Ananthpadmanabhan G: change is a complex beast

Welcome to Grassroots Nation, a podcast from Rohingya Neelakini, philanthropy, a show in which we dive deep into the life, work and guiding philosophies of some of our country's greatest leaders of social change. Ananda Padmanabhan, Guru Swamy has been at the helm of many institutions in India. An IIT graduate, Ananda has a p-tech in electrical engineering from IIT Madras. His early inspirations and explorations in education and truth led him to teach and be associated with the Krishnamurthy Foundation India in Chennai, where he taught at those schools for 11 years. He then led teacher education at the Azim Premji Foundation, was the CEO of Greenpeace India and then Greenpeace International's International Program Director, and CEO of Amnesty International in India. He subsequently helped set up and grow the Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives as its CEO. In more recent years Ananda has worked with and mentored many next-generation leaders in the social sector, resulting in newer organizations such as Sokratis Foundation and Wheelive Foundation. All of Ananda's work has been driven by a deep curiosity in understanding the world we live in, and in finding ways to better humanity by helping others, solving for social problems and building communities. Ananda is in conversation with his longtime colleague and friend Divya Ragunandan. This conversation was recorded in Bengaluru. Hi Ananda. Hi there. Very lovely to see you. Thanks for doing this. Most welcome. It's looking forward to this chat. Okay, so maybe we'll start a little bit like rewind to the beginning. When you came out of IIT, you graduated and this IIT engineer turned teacher and warden. Can you tell us a little bit about that story and how you landed there? You know around maybe 1985 or so. I mean I must have been 1920 then. I think what really was the beginning of that change? I would say a serendipitous encounter with Krishna Murthy. It actually wasn't a friend's elder brother who was like bullying his younger brother to go to his inter-Christian Murthy. That guy didn't want to go alone. So he dragged a couple of us along as these things go. He never got hooked to Krishna Murthy. I did. And the other friend too. So then one red, everything the man said in the IIT library had quite a good collection. Around the same time one straw revolution came out. I don't know if you know the book, Masnogu Fukuoka is so that was you know kind of blew my mind I think I should say if that's a good description. And I spent some time in the friends Rudu Centre in Rasulya and Hoshangabad which was actually practicing natural farming at that time, the Masnogu Fukuoka style. And they also were the publishers of the book. And there I met Majari Sykes, one of Gandhi's, if such a thing has Gandhi's direct disciples exist. And she was one of those British women who, she was still there. So from that point on and then there was a centre for rural development and IIT that kind of also had an influence. And it was quite clear to me that I wasn't cut out for a corporate career. But coming from a sort of middle-class home there's no way in which I could immediately go off and do something or so I thought. So I came, I left IIT with this plan of working for the highest bidder, one who buy my services for the highest salary for three or four years saving up enough money, buying a piece of land and then living on it for the rest of my life you know sort of Fukuoka like if you like. So that's how I came out of IIT. Then it was also the time my dad passed away, it's more suddenly. So I ended up working for the second highest bidder if you like, so in Chennai. I realized I couldn't last three years. So I lasted three months and then you know I was restless. It seemed like this sort of path of do something on somebody, do something and then eventually do what you want to do didn't seem like it and I had to be in Chennai at that time. My mom was there and she was suddenly all along and so on and so forth. So Krishnamurthy's school seemed like a good option. I always enjoyed teaching I was, that's how I ended up in the school. The school was very interesting in the sense that it's located in the heart of Adaya Rinchennai in land that belongs to the Therophical Society. Theosemical Society itself had a very sort of strained relationship with the Krishnamurthy Foundation. Goes back to Krishnamurthy and Theosemical. And next door was the Therophical Society. They had a school, a free school for which they established all court for fishermen's gates and they also had a childcare institution within the campus that was sort of looking after some of the children in that school. So a couple of hundred meters from each other. And one of the let's say the bombers of the Krishnamurthy school is that in the end no matter how much fun it was, teaching kids and how much fun it was thinking about Krishnamurthy and all that. In the end it was a school for the fairly affluent. And of course we did try to change that and hold a long story but that was something that I wanted to do something about. So is there a way in which I could combine working with these kids with the kids of all courts school. I mean that's how the idea of you know sort of looking after those kids in the childcare institution came up. And I went up to I think