Ignorance that isn’t bliss

Without awareness of our ignorance, we are condemned to stay ignorant, no matter how much information we collect. The Internet enables this more than anything else in the past

We have been brought up with the hubristic and misleading belief that knowledge makes us truly human. It doesn’t, on its own. What makes us truly human is our knowledge of our ignorance. We seem to be on the verge of forgetting this in our Internet age, with its misleading surfeit of ‘knowledge’ — as the brasher ‘new atheists’, opinionated trolls, Hindutva radicals, Islamist ideologues, Trump die-hards, climate change deniers, and many others prove.

All complex beings have knowledge of different sorts. Birds can navigate their way thousands of miles in the sky and many species of fish can do so in the ocean. Squirrels know when to hoard and where to dig. Many birds and animals know when to seek each other and when to run: the small bird doing its dentistry in the lion’s or the crocodile’s jaws, the large fish being cleansed of parasites by a sea bird.

These are all kinds of knowledge, and some are beyond the capacity of human beings. We explain away our species deficiency by talking of instincts and so on, but the fact remains that we are still talking of ways of knowing.

Knowledge of ignorance 

One can argue that at least all complex organisms think in some way or the other. Birds do, animals do. Some animals, apes for instance, may think more like us than some other animals. Eduardo Kohn even argues in his book How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human that forests “think”. Perhaps plants too. But birds and animals definitely have knowledge of things — where to nest, how to build, where to dig, how to stash for the winter, when to run, when to bluff, and so on.

No, it is not knowledge that distinguishes human beings from other complex organisms. What we have and what they do not seem to have is knowledge of ignorance. Human beings do not just know what they know; they also have a fairly good idea of what they do not know. Non-human beings too know what they know, but there is nothing to indicate that they are aware of what they do not know.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are? Thus runs the nursery rhyme. What it conveys is not just wonder, which all complex beings have, but also knowledge-ignorance. A dog looking up at something twinkling would wonder too, as wondering grows from simple curiosity. But only the child can wonder about that twinkling as what is known to be a star and as stars we remain vastly ignorant of.

It can be argued that the truly educated are distinguished not by the extent of their knowledge, but by a greater and more nuanced awareness of their areas of ignorance. Actually, the two go hand in hand: true knowledge comes only with awareness of one’s ignorance, which is something that neither Internet trolls nor religious fundamentalists have fully understood. It is knowledge of ignorance that makes us truly human, and it is this that I am afraid we are forgetting with the rise of the so-called information society.

Now, information is not the same as knowledge, but there can be no knowledge without information. As such, there is an unspoken myth that individually and collectively we have more knowledge of things and ourselves now than ever in the past. After all, we have the Internet, cyber-linked libraries, 24-hour TV, whatnot.

Interestingly, what unites all Internet trolls — whether they are Hindutva fanatics screaming about how every scientific discovery has taken place in ‘Vedic’ India, Islamists claiming that their version of Islam is the most perfect system ever, Trump supporters insinuating about conspiracies and rigging — is the fact that they surf only for information that confirms their ‘knowledge’ and does not challenge their ‘ignorance’. The availability of information is not sufficient. It is outright misleading when we are convinced of our own knowledge, and not willing to challenge it.

Without awareness of our ignorance, we are condemned to stay ignorant — no matter how much information we collect. The Internet enables this more than anything else in the past, as it enables a solitary, selective, isolated, hidden, unabashed-of-ignorance search for ‘information’, and its instantaneous, too-fast dissemination.

Books and the Internet

You might claim that so did books to some extent: after all, one could read books in isolation, shut up in a room. This is true, but only if one confined oneself to a narrow book and its strict acolytes: something that fundamentalists — religious or political — have done and still do. The Nazi reading only Mein Kampf and Nazi commentaries is no different from the religious fanatic reading only one sacred text and its ‘true’ commentaries. In this sense, we are not faced with an entirely new danger.

But there is a difference. The moment one starts reading books in general, one is forced to encounter opinions and information that do not necessarily fit one’s world view. It seems easier to avoid such encounters on the Internet. Moreover, in a world of books, knowledge was by definition beyond any set of covers, any fixed reading. Knowledge in that sense was always partly elusive. This seems to have disappeared with the rise of cyber culture because the myth has arisen that all knowledge is now at our fingertips. All we need is the right search machine.

This is reflected not only in our tendency to Google medical treatments but also in the inanity of many cyber reviews, where reputed classics and complex books are dismissed with a line like “I found it boring”. It is reflected, above all, in the screams of Internet trolls, all of them seeking and disseminating only ‘information’ that suits them.

