A poem I wrote while sitting in the bus in a snow-storm in New York City.

The Hero

One may reckon and let it go
What mettle and spirit makes a hero.
One may dream and even fly high
Thinking he can be someone, capture a sigh.

A thought like so hit me of late--
I happened to be passing near an iron gate
And then, as if it was a dream
I heard behind me a frightful scream.

The scene was typical and the setting right.
"Help!" shrieked the maiden, her eyes shut tight.
Notorious seemed the thugs who made her cower
But the spirit in me did not go lower.

With a fiery battle cry and ominous words
I leaped forward: "Leave her alone, you turds!"
The maiden smiled as I swung at one
My macho heroics made the villains shun.

My coat was tattered, torn and misfit
As I staggered to her, fire in my heart lit.
Her eyes were closed and lo! they bloomed
Alas! She was the village witch--I was doomed.

I glanced at the sheriffs I had killed
And then at the witch, her teeth all frilled.
She bared her claws and lunged at me
All at once I could not see.

No words of thanks, no compassionate hug
The hero lay paralyzed like on some kind of drug.
The hideous witch beat him with all her might.
"Help!" shrieked the hero, his eyes shut tight.

Where are the leaders?

Mayank Maheshwari looks at and laments the lack of leaders in India's burgeoning education sector. Article link

What the UAE can teach India

The tiny United Arab Emirates have allowed foreign institutions and for-profit investors to revitalize their schools; India should follow suit. Article link

For-profit schools and colleges.

Children study in a school run by an NGO in New Delhi.
The very idea of making money in a sector that is innately construed to be charitable and altruistic in India sends shivers down the backs of regulators, parents and thought-leaders in the country.

At a time when India is widely regarded as passing through a revolution in its education sector, the stubborn mind-set against private entrepreneurs benefiting from a sector that is parched for their innovative ideas and their healthy investments sounds bizarre.

Yet, despite government prepared reports underscoring the benefits of private schools over shoddy government schools, and half-hearted attempts by the government to open schools to profit-making investors, India today remains closed to those wanting to make money, pay taxes and educate its millions.

As regulators in India mull over the future of their education system and how best to prepare it for the 21st century, it would do them good to cast an eye towards the UAE, a country that is witnessing an education reformation of its own, and the investor-friendly, forward thinking policies there that have allowed the seeds of positive education reform to be sown in the country.

Like India, the UAE has been plagued by how to repair its public education system, improve teacher training standards and build scale in its higher education sector. Over the past few years, the government has responded to these challenges by adopting a more investor friendly policy; essentially, allowing the operation of for-profit schools and colleges alongside government run institutions, and crafting special regulations to allow foreign institutes to setup base in the country.

The idea has been to create an environment where private schools compete among themselves to provide the best possible education at the lowest cost, much like how restaurants compete to serve the tastiest food at reasonable prices. The government acts more as an enabler, setting basic standards of operation for schools and creating the necessary infrastructure needed by schools to operate.

The decision by reputed universities such as New York University and Paris’s Sorbonne to locate to the UAE, the growth in the number of schools in the country and the setting up of much needed vocational education colleges in areas such as Dubai Knowledge Village can be attributed to such investor friendly policies.

The positive effect these schools and colleges will have in educating both the local and expat population as well as in arresting a brain-drain from the UAE is sizeable.

On the other hand, India has adopted what it claims is a more child friendly policy, with the government not only disallowing profit making but also dictating terms to privately run schools’ daily operations. The recently ratified Right to Education Act, which requires private schools to enroll low-income students at highly subsidized fees is an example of such interference.

Despite being advertised as benefiting the common man, such policies are to the detriment of India’s long term aspirations as an educational powerhouse for a few reasons.

Firstly, it is no secret in India today that despite being legally coined as not-for-profit, education entrepreneurs in the country use complex structures and underhanded methods to remove a few bucks for themselves. The use of hefty capitation fees in schools and colleges in India, something many Indian expats in UAE are forced to pay for their children’s education back home, is an example of such a structure created to remove money from a system that does not legally allow profit-making.

Would it not be better to allow people who are passionate about education reform to make money legally as is the case in the UAE instead of letting cronies exploit parents through capitation fees?

Moving on, the Indian government is known to be a terrible operator of schools, with teacher absenteeism and poor infrastructure the norm in low-income areas. UNESCO ranks places India’s public education system one of the lowest in the world today. An innovative idea in the UAE to tackle a similar underperformance of public schools was to lease out a few government schools in Abu Dhabi to private, for-profit operators to manage.

Would it not be better for India as well to empower entrepreneurs to repair the messy public education system and also set up low-cost private schools?

Finally, just as it was in the UAE, parents in India are worried about high tuition fees, poor teaching quality and inferior student performance. In India’s current pseudo-socialist education system, the government is responsible for overseeing education quality, even in private schools, and sets its own benchmarks for schools to adhere to. In the UAE, where schools compete for profits, there is an automatic pressure on them to provide excellent quality education or risk losing their students to another, better performing school. Wouldn’t such a system offer India a win-win situation for schools, parents and regulators?

Despite a societal mindset against profit-making in educational institutes, India must recognize, like the UAE, that its goal of a child friendly education system is heavily reliant on how private investors and entrepreneurs are treated in the country—as empowered teachers or as bullied students.

Mayank Maheshwari is an entrepreneur and freelance writer based in Dubai, UAE. He serves as a senior committee member for the Hope Hall Foundation School in New Delhi.

Learning, the Indian Way

The unflinching focus on education found in many Indian students and their families in something other countries can learn from. Read my article in the Wall St. Journal
Article link: http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010/09/01/india-journal-learning-the-indian-way/
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The sometimes uncanny ability of many Indian students, both at home and overseas, to excel in mathematics, science, literature and geography has won the admiration of many in the western world.