Radha Banya, who was a president and said, "Brother, can I become the warden?" And they were having difficulties finding people these days to stay there. You know, it required staying in the hostel. And of course I was married at that time and we also had our daughter. We just adopted our daughter. So be there as it may, I mean my then wife was also up for it. So we ended up living with you know sort of 30 boys of various ages. And one girl who was my own and I had a day job you know teaching some environmental studies and math to some rights. That's how that happened. I quite like that sort of you know balance if you like of you know a place where which is much more innovative and experimental when it came to education. I was a teacher for 11 years from the very ripe age of 21 to the age of 32. And from the age of 30 till the age of 34 or so I was also the warden. Generally personal reasons. I mean my marriage is breaking up and my ex-wife was also my then wife was also a teacher in the same school. So you know trying to separate our lives a little bit. So that's what sent me out into the world and I was looking for something. And yeah, that's what got me out of this question of this. Well I continued to be the warden of that hostel for another couple of years and then it all got too much when I just could not my personal upheavals to job. I just became too much. So I stopped being the warden. But that had of course as you well know had a very interesting connection right. One of the things I discovered at that time was that in childcare institutions when children turned 18 they're not children anymore. So they can't be in the childcare institution and they really have nowhere to go. Young men had just turned 18 who had finished their class 12 and they had kind of uncertain about what to do next where to go and so on and so forth. They had really nowhere to go and you know I don't have a clear memory of how it transpired but I said come and live with me. So they lived at home for the next many years. So that you know kind of gave me a sense of this particular challenge of young people who grew up in these institutions and while it makes sense that after 18 they're not children they can't be in those institutions. What happens to them afterwards right. So one of the things that I'm very happy and proudly associated with at this point is organization that focuses on this space of after care. Right. So we have two centers here in Bangalore. It's an organization called the Wheeler Foundation. There's two centers here. One for young one. One for young one. We are in a position to be a bridge between childcare institution and the world of adults for about 50 or 60 young people. I'm certain. Yeah. I remember I think meeting Rajin then one of the boys when I came for an interview for Greenpeace at your house in Besanagar. That's right. That's right. So in fact my first business so to speak was something I set up for these young people right. We were living on the beach in Besanagar. On those whole bunch of people selling Sundar, chickpea, savory thing on the beach. You know, so these to use Petro Max land-tons and what they are. So we said we would rent out solar land-tons to them and that was a business. It ran very well actually. It put three or four young men through college including Rajin and whom I care. Yeah. So I mean so from all of that so that fairly multi-hutchal life in Chennai to Delhi and Greenpeace. So how do Greenpeace happen? Yeah. So as I said from like many of India's environmentalists. at least of my vintage, Ashish Bhatari, maybe Kartik Shankar, although he would, I think, not like the fact that I'm calling him my vintage. We all came out of the World Wildlife Funds Nature Club movement. I was studying in a Kindriv Gyalas and Kindriv Gyalas did everything by Dictat. So, someone from the centre wrote a letter saying every school must have a nature club, and so we had one. So, we ended up in these wildlife centuries. My first exposure to nature in that sense, as 12 or 13 in Mundanturaya, it's a national park, south of Tamil Nadu. And then, of course, Fukuoka. So, this whole thing of man's relationship or human beings relationship with nature, and the challenges that were emerging there, has been something that, and Chennai, of course, there was this, you know, all of Ridley Turtles and the Turtle Walks among the people who organized the Turtle Walks in the early days. In fact, the first hatchery, you know, for hatching the eggs. The first hatchery was Kimura of my school teachers paycheck. The first, whatever, non-government hatchery in Chennai, Kimura, school teacher. So, that was the sort of background. So, I had a lot of links with the environmental community in Chennai activists and community educators, that whole, you know, and one of them happened to be the chap person of the newly formed Greenpeace Trust in India. And so, out of the blue one day asked me if I'd be sort of interested in the role of egg what is called the executive director of Greenpeace, and so I said, yeah, I would be, man, sort of, I would say kind of, suddenly it bitlessly happened. I mean, in the sense that my interest in the environment has been a, and the deep interest in those issues, for example, while I was at the school, I was the one who set up the first syllabus for 12 standard ISC exam in environmental science