Can there be any knowledge without a humble awareness of ignorance?

Tabish Khair is an Indian novelist and academic who teaches in Denmark.

Keywords: Books, knowledge, education, ignorance, internet, internet trolls

Source: The Hindu, 31-10-2016

Still seriously hungry and poor

Economic growth alone is not enough to achieve key Sustainable Development Goals. It must translate into jobs for the poor and marginalised

India is the fastest growing large economy in the world today. Despite this, one in every five Indians is poor. Multilateral agencies as well as governments are playing an active role in understanding problems relating to poverty and hunger and finding solutions to them. But these challenges are pervasive and weeding them out will require clear evidence-based data-driven solutions.

Goal 1 and 2 of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) envision eradicating poverty and ending hunger by 2030. A brief look at the statistics tells us the extent of the problem. An astounding 767 million people in the world are poor while the those who do not have enough to eat are estimated to be close to 800 million.

Poverty is a multidimensional concept, which involves reduction in choices to pursue freedom. So is hunger. Two recent reports try to clear the haze on measurement and yield some pertinent insights on poverty and hunger. These are the the Global Hunger Index (GHI) of the International Food Policy Research Institute and the Pathways to Reducing Poverty and Sharing Prosperity in India (PRPSPI) of the World Bank.

Improvement but not enough 

The GHI tries to capture the hunger level across countries. The index is constructed using four component indicators: percentage of undernourished in the population, percentage of wasting in children under five years old, percentage of stunting in children under five years, and under-five mortality rates. The index has been calculated since 2006 and the oldest back calculations on the index go back to 1992. The overall methodology is similar to development of other composite indices like the Human Development Index. The overall scale of the index is from zero to 100 where 100 represents ‘absolute hunger’ and zero represents ‘zero hunger’. Countries and regions are also classified in terms of the level of hunger. Those falling in the <= 9.9 category are classified as having a ‘low’ level of hunger, those in the 10.0-19.9 category are ‘moderate’, those in the 20-34.9 bracket are ‘serious’, those between 35 and 49.9 are classified as ‘alarming’, and those <50 are ‘extremely alarming’.

There are some pertinent points in this year’s global hunger report. First, developing countries have a major stake in reducing hunger levels. Overall hunger has come down by 29 per cent since 2000 in these countries. Second, there are distinct regions, the ones with the highest GHI scores, which can help in fulfilling the SDGs. On the 2016 index, Africa south of the Sahara and South Asia have the highest GHI scores (30.1 and 29.0, respectively). Thus they are placed in the ‘alarming’ category on the GHI. Third, India is placed at a dismal 97th rank among the 118 countries considered for the index. The country has improved its score from 46.4 in 1992 to 28.5 at present, which is considerable, but its overall level continues to be ‘serious’ on the index.

Decline in poverty

Related to hunger is poverty, which has been one of the most critical issues in international economic development. PRPSPI, the World Bank Group report, looks at India’s development experience. Four main points emerge.

First, the report notes that poverty in India has declined considerably from 1994 to 2013. Over the commensurate time frame, those below India’s official poverty line have reduced from 45 per cent to 22 per cent. This means that 133 million people have been lifted out of poverty. Despite this the report notes that India’s growth has not been very inclusive. It is because roughly two-thirds of the countries’ inclusive growth performance is better than India’s in the 2005-2012 period.

Second, some population groups in India are substantially worse off than other groups. These include the Scheduled Tribes (STs), 43 per cent of whom were below the poverty line in 2012, and the Scheduled Castes, 29 per cent of whom were below the poverty line. Poverty also seems entrenched among the STs, with the pace of poverty reduction slower than that witnessed in other groups between 2005 and 2012.

Third, poverty seems to be present in certain geographical locations. The top States for poverty in absolute terms in India are Uttar Pradesh (60 million poor), Bihar (36 million) and Madhya Pradesh (24 million). The top seven States account for roughly 62 per cent of India’s poor. Also important is the rural-urban divide in poverty. Almost one in five Indians is poor and out of every five poor people, four live in rural areas. Also, the poverty rate is just 7 per cent in big cities with a population of more than 1 million.