Robert Compton, an American entrepreneur and filmmaker had always assumed that India’s education standards were poor. He was so impressed by students’ superior learning habits on visiting here though that he decided to do the documentary, “2 million minutes” to demonstrate the urgent need for U.S. schools to mimic the teaching techniques of countries like India and China.

Across the pond, British education officers have also remarked on how their students need to learn from India. Back from a recent trip to India, British Universities Minister David Willets announced his interest in sending British students to India for studies, especially in subjects like math, science and IT.

For many, this adulation for a widely-criticized education system seems bizarre. After all, doesn’t India boast of astronomical primary school drop-out rates? Doesn’t much of rural India struggle with high illiteracy rates? Isn’t the country infamous for using a system of rote-learning? Who can ignore the country’s crumbling education infrastructure or lack of teaching standards?

So, what is everyone really harping about?

Perhaps the success of some of India’s students lies not as much within the formal underfunded education system but in an inherent culture of learning; not in schools and colleges as much as in everyday interactions and perceptions.

It has long been advocated that in classrooms in the West, Indian students tend to be more hard-working than their non-Indian classmates when it comes to academics. A key reason for this is the inculcation of study habits in students from a very early age and a societal perception that children need to put their studies before all other aspects of their daily lives. Indeed, no other reason will get you excused from a family wedding in India than to say that you have an important class or a test coming up.

Students in India are taught to deal with the pressure of examinations and to compete with their classmates for better grades well before those in the West. There is also a great emphasis to use any available free time to revise class-notes, practice math problems or attend private tuitions rather than watching Friends or playing cricket. Compton states in his film how an average U.S. student spends 900 hours in the classroom and 1,500 hours in front of the television in their four-years of high school.

From my own experience studying in India and later in the U.S., I found a marked difference in how Indian students use their school holidays to learn a new language, attend coaching classes or practice handwriting instead of attending football games, visiting relatives or working in the local supermarket. This means they put in more hours for their math, science or geography studies. Is it really a wonder that they tend to score better in these subject areas?

Another cog in the wheel is India’s culture of constant supervision and guidance of students by their parents and teachers, even to the point of micromanagement of daily schedules and long-term goals. Parents are involved in a student’s academic work, tuition classes, university planning and career counselling, not just in primary school but well into college. In the West, where students are given a greater deal of independence to map their own interests or choose a college, such a system would be considered too stifling. In India, however, it is as commonplace as bargaining in the local bazaar or drinking tea with milk.

The result of this is Indian students are led by their mentors to follow a predetermined path from a very early age, almost like horses with blinkers on. While students in the West are discovering where their “true interests” lie and are experimenting with different subjects; Indian students are steaming ahead in calculus and biology on a course chartered out long ago by their parents or teachers.

Finally, it is imperative to appreciate the role India’s poverty and population play in stoking a culture of learning in the country. The U.S. National Center on Education and Economy reported in 2006 that only 10% of India’s potential college students actually attend college for reasons such as poverty and high opportunity costs. It’s better to earn money farming than attend college for four years, some would say. This figure may have increased slightly since then but the point remains: There is too little to go around for everyone.

The Economist Intelligence Unit in 2002 placed IIM Ahmadabad, a premier business school, as the toughest school to get into with 70,000 students fighting for 200 seats.

In a system where India’s limited colleges have the luxury of selecting only the cream of the crop from thousands of applicants by setting up incredibly stringent selection procedures—especially in math and science—students have to train hard to succeed.

To the likes of President Barack Obama, who insists that America’s economic and political longevity are inextricably linked to the performance of America’s schools, India’s culture of learning offers some valuable lessons.

By pushing students to utilize free time more productively, by fostering a culture of mentorship and collective decision-making and by setting up stringent guidelines for college admissions, the West can emulate India’s success.

What is a good school?

Printed in the Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2010
Link: http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010/06/23/india-journal-what-is-a-good-school/
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What is a good school?

What is the definition of a good school?

For more than a year since coming to India to manage a high school, I have been trying to find an answer to this question.

On trips around the country, I asked principals, teachers and parents what they thought to be the defining characteristics of a good school. Some pointed to glimmering swimming pools and shiny computer screens. Some others relied on quantitative measures like the number of students or year-end results. Some even used heuristics like the size of the school plot, its brand name and the number of prominent families enrolling their kids.

In the myriad answers that were presented to me—one principal even boasted that he could identify a good school by how it smells—I failed to see a set of standard and measurable metrics that could be applied to compare one school in India against another. For parents looking to choose between a handful of schools, this lack of information can be an irritating inconvenience. For school leaders and policy makers, however, it presents a far larger problem.

As India races to implement education reforms, school leaders like me need vital information on where they stand with relation to other schools and, indeed, with schools around the world; what measures they can take to improve performance and upgrade infrastructure; and what metrics they can use to ensure they are on the right track. Some examples of such metrics include performance in standardized tests, parent feedback interviews and curriculum evaluations.

Consider the newly implemented Right to Education Act, where private schools are mandated to provide a reservation quota for low-income students. How will the government ensure whether the program is working or not? How will schools be benchmarked for their performance vis-à-vis other schools? How can we make sure the program is having its desired affect of providing a high quality education instead of merely working as a coupon system for poor students?

In the corporate world, the answers to such questions are provided by third-party auditors and management consultants, who provide independent and unbiased opinions on the soundness of a company’s financial records and ensure that performance is up-to-the-mark. By showing companies a mirror, these third-party inspectors and advisors set up benchmarking standards and allow for easy comparison between one corporation and another.

The idea of auditing schools is one actively followed in countries like the U.K. and the United Arab Emirates, where the local governments hire third-party professionals to evaluate schools on measures ranging from academics to sports. Not only does this provide policymakers accurate and timely information, it also presents school leaders with a roadmap for how to plan the progress of their school. Unlike in India, where some schools are chasing glamorous infrastructure and some are pressing for higher examination scores, such a roadmap encourages schools of all types to conform to a minimum standard of teaching and learning.

In the recently completed education audit in Abu Dhabi in the UAE, the government found that some local schools put considerable emphasis on rote learning. It devised a plan to upgrade the curriculum in these schools and train teachers more efficiently. In other schools with infrastructure-related issues, the government knew exactly which problem to tackle and how to go about doing so.

A similar approach would work wonders in India’s public and private schools. The use of third-party inspection agencies will provide government officials and school owners much needed metrics on how their performance relates to other comparable schools. It will also ensure that the task of inspecting a new and improving bunch of schools is not placed in the hands of old-thinking government officials but well-trained education experts. Finally, by placing unbiased private auditors between schools and government regulation agencies, this system will ensure a degree of professionalism and expedience.

By pressing for a common set of performance metrics I don’t press for schools to converge on the quality of education they provide or on the types of facilities they provide to students. This is, after all, a decision that should best be left to school leaders to decide based on their target audience, budget, land space, etc. All that such metrics will do, however, is provide a floor for educational performance and act as a beacon for schools wanting to become better.

In education reform, parents are a problem

It seems that even educated parents seem to be a road-block to education reform in India. My article in The Wall Street Journal from a week ago.

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010/06/09/in-education-reform-parents-are-a-problem/tab/comments/
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“They will ruin our children!” an angry passenger seated next to me at Delhi airport muttered, shaking his head incredulously. His eyes seemed fixed on the headlines of a daily newspaper, which showed a few young students in school uniform holding hands and laughing cheerfully.

I remembered the article instantly, having read it before leaving for the airport. Delhi’s schools had just declared their CBSE results for Grade X students a few days before and the article examined the unusually low number of students who had failed or were given “compartment” results that allow for retesting.

The article attributed a large part of this success to CBSE’s newly introduced system of Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation, one which many educationists had seen as long overdue in our archaic system of education. Under CCE guidelines, students were—for the first time—awarded grades instead of numerical scores in their recently completed board exams.

“Can you believe this?” said the passenger, a middle-aged man with large spectacles whom I later learned was an IT manager. He was clearly anxious to share the source of his anger. “When we were students, giving board exams was a serious affair. It has become a joke now. What will happen to India without competition among students?”

The man’s frustration was one I had witnessed before—just a few days ago a hapless parent had called me complaining that his son, a consistent top-ranker, had received only a grade and not a numerical average which could be advertised as a mark of his intellectual prowess.

Despite this, I wondered about the critical role that parents play in the upkeep and reform of our system of education. As if bureaucracy, lack of funding, poor training and tight regulations were not enough to push for an urgent facelift in our schools, even educated parents seemed to be a road block to education reform.

On the one hand, I could pretend to empathize with the passenger. On the other hand, as someone who had lived through the excruciating years of board exams and tough competition, I knew this was not an option.

The idea of grades was one used in countries the world over with measurable benefits. Even the British, after whom we shadow our education system, replaced numerical marks with grades over 40 years ago. How could I ignore the mass suicides and murders that have wracked our society in the name of competition? And with growing reliance on team-work, multi-culturalism and extra-curricular talent, was it right to shoot down a system that promoted these concepts?

Even then, I realized the answer lay not in indignantly turning down the man. Many Indian parents today believe that ruthless competition will drive their sons and daughters towards success. As leaders in the business and education world, perhaps our ideas should focus as much on educating our parents as on educating our children? As educationists, we are at a cultural cross roads which we cannot hope to cross without the support and understanding of our parents.

“Be patient, sir,” I said to the man, looking at the laughing students. “Their time is not far away.”

The Privatization of Indian Education

Hey guys,

Since working in India for over a year now, I notice a large potential for bridging the vast gap prevalent between the resource-hungry education sector and the resource-rich for-profit sector. Recent changes in India's education industry have started a movement towards this direction. Is it beneficial for students, parents and teachers? How will schools around India be impacted by it? These topics and more are examined in my latest article in the Wall Street Journal: The Privatization of Indian Education (http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010/05/21/the-privatization-of-indian-education/).
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It is difficult to ignore the spicing up that India’s education sector is undergoing. Ubiquitous private coaching centers, front-page ads inviting franchise expansion of schools, and landmark reforms allowing foreign universities to enter India all underscore the changing face of a sector that could best be characterized as lackluster just a few years ago, especially for private entrepreneurs and profit-mongers.

With India’s burgeoning middle-class, mouth-watering demographics and fast-changing government regulation, however, this once boring sector has managed to captivate the attention of capitalists from all corners of the world. From small-town tuition centers to globally renowned universities, from shrewd corporate pundits to leisurely housewives, and from private-equity suits to social-enterprise tweeds, the race to have some sort of stake in the growth of India’s education industry has become almost fashionable.

This year, in particular, has seen a massive inflow of capital and interest into the education sector, with Reliance Equity Advisors’ recent announcement to snap up a 1 billion rupee stake in Pathways Global School, a K-12 education provider; Azim Premji’s decision to invest 2 billion rupees in Manipal Global Education, a education resource provider; and Matrix Advisors’ decision to buy 1 billion rupees into FIIT-JEE, a private coaching provider.

Kapil Sibal, India’s education minister, too, gave an emphatic slap-on-the-back to the sector by comparing its future potential to that of India’s now red-hot telecom sector a decade ago.

While there is no denying the potential upside for investors in India’s education sector, it is worth considering the effect that massive entry of private capital into a traditionally not-for-profit sector can have on the Indian education sector as a whole and especially on parents, students and teachers.

First and foremost, the entry of a greater number of privately managed institutions will automatically translate into greater competition in the education sector, as more organizations compete for a limited number of students. Consequently, schools and colleges will no longer be able to rely on students filling their classrooms term after term, something that is common in high population-density areas with few private schools.