Growth and redistribution

Finally poverty has a bearing on choices and the well-being of individuals in a society. The poor also own fewer assets and spend more on food, fuel, and light. This reduces the percentage they have for spending on critical things like education and health, and it makes them prone to a vicious poverty trap. Another important insight is that for poverty levels to go down, the States will have to grow faster. The States which have lagged behind on growth rates are also the ones where there are low GSDP (gross state domestic product) per capita and in turn higher levels of poverty. Thus both growth and redistribution are necessary for poverty alleviation.

Over the next decade and a half, the goal of citizens and policymakers in India should be improvement in Goals 1 and 2 of SDGs. Growth alone will not be enough but must get translated into jobs for the poor and marginalised for it to become truly inclusive. This will not be easy considering the pressure that automation and newer technologies are putting on jobs and employment. Newer skills will hold the key for translating growth into jobs over the coming decade.

Amit Kapoor is Chair, Institute for Competitiveness and Editor of Thinkers. Sankalp Sharma is senior researcher at the Institute for Competitiveness, India. The views expressed are personal.

Keywords: Poverty, poverty line, sustainable growth

Source: The Hindu, 31-10-2016

UGC asks universities to provide PhD programmes in AYUSH disciplines

Students will now be able to pursue PhD in traditional medicine courses after the University Grants Commission (UGC) asked all central universities to start a doctorate degree programmes under AYUSH disciplines.

On June 24, AYUSH ministry had written a letter to the UGC requesting it to issue an advisory to educational institutions on the same. AYUSH has announced PhD programmes in AYUSH disciplines from the concerned research council.

The research councils in the field of Ayurvedic Sciences, Homoeopathy, Yoga and Naturopathy among others also conduct clinical and basic research studies and they want to extend research opportunities through PhD fellowship programme for the development of AYUSH.

UGC has asked all central universities to set up a system for enrolment of candidates in the PhD programme and providing them an opportunity to avail fellowship from the concerned research council. The councils will sponsor 200 candidates: 125 postgraduate of Ayush and 75 of science and technology streams for pursuing PhD on Ayush research topics.

Source: Hindustan Times, 28-10-2016

When ‘the Earth Laughs in Flowers’: A tribute to Monika Ghurde

Last year in Delhi, I hitched a ride with a friend to a poetry reading. He stopped en route to pick up another friend – a visitor from Goa, he said.

In the dark, I could barely see the petite woman who joined us. But as she entered, the car was suffused with a heady fragrance. While I am no perfume connoisseur, even I could tell this was exceptional. If I didn’t feel obliged to play nit-picking poet about my choice of adjective, I’d have termed it breathtaking. The word today is ironic.

“What perfume is that?” I remember asking.

“One that I made,” said a soft voice from the backseat. And I turned around to see a woman with an utterly radiant smile. That was my first encounter with Monika Ghurde. There are many reasons why I haven’t forgotten it.

It is not often that one meets someone who looks, quite simply, as lovely as their perfume. Monika did. She had the luminosity of a woman who has come into her own, whose laughter is not the easy giggle of youth, not the practiced smile of the social networker, but the hard-won, reclaimed mirth of a born-again, self-possessed adult.

It somehow seemed appropriate that I should meet her after inhaling her perfume. It felt like that first olfactory encounter gave me access – a password, as it were -- to the person she was.

Poetry is the most distilled verbal art I know. When you meet someone who has read your poetry with any degree of immersion, it feels like you both have a shortcut to a deeper, more authentic self. If the perfumer’s art is the ultimate in distillation, it is not surprising that I felt I had, in some way, accessed Monika’s happiest, truest version of herself.

In the next half hour, I sensed several things about her: refinement, warmth, curiosity, generosity, a disarming simplicity. Monika was not a woman on the make. That, for me, was the loveliest thing about her.

We spent the rest of the evening with each other. In a noisy bar, surrounded by people we didn’t really know, we talked about our histories with Mumbai, our love of Goa, her vocation as a perfumer, my poetry. The details are hazy. But by the end of the evening, Monika Ghurde was a friend.

As someone who believes friendship takes years of shared experience, I am surprised by my own use of the word. And yet, I’d use it again. She suggested meeting the next day. I couldn’t make it, but I knew that Monika and I would find ways to be in touch.

There comes a time when some people use their life experiences to subtract superfluous identities, and become who they fundamentally are. For me, that was the scent of Monika – the scent of naturalness. She didn’t talk of her achievements or her antecedents. She didn’t drop names. She simply seemed happy in her own skin. And so, I knew her without really knowing very much about her. The ‘about’ seemed irrelevant. I wanted to be in touch with Monika because of Monika.