Instead, schools will have to lower fees, improve teaching quality, hire better teachers and use efficient technology as ways of distinguishing themselves from competitors and remaining operational. This is similar to what transpired in India’s telecom sector a few years ago, when private firms slashed costs, improved customer service and emphasized innovation to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

This operational model, which challenges the “recession-proof” tag that educational organizations in India have perpetually had associated with them, will transfer greater power to student and parents, for if a school cannot offer its students a cheaper and better educational experience than the school next door, it is most likely going to shut down.

Even for employees such as teachers, a greater sense of competition among educational organizations could spell better payment terms, training facilities and employment benefits. This is because the quality of teachers and education administrators will determine the success or failure of a school. Like it is for for-profit corporations, talent will be a rare resource and one which educational organizations are willing to invest in more intently.

Another benefit of the growing influence of private investments in the education sector is likely to be the bridging of the large gap dividing the resourceful private sector from the resource hungry education sector. As it stands today, education-focused organizations are largely cut-off from the talent, the innovation and the leadership that characterize for-profit companies in India.

Also, the potential for not just better principals or counselors but also for better education entrepreneurs—managers with an expertise in financial analysis and budgeting, strategy planning, human resources management and technology—is tremendous in India’s economy.

This vacuum in education management promises to be filled by private entrepreneurs who can utilize their business training and their vision for education reform more effectively. Corporate best practices like performance-based pay for teachers or inventory management of fixed assets like furniture or computers, which are everyday practices in educational organizations around the world, would also be better planned and implemented under guidance from the for-profit world.

There is only so much funding in India’s capital-starved economy that the government can provide to education ventures like schools and colleges. Eventually, like has been the case for power, infrastructure or telecommunications, financial support from the private sector will be crucial in leading the growth and progress of educational organizations in the country.

For this reason, the influx of greater capital into the sector should translate into its more comprehensive development and help convert the ‘education for all’ motto into reality. For instance, if public finances can target the development of rural education models and private funds can help growth in more urban areas, a greater number of educational institutes can become available for students.

The idea of private-sector investments in the education sector has its share of critics too and, often, for good reason. It can be argued that the private sector has little knowledge on the intricacies of the education sector as most private investors are neither trained in education management or non-profit work. Can such investors really improve the quality of education in India?

There is also the issue of the over-commercialization of education where profit-mongers ignore quality improvement and work on amassing more money. Finally, how easy is it for regulators to keep private institutes in check, ensure quality control and enforce policies?

Despite these drawbacks, the ability of students and parents to make independent decisions, discern education quality and aim for best quality per rupee spent should endear privately sourced investments to India. Also, there is no question that better training for teachers and education managers will have to take center-stage in efforts to improve quality and ensure policy enforcement.

In the end, the fact remains that for all the changes that private capital promises to bring into the education industry, perhaps the most challenging will be altering the age-old mindset of everyday citizens for whom education is simply a non-profit service, not a money-making business.

Sticks and carrots for teachers

Another article from the Wall Street Journal, arguing for performance-based pay in India's schools. As always, will be eager to hear your thoughts and comments, either on this blog or on the WSJ webpage (http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010/04/07/sticks-and-carrots-for-teachers/)

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It was no secret, in the high school I attended not too long ago, that our Physics teacher was not very good at what he did. Students tended to miraculously get stomach aches and ailments that saved them from being in his class and even the mightiest were left in shambles after he went through the concept of gravity.

Despite our inability to understand him, however, we did not dare to provide the school authorities with any feedback on his lackluster performance. The consequences for whistle-blowers, if identified by the teacher, were known to be low grades or, even worse, extra classes in Physics. When the year-end exams rolled around, students like me pulled all-nighters cramming their text-books, paid for private tuition or sought the help of seniors who had also faced a similar dilemma. By hook and by crook, the Physics exam was thus cleared, students breathed a sigh of relief, parents smiled and shook hands with teachers and, in an instant, the suffering of one batch of students was bestowed to another.

My friends and I often wondered how it would be possible for teaching to be more student-centric and less focused on year-end results, how schools could foster a culture of innovation instead of mundane rote-learning, how smarter teachers could be brought into classrooms and how educators could be made more accountable for what they taught to students.

Today, after having spent a few years working in the financial services sector and with the memory of my Physics teacher fresh in my mind, I look to the age-old business concept of performance-based compensation and employee feedback in solving many of these challenges. I believe that this principle, which forms the bedrock of corporate governance around the world, can instill our system of education with a new sense of life and purpose.

As an employee at a large investment bank in the U.S., I drew a portion of my compensation through a fixed salary and another significant portion through a performance-based bonus. At the end of every three months, my manager would discuss my performance at the firm over a cup of coffee and highlight the things I was doing right and the things I needed to do better.

Similarly, I would point out what I had learned at the firm, what challenges I had faced and what I would concentrate on over the next three months. This casual but mandatory exercise was played out across the firm, from the most senior executives to the newly hired office assistant. Employees were asked to write feedback on each other, to discuss ideas in groups and to think of doing old things in a new way. As you may have guessed, how well employees fared in each of these areas decided what their performance-based bonus would be at the firm.

As soon as I joined the firm, I noticed a way of doing things that I knew instantly would have worked wonders at the high school I attended. Because employees were judged by their peers and seniors on concrete results instead of on mere ideas, there was a sense of energy and enthusiasm among people to make their work very specific to individual needs. Instead of a sense of competitiveness, a culture of meritocracy ran through the firm and it was not age or rank but quality of work which decided pay. Finally, because higher salaries were on offer for high performers, the firm automatically attracted the best talent and kept out those offering mediocre work and demanding stable salaries.

Such a system of performance-based compensation and teacher feedback makes logical sense to implement in India for a few reasons.

For starters, there are few performance metrics in place today, both in government and private schools, to grade and evaluate school teachers. Most times, the measure of a teacher is by the final results of students, like it was for my Physics teacher. How well a lesson is understood and appreciated by students, how the teacher manages to introduce a spirit of innovation into an otherwise complex topic and how the teacher responds to student-specific concerns are questions that are seldom asked, let alone answered. Thus, instead of someone who fine-tunes his teaching style to better mold his students, a teacher often resembles a worker in an assembly line who jams new data into students’ minds and bids them farewell.

A well-implemented feedback and compensation system, where teachers are critically evaluated by parents, peers and school leaders, would help in making teaching more student-centric and less mechanical. This will benefit not just students, who will suddenly find their classes more interesting and relevant, but also teachers, who will be able to communicate and interact with students more effectively.

Next, our schools desperately long for a culture of meritocracy, where it is not the age of a teacher or the years of employment with a school which determine seniority or pay; but rather, factors like quality of teaching, attendance record, leadership skills and adaptability. A setting where high-performers are paid higher salaries not only sets the tone for teachers to over-perform everyday but also emphasizes a school’s commitment towards rewarding such performance. Like it was at my old job, such a setting also attracts talented and motivated employees, who promise better work for better pay.

In an age where consumers can provide instantaneous feedback on the taste of their toothpaste or the service staff of their local bank, it seems odd that a factor as crucial as the quality of education is left in the vacuum. By mandating performance reviews and teacher feedback, a system of performance-based compensation opens a principal’s doors to hapless students or parents and allows any shortcomings to be addressed promptly and effectively. Providing feedback on teachers or on classes is then not seen as a crime, as it was for my Physics teacher, but encouraged as the right of every student, parent and teacher.

Finally, a well-implemented system of sticks and carrots sets up measures of accountability and transparency in educational institutes, something that is largely lacking at present. When school leaders are obliged to pay bonuses to teachers, there is a natural tendency for them to set up performance appraisals, document teacher track records and deeply scrutinize learning methods. For instance, a school director who is deciding on what bonus to pay his math teacher would like to analyze the teacher’s past performance and look out for any improvements or deterioration in quality of work. This, in turn, would help the director get a keener sense for how the school is doing at the most intricate levels and how students’ learning experiences can further be enhanced.

From my personal experiences so far, I have seen many schools deploy a performance-based compensation system for their top leadership (principals, administrators, managers) but conveniently leave teachers and support staff out of the party. While this half-hearted measure may boost macro-level statistics like number of admissions, year-end results or general discipline, it can never have the same effect that all-staff bonuses can on boosting teaching quality, instilling a culture of meritocracy, opening communication channels with parents and enhancing accountability standards.

Eventually, schools must recognize that even those teaching should be open to learning. Either by stick or by carrot.

Launch of 'Arunoday', a need-based scholarship program

I am delighted to write to you on the official launch of 'Arunoday' (Sanskrit: the rising sun; the light of life) at Hope Hall Foundation School in New Delhi, where I presently serve as Director.

When I first moved out of India to study in the United States, I noticed an empathic culture of meritocracy and equality in the university I attended and in the schools I taught at as a volunteer. Unlike in India, where money and influence often won students seats in reputed private colleges, there was an abundance of poor but bright, and non-influential but talented, students in schools and universities around me.

In my university, this extraordinary feat was largely possible through merit and need based scholarships, which empowered even the destitute and the downtrodden through a world-class education. If you had a hunger to learn and if you had a demonstrated record for high-performance--I was delighted to notice--you could obtain an education.

This opportunity to empowerment and education is one that 'Arunoday' provides poor but intelligent students in New Delhi, India.

As it stands today—and as you may be aware—children from low-income backgrounds in India either attend poorly-funded but affordable public schools or NGO’s divorced from the mainstream system of education or no school at all. While there are several challenges this poses before an otherwise developing society and country, probably the most severe and heartening of these is the inability for bright, talented but poor students to further their potential and realize their dreams.

Arunoday will provide such children a 100% merit-based scholarship to attend Hope Hall Foundation School, an English medium, co-educational institute affiliated with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). The scholarship will also sponsor a student's books and uniform fee. In its first year, the scholarship will reach out to about 5-7 students entering Grades 9 or 11 and will commence from April 1, 2010.

We are actively reaching out to low-income families and schools to source students for the program and we are also approaching private donors to sponsor this program. If you know of any students this program can be useful for or if you are keen to invest in and be part of this program, please do reach out to me by commenting on this article.

Look forward to sharing more exciting updates with you on the program soon!

We need to create a class of respectful Indians

Happy to share another article printed in the Wall Street Journal (http://tinyurl.com/ylax94m) with you guys! Looking forward to reading your thoughts.
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"Indians can never be good terrorists," argued Canadian comedian Russell Peters at one of his shows in New York City. "They don't hate Americans...they just hate each other!" For Indians like me sitting in the audience, Peters's observation struck an immediate chord. They broke out into hesitant chuckles, apprehensive whether it was just one or two of them who shared the somewhat controversial sentiment. Then, on realizing that everyone in the auditorium was chuckling, came the loud laughter.

It is a known fact among Indians and a common observation by visitors to the country that we Indians lack the manners which form the intricate fibers of any civilized society. Far from using words such as "thank you," "sorry" or "excuse me," there is a complete lack of respect for others' space or property. Road manners are non-existent, people are dirty in public places and there is a complete disregard for ethical, if not legally-enforceable, courtesies such as forming queues or tipping good servers. So much so that there are now counseling services in civic behavior and social manners recommended for Indian students and others migrating to countries like Australia or the U.K.

As India gears up to play host during the upcoming Indian Premier League, the much-awaited Commonwealth Games and the eagerly anticipated Cricket World Cup, and as the country positions itself as a leader in the world of business, tourism and education, it is high time we Indians pulled up our socks and offered our compatriots and visitors the respect we ourselves crave.

That Indians disrespect civic courtesies might strike the uninitiated as an exaggeration or even a stretch of the imagination. Yet, there are a few reasons that explain this problem well.