In fact, the only antecedents we discussed were floral. I remember asking her about raat ki rani, my favourite fragrance. She told me it belonged either to the family of jasmine or the Persian tuberose – a detail I have never forgotten.

I met her again last December at a literary festival in Goa. We spent time on the lawns of the Goa International Centre, with fellow writer, Mahesh Rao. I have a photo she sent of that evening of the three of us, arms entwined. She is in the centre in a cream sari, laughing her warm infectious laugh.

‘Breathtaking’ was the first adjective I associated with her. If medical evidence were given the last word, that would also be the last. For her breath, we are told, was taken from her – brutally.

But facts are for newspapers. The truth about Monika Ghurde is different. And I hold fast to that truth: that the fragrance of crushed flowers lingers a long time after the horror and the prurient public gaze subsides, long after the last news reports are done and dusted. That is the strength of vulnerability. That is the strength of flowers.

What is the point of a perfume or a poem, really? None at all. Except that our lives are hugely impoverished without them. And precisely because there is no single point, they are not so easily erased.

There are no easy goodbyes, Monika. But the earth laughs in flowers, the poet Emerson told us. When we’re done with grieving, my radiant friend, we’ll join you in those places of enchanted distillation you knew how to delight in. We’ll join you in the laughter.

(This is one of several women-authored pieces published this weekend in tribute to Monika Ghurde.)

Source: Hindustan Times, 30-10-2016

It is our responsibility to fight the indifference and darkness around us

To explain what I am trying to say, let me share two heart-rending stories.

In the first, at the beginning of the week, a woman leaves her home in Gurgaon for her workplace. To board the Metro she enters the MG Road station from gate number two. She is surrounded by a sea of humanity. CCTV cameras keep an eye on every corner of the station and so do the soldiers of the Central Industrial Security Force. Suddenly a stalker attacks her with a knife.

In the presence of hundreds of people, the assailant stabs her 30 times. The woman cries out for help. She tries to escape and writhes in pain, but no one comes forward to help her. The attacker keeps stabbing her till she dies.

Hailing from a remote place in the North-East to make a living by doing odd jobs in Delhi, neither the woman nor her loved ones would have thought she would meet such a tragic end in the national capital.

The second story is from Muzaffarpur in Bihar. Sarita Kumari, a junior engineer with the state government, is burnt alive after being tied to a chair in a house opposite her home. All that the police recover from the spot is her ashes and some burnt bones. With a lot of difficulty, on the basis of her slippers, Sarita Kumari’s mother manages to recognise that the victim of the barbaric act was her daughter. Like the woman from the North-East, Sarita could not have dreamt that she would meet such a violent fate despite having a government job in a large town in Bihar.

These heart-rending stories leave behind a number of questions since the person attacking the women wasn’t the demonic Ravan. In the past, there was just one Ravan, but now there are thousands of Ravans among us.

Those crying themselves hoarse about similar issues for political gains don’t express any sympathy for women, child and Dalit victims of such barbaric acts. Do you remember the “rape” on the Bulandshahar highway? The tears in the eyes of the victims haven’t yet dried, but the deluge of public sympathy for them that swelled up at that time for political reasons has already dried up.

Why am I diverting your attention from all the festive cheer a day after Diwali? Because there cannot be a better time to discuss such issues. Diwali is the festival that celebrates the victory of truth over falsehoods, of justice over injustice, and of light over darkness. Thousands of years ago, when the class-system was at its zenith, two princes of Ayodhya joined hands with the oppressed and the tribals to take on the most powerful emperor in the world and defeated him.

Of course, everybody knows that Diwali was first celebrated when Ram and Lakshman returned to Ayodhya after defeating Ravan. People were happy about the ushering in of Ramrajya. After South Africa, Gandhi, too, fell back on the pipedream of a Ramrajya. By linking Swarajya with Ramrajya, the Mahatma stimulated the interest in among Indians and worked miracles. Gandhi didn’t realise that one day Ramrajya would turn into a political slogan and evolve into a farce. The manner in which politicians in independent India have distorted the traditions of Indian politics has led to a number of challenges that are staring Indian society in the face. The two stories narrated above, and the Bulandshahar incident, are examples of such tendencies.

How will we secure freedom from these?

It is a fact that we are among the fastest growing economies in the world and our literacy is bringing economic benefits closer to the people. On the flip side, the growing urbanisation and indiscriminate use of technology hasn’t just made us citizens of the global village, it has also made us move away from human values to a large extent.

In a land where helping the helpless is considered a religious duty, a woman is stabbed more than 30 times at a Metro station in Gurgaon.

Instead of attempting to save the victim, people began making videos.

These days the propensity to make videos of victims of accidents or violence, instead to trying to save them, is growing. By doing this, they commit two kinds of crimes. First, they contribute to the creation of an insensitive society. While doing this they forget that tomorrow if they became victims of mishaps or violence, they would be treated in the same manner. Second, by posting these videos with sensational text on social media, they accumulate “likes” for themselves. But they don’t know that they are going from being spectators to becoming a spectacle themselves.

At times, it is tough to differentiate between the wordplay and dishonesty of intellectuals.

One hopes your homes would still be lit with the lamps and fairy lights that you bought for Diwali. It is likely you may be surrounded by the mess and dust created by the crackers last night. Don’t you think that today, fighting society’s indifference and darkness isn’t just the responsibility of Dashrath’s son but also yours? Just cleaning up your home and neighbourhood won’t do. You also have to uproot the demonic tendencies mushrooming around you.

Shashi Shekhar is editor in chief, Hindustan.

Source: Hindustan Times, 31-10-2016

When an icon falls

Issue is not just the fate of Tatas. A letter like Mistry’s could deepen the credibility crisis of Indian capitalism.

The crisis in the Tata group, now made public by the letter of ousted chairman, Cyrus Mistry, is yet another depressing moment in Indian capitalism’s struggle for social legitimacy. The Tatas have been, in many ways, an iconic group desperately clinging onto the few shards of legitimacy that Indian companies can muster these days. Cynics, particularly after the Radia tapes, have been calling into question the credibility the Tatas had built over the years. It was, they argued, in the final analysis, cut of the same cloth as much of Indian capitalism, a fact largely disguised by a combination of historical legacy, philanthropy, and that ultimate tool of modernity: Tremendous public relations.

Whether or not this charge is true, some future historian of Indian capitalism can decide. But the cynics now have all the ammunition they need. Indian capitalism has always been short of icons. Another icon has decisively fallen, and with it the promise that a more enlightened and better capitalism might at least be possible.

Mistry’s letter is written in self-defence. It will need to be interpreted in that context. Its factual claims will also have to be adjudicated. But its defensive, matter of fact style cannot disguise the sheer enormity of what is at stake. The letter does beg for a semiotic reading of Indian capitalism. Mistry has thrown back every charge that he possibly could at the company that has ousted him.

The letter alleges deep procedural improprieties. It raises ethical concerns about the conduct of the company. It portrays a picture of internal promises frequently broken. It accuses the company of skirting around regulatory improprieties. It raises questions about the valuation of the companies. It seems to suggest that corporate governance accountability is not worth the paper it is written on, with senior independent members of the board seemingly taking instructions rather than exercising judgment. The letter is a profound indictment of the judgment and risk evaluation capabilities of the Tata leadership.

Admittedly, some business decisions are subject to unexpected setbacks or miscalculation of risks. But this letter seems to hint at almost systematic misjudgement and incapacity to account for risk. And to top it all, it is tinged with personal drama of the kind we are more used to in politics: A titanic figure seemingly giving up control of an empire, but not really giving it up. Projects were undertaken not with a view to the long term health of the company but due to egos writ large. Apart from the Tata group, and its practices, the letter is a no-holds-barred attack on Ratan Tata himself. It is a kind of takedown you are used to seeing more publicly aired in politics. After such allegations, what healing?

This is not the place to adjudicate the truth of Mistry’s indictment. Nor do we have the full facts. But whatever emerges in the future, the letter itself may turn out to be a remarkable document in the history of Indian capitalism. The outgoing chief of such a large conglomerate has, in his own defence, ended up indicting his own company, so thoroughly and in public. The issue is not just the fate of the Tatas. The issue is that in the short run, a letter like this will only deepen the credibility crisis of Indian capitalism.

The immediate danger, of course, is that it strengthens the hand of all those state institutions that operate on the idea that the presumptive distrust of Indian companies’ practices should be even higher. The door has been opened for more intense regulatory scrutiny of Tata companies. The insinuations now come in writing from the CEO himself.

The second issue that will emerge is how much the authority of individual capitalists is able to override internal and external scrutiny. Perhaps he did not mean to. But the sum total of Mistry’s charge seems to be that there was little countervailing force against Ratan Tata’s business decisions, whether it be Nano or airlines. For anthropologists of capital, this is an interesting moment: A portrayal of capital, not operating on the cold logic of calculation, but on the basis of personality. Charisma and authority, even here, seem to silence rationality.