The first of these can be traced back to India's feudal history and its infamous caste system, where social hierarchy was given precedence over social equanimity. Isn't it a wonder, even today then, that a deep-pocketed customer talks down to a restaurant waiter who is perceived to be of a lower class? Or that the driver of an expensive car authoritatively claims it is the fault of the motorcyclist in an accident?

The concept of a singular and unified country is also very contemporary in India's biography. It was not until 1912, when Mahatma Gandhi joined the Indian freedom struggle against the British and introduced the idea of swaraj or self-rule that India awoke to the idea of oneness. Till then, the country was a jigsaw puzzle of thousands of tehsils, kingdoms and independent territories. Having such diverse sets of people crammed into a single country—it is any wonder—led to, and is still leading to, a missing sense of civility and harmonious living.

Finally, in a country with stark poverty and with the world's second largest population, there has always been a cultural push towards single-minded competitiveness, be it in schools, offices or homes. The development of softer skills and emotional intelligence has thus been sidelined in favor of building more tangible and marketable skills. After all, why develop a refined sense of table manners when it is really the ability to crunch accounting figures that will earn the high paycheck?

Though anecdotes of disrespect and shabby treatment may form the brunt of jokes over a few glasses of beer, we need to smell the coffee and realize that the problem is far more severe.

For starters, disrespectful behavior causes irritation and leads to anger, even in the otherwise respectful. This, in turn, leads to more disrespectful behavior, creating a vicious cycle. Since starting to drive in India after spending many years abroad, I am surprised to find myself instinctively punching the horn back at ruffian drivers or cutting traffic lines on seeing others do the same time and again.

Second, a lack of respect by us is bound to lead to a lack of respect toward us by others. On an flight from Dubai to New York a few months back, I winced at seeing a large group of Indians airily demand a round of drinks from the flight attendant by snapping their fingers and later, sulk and complain as they were rightly ignored by the serving staff onboard.

Last, and most important, a lack of respect for civic manners is a large burden on public resources. We don't follow simple traffic laws, leading the police to chase after us rather than to catch real criminals. We break queues time and again, leading to the hiring of special personnel to monitor queues in movie halls and airports instead of building factories and schools. And we litter in public places like parks and museums, leading government to spend money on cleaning waste instead of restoring our national monuments or building more gardens.

It is no secret that with India's large population and developing economy, there are bound to be pulls and pushes as several compete for limited resources. Yet, with a burgeoning middle class, a greater emphasis on building soft skills in schools and colleges, and a harder drive by government bodies to educate citizens, India can claim to be not just a rising economy, but also a virtuous society.

In the end, the onus for building a new class of manners-conscious and respectful Indians falls on many of us, who are culturally-savvy, educated and in a position to carve out change in our offices, schools and communities. We have a rich and well-regarded history; a bustling and energetic population; and a compassionate and societal nature. An act of kindness towards a stranger, a greater degree of control on personal behavior and better awareness of disrespectfulness is really all that India needs to make a stronger mark in the global community. We Indians are not bad people. We just need to work on being nicer.

How to create magic in India's schools

Hey guys,

I am very excited that this particular article has been published today in the Wall Street Journal (http://www.smalllinks.com/IMF). This is one of many such articles I hope to write for the newspaper on education and entrepreneurship in India.

Do check it out on the WSJ website and leave me some comments either on this blog or on the WSJ website itself!!

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As published:

As a 16-year old student in Chandigarh, India, I spent most of my time outside school attending private coaching classes in Math, Chemistry or Physics. Most of my classmates, too, lived a similar life, donning their school bags at 5:00 a.m. and taking them off at 9:00 p.m. Private tuition centers thrived in the city and it was a common joke between students that schools were meant for hanging out with friends and coaching classes were meant for studying and learning.

Though a slight exaggeration, this couldn't be closer to the truth. The most common complaint among students like me was that teachers were not attentive to students' specific needs and were more interested in simply completing their daily agendas and signing their attendance registers.

Many times, students were absent for days in a row as they saw little reason for attending school. Classes tended to be boring monologues devoid of energy and at many times the result for incorrect answers to unclear questions was some sort of punishment. When our motivators, our teachers, were indifferent, how could they motivate us to learn?

When this traditional system of learning in schools could not satiate students, they instinctively turned towards private tutors to help them out. This was especially true for students from low and middle income backgrounds who attended low-tier public schools already notorious for poor teaching standards.

In an age where India promised to become a power-house of business, thoughts and ideas, I often wondered how such a feat would be possible with the country's schools churning out bored and frustrated students instead of creative and entrepreneurial thinkers.

Today, as I manage a high-school in India after living overseas for many years, I am heartened by the introduction of hefty government reforms, innovative teaching technologies and practical student curricula in our private and public schools. The one thing I have observed to be a constant, however, is the prevalence of the teaching styles and attitudes that made my high-school journey as enjoyable as a root-canal treatment.

Although India may have surged ahead of several leading economies over the past few years, it now needs to create the magic that will position it as an inventor, creator and leader, and go the extra mile. A magic that will not simply manage businesses, but revolutionize them; that will not simply sell products, but create them; and that will not simply follow norms, but pioneer them. India's schools and teaching styles form an important ingredient in the creation of this magic.

As a student at New York University, I remember the ease with which classes flowed between students and teachers. Instead of maintaining a rigid demeanor or an arms-length relationship with students, my teachers were friendly and approachable people who saw the world through my eyes and who made every effort to quell the doubts of students.

In my economics class, for instance, my teacher used an example of beer factories and pubs to explain an otherwise dry concept (no pun intended) of supply and demand to a class of young adults. All students were encouraged to ask questions and to make themselves heard. "No question is stupid," I was told time and again. The ability to learn outside the textbook by asking questions, talking to classmates and visualizing vivid examples came as a wonderful and welcome surprise to me.

On my first volunteer trip to an inner-city school in the Bronx, New York, I noticed how classrooms were engaged in activities like group work or quizzes. In one class, I was surprised to see students teaching physics to the rest of the class. Coming from a background where such activities were considered sheer sacrilege, I naturally assumed that the school was either celebrating a holiday or was falling short of teachers.

On asking the director of the school, I was surprised that this was how classes were conducted in the school on a daily basis. She felt that students learned best when they were mentally and emotionally engaged. I noticed none of the exasperated looks on the faces of teachers and students that I was used to. Like visitors to a movie-hall, everyone seemed to be excited and interested in what was going to happen next.

Such a reformation in teaching and learning is overdue in India. We need more students in schools, questioning thoughts and ideas, instead of wallowing in private coaching centers. Students should learn something new and develop their critical thinking skills everyday, and not simply when they write their final exams. Teachers should stimulate minds, not bore them. And schools should be seen as fun, not as torture. Only then can we hope to generate a progressive and dynamic set of educated and informed citizens, leaders and inventors.

As I discuss these points with teachers in my own school and in leading schools I visit around the country, I am offered several arguments against a more student-centric and reformed learning system.

The most common of these is that a more fun-filled and interactive learning experience causes a school's discipline standards to tank. This assumption is founded on the belief that strictness and rigidness help keep students in line.

Why was this same strictness causing me to sleep in classes or attend tuition sessions in Chandigarh, then? Through my experience abroad, I noticed how students in university or school were always excited to be in class. Unlike in India, bunking school or university was not considered heroic or cool but was looked down on by classmates. I believe that a teacher who stimulates a student's mind has already won the student's respect in a manner no cane or punishment could have.

I am also told that by removing the arms-length relationship between teachers and students, a teacher's sense of objective judgment is impaired as she interacts with her students and forms personal connections with them. I often wish this were the case for I have received several low grades from my U.S. professors despite interacting with them inside and outside class. For well-trained and grounded teachers, teaching students well and judging their performance can be compartmentalized as separate and non-related activities.

Finally, I am informed matter-of-factly by many school-owners that while implementing such a system would work in the best interest of students, it would come at a considerable cost to the school. This would include the cost of hiring better-trained teachers, of implementing activities for students and of constantly bringing new teaching methods into the classroom.

Instead of seeing such systems as a cost, however, I believe school leaders should see them as an investment; for apart from promoting better teaching standards, they will also reduce student agitations, improve a school's brand name and promote a culture of meritocracy. This in turn will improve the school's social standing, attract high-quality job applicants and boost long-term profitability. More than anything else, it will help schools to live up to their vision of educating instead of merely teaching.

As is stands today, many schools actively advertise the length of their swimming pools or the size of their cricket fields. There is a large emphasis on using computers for learning physics and language labs for learning French. Yet, without a corresponding upgrade in the style of teaching and interacting with students, such fancy systems are as useful as an airplane without a pilot.

Our teachers are not unintelligent or lacking motivation--many teachers who bored students in schools were the same ones who taught them in private coaching centers. Our curriculum is not antiquated or inferior--the U.S. has publicly admitted its intention of following Indian standards of math and science in schools. And our students are not lazy or detached--the enthusiasm and energy I see in students today surpasses those of previous generations. With a better sense of teaching and learning present in our schools, our teachers, curriculum and students can create magic.

-Mayank Maheshwari is a former investment banker and an aspiring social entrepreneur. He currently serves as director at the Hope Hall Foundation School, a private school catering to middle-income families, and is based in New Delhi.

A new band of leaders

One of the constant challenges I face in my present job as Director of a high school in New Delhi is the severe shortage of talented and motivated teachers in the school. Despite holding several rounds of interviews and offering high salaries, I come face to face only with those individuals who have barely passed their high school exams, who have floundered through university tests and who have little or no previous record of social work, but who are now suddenly keen to teach children in my classrooms.

At one such interview, I turned towards our education advisor, a retired Director of Education with the Indian government.

"Why are we only receiving applications from such mediocre applicants?" I asked him, thoroughly bewildered and somewhat concerned that we may be doing something grossly incorrect.

"Why!" he laughed, "why would anyone who is more than mediocre want to be a teacher in the first place?"

Despite their intended humor, his words struck me sharply. Not only did they answer my immediate question regarding the quality of teaching staff in majority of schools and universities in India, they offered a wider explanation to what might be grossly wrong with India's system of educating its future leaders.


I remember my days as a college student in New York University, where many of my class-mates and friends had taken up part-time jobs or borrowed large sums of money to pay their way through college. What surprised me was that several such students were not pursuing degrees in business, engineering or medicine--commonly regarded as the only three disciplines worth studying for in India--but were following their passions in disciplines like social work, education or literature. The idea that someone could work so hard and sacrifice so much to study something which they truly enjoyed rather than something which offered them a cozy pay-package boggled me. It was something I had never encountered back home in India.

As I started to volunteer in local schools and NGO's in the Manhattan area, I noticed the talented and motivated individuals running such schools and organizations. Many held advanced degrees in education from prestigious universities like Harvard, Columbia and Stanford. Many had left their corporate perches to dedicate time to teaching under-privileged children. And many had ambitious ideas for how they could further the cause of rural minorities and inner-city communities in the city's schools. I was amazed at the positive energy and enthusiasm that circulated in such schools. Why were such people not running schools back home? Why had I never encountered such people as a school student?

Even outside educational institutes, I observed how passionate my friends were for working with the government or for leading community service projects. One of my friends wanted to use her deep understanding of Latin American cultures to work with the Ministry of External Affairs; another wanted to study developmental economics and trade by working with a fair-trade organization in India. This interest in public-service positions by highly intelligent students was alien to my mind, where only those professions earning boat-loads of money were considered respectable. I knew that India did not have a shortage of smart and motivated people. It was somehow unable to channel these people into public serving jobs. I wondered what the reason might be.