The third issue is that Indian companies, despite corporate governance reform, are analytically quite opaque — even the best of them. It is not exactly a secret that Indian companies are the hardest entities to write about analytically in the public domain. This is not just true of “investigative” cases where some wrongdoing is alleged and where journalists risk defamation suits. It is also true of bread and butter analytics of companies and business plans. Of course, even the best laid business plans can go wrong, circumstances can change, risk assessments can involve honest mistakes. But Indian companies are rarely held up to solid analytical scrutiny.

What is striking about Mistry’s letter is the way it punctures holes in the assumptions about one business model after the other, in ways you think an informed media might have done. In principle, this should not matter, since you assume investors, creditors and so forth are doing their due diligence. But in business, as in politics, reputations can have their own self-fulfilling effects. And this is exactly what Mistry suggests.

To Indians cynically suspicious of capital this story has all the elements of schadenfreude. The idea that any company can institutionalise processes that reflect integrity is chimera. The only difference is between companies which manage to successfully draw a veil over the inner working and ones that don’t. For those who take the view that India needs a more mature capitalism that with all its faults can unleash some productive energy in Indian society, this is a depressing story. The social legitimacy of any institution is in the final analysis, not a function of ideology or beliefs. It is a function of credibility, which is often judged through icons.

Indian capitalism, with rare exceptions, has been lacking those icons. That the Tata controversy has felled one more is an indication that the social legitimacy of Indian capital will erode even more. The issue is not the competing world views of Mistry or Tata. It is the long shadow of suspicion this controversy will cast over Indian capital.

The writer is president, CPR Delhi and contributing editor, ‘Indian Express’

Source: Indian Express, 28-10-2016

In praise of Ambedkar and the Buddha

Jay Bhim se, jay Bhim se / Meri duniya jay Bhim se 
Jay Bhim se, jay Bhim se / Meri khushiya jay Bhim se 
Koi nahi tha mere liye / Unhone apna jeevan tyag diya 
Aandhi tufano se ladte rahe / Mujhe apne pairo pe khada kiya

(Long live Bhim [Rao Ambedkar], long live Bhim / He is my whole world

Long live Bhim, long live Bhim / He is my happiness

When there was no one for me / He sacrificed his life

He battled every storm / To help me stand on my feet)

That’s from the song, ‘Jay Bhim se’, the most popular number by Navi Mumbai-based Dalit rock band Dhamma Wings. (The Pali word ‘dhamma’ means to imbibe a quality -- equality, in this case).

“We don’t want to rewrite the page. We want a fresh page,” says lead singer Kabeer Shakya, 28. “We want to connect with the younger generation because youngsters are more open to change.”

The six-year-old band has four other members -- Srijit Banerjee (keyboards, 27), Rahul Kamble (bass guitar, 32), Rohan Zodge (rhythm guitar, 24) and Swapnil More (drums, 27) -- all of whom make a living teaching music.

They sing songs based on the teachings of the Buddha and Dalit icon BR Ambedkar, preaching equality, brotherhood and peace in Hindi, English and Marathi.

“Our mission is to end caste discrimination, and highlight other social issues such as unemployment and drought along the way,” says More. “We use songs because music delivers a message faster.”

The band has performed in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore and in areas such as rural Aurangabad and Yavatmal, where casteism is more prominent.

They also have good online presence, with thousands of followers across YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. ‘Jay Bhim se’ has had more than 50,000 views on YouTube.

The idea of starting a band struck Kabeer in 2010. Inspired by the philosophy of the Buddha, he was living as a monk in Bodh Gaya, Bihar, just after graduation. At the end of his three-month experiment, he decided to dedicate at least part of his time to spreading the Buddha’s teachings.

On his return to Navi Mumbai, he began performing solo at events. At the same time, he also started an IT services company with four partners. Nine months on, Kabeer realised music was his true calling and quit the company. He met More while performing at a tribute to Ambedkar. More introduced him to the others and the band was born.

“It’s changed my life completely. I earn about as much as I used to from my IT company, but this gives me so much more satisfaction,” says Kabeer. “I feel like I’m contributing to society.”

Even if youngsters start to think about change, the effort will have paid off, he adds. “Recently, we performed at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai and over 200 students cheered for us all through,” Kabeer says. “Our music is making a difference.”

Source: Hindustan Times, 23-10-2016