Having observed leading schools in India, I have found very few promoting a spirit of public-service and social-work. Yes, many schools carry lofty mottos like "Service before self" or "Leading Society", but how exactly do they fulfill such promises? There is barely any focus on social work. Students are not exposed to social organizations or creative careers. Instead, students and teachers seem to be stuck in a rat-race to send as many students to IIT's as possible. In my own school, the sheer pressure to succeed in academics and score high grades dilutes any interests students might have in volunteering or learning outside the traditional curriculum. Is it a wonder that the meat of our talent ends up in call centers or multi-nationals instead of in schools or NGO's?

Even in schools promoting a social message and encouraging students to pursue their interests in the humanities or education, there is a strong social stigma against taking up non-business or non-engineering courses. A few days back we had parents of prospective students in my school inquiring how many students we had placed in medical and engineering colleges. This was a number they would keenly scrutinize across schools in the area--obviously, the school with the highest number of admissions received the admiring interest and the much-needed funding of the parents, leaving little room for the school to foster interests in the humanities, social work or education.

There is also a strong stigma against students learning politics or literature, most of whom are regarded as nincompoops. There is an interesting rule of thumb in schools in India: A-scoring students must choose science subjects, B-scoring students go in for business studies and students scoring below B choose the Arts since it is perceived to be the easiest to score high grades in. There is strong pressure on students from teachers as well as parents to choose career paths based not on interest or talent but rather on how smart a kid is. For a sharp kid to go in for a major in history is considered sheer sacrilege.

While the past decade has propelled India as a major economic powerhouse, I see little change in the country's collective attitude towards educating its public-leaders. This worries me: for while frothy stock-markets and over-crowded call-centers may have served India well over the past few years, only well-educated, motivated and enigmatic leaders can pilot the country towards sustainable development in the coming years. The problem, as exemplified in my teacher interviews, is the acute shortage of such leaders immediately and the lack of educational and societal measures to provide such leaders in the near future.

I've been wondering since a long time how a deeply ingrained educational system can quickly be turned around to encourage public service. Though government laws are now being drafted to reduce rote-learning and emphasize more creative thinking in school curricula, it could be years before such laws trickle down to the bedrock of everyday student-teacher interactions.

Instead, I feel the answer lies with efforts at the micro-level. We need schools that can provide excellent resources to painters, musicians and sports-persons, even at a loss to their bottom-lines. We need young entrepreneurs to setup NGO's promoting education as a career. We need quality college-level programs in government and social work, even if the short-term costs of maintaining such programs exceed their immediate monetary benefits. More than anything else, we need to ask ourselves who we would like to govern our country and who we would like to teach our kids in school.

I remember my days in the financial services sector where my colleagues and I would skim through countless resumes of highly talented and intelligent job applicants and end up shortlisting one candidate. With hefty reforms in the Indian education sector underway and with individual efforts cropping up from time to time, the day when such a system of choosing teachers and Principals becomes norm rather than exception are not far away. It is up to people like you and me to usher in tomorrow's new band of leaders.

Mahatma Gandhi: India's empty vessel

Sixty one years after his death, the name of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi still lives on in India. If not in grotesque political campaigns by corrupt leaders, then in Mont Blanc's ostentatious advertising posters. If not in India's currency mints, then in Bollywood movies gaudily celebrating ascetism. And if not in hunger strikes by power hungry politicians, then in temples robbing from the rich and the poor alike.

In one way or another, for right or for wrong, via moral or immoral, the idea of Gandhi-ism still evokes the same sense of respectful consideration in the eyes of Indians. Yet, how many truly understand the basic tenets of Gandhism and what Mahatma Gandhi stood for? How many appreciate his calls against materialism or economic avarice? How many follow his methods of peaceful resistance and self-suffering, and for how long? The sad truth is that while Indians may erect statues of Gandhi at the drop of a hat or recollect his ideals for selfish reasons, they treat the father of the nation as they would an empty vessel--adding and removing from it whatever they see fit for themselves. In doing so, they effectively tarnish the image of India's most beloved national icon.

In this essay, I wanted to re-examine Gandhi's two most basic beliefs. How have Gandhi's ideas been transformed and can the concept of Gandhism survive in today's generation?

On arriving in India from South Africa, Gandhi took his place at the helm of the nationalist movement. Where his compatriots were pushing for the British to vacate India, Gandhi was striving towards a different goal—developing moral thinking. For him, the answer to India’s salvation lay not in the establishment of an independent political system (for that would be akin to “English rule without the English”) which he saw as a secondary goal, but in repairing a social system which encouraged ruthless competition and materialism. Gandhi can best be thought of as an architect who wanted to fill the gaps in a structure’s foundation, not with cement and mortar but with morality and self-respect, before raising its height. Though the name of Gandhi lives on in India, the process to fill gaps and inject morality can barely be found in the abject ostracism and corruption that plagues the country today.

Next, Gandhi believed that the most important goal of nationalists was to carve a distinct identity for the colonized people. To bridge the widening gap between politics and ethics, he suggested a system of “enlightened anarchy” where governance would not occur at the state or central level, but at the grass-root village level. He shunned the idea of a representative democracy, a political system he believed condoned morality, promoted materialism, and lead to an elitist culture which usurped the voice of the larger population (ref: Hind Swaraj written by Gandhi). He believed that if every individual was given the opportunity to rule himself and be self-reliant, there would be no need to force the British out as they would depart by themselves. It was this utopian character of his message that appealed to the Indian masses. Yet, today, Gandhi's name is synonymous with democracy and politics?

Looking ahead, I see the future of Gandhism looking bleak. Or at least, Gandhism as Gandhi would have liked it and not as he would have wanted others to interpret it. Perhaps Gandhi set a bar too high for others to leap over or perhaps his ideas are too impractical to embrace two generations after his death. Whatever the case may be, I believe it is time Indians start taking ownership of their own rules and ideals instead of mutilating those of Gandhi and passing them as their own. Surely, the father of the nation is owed more than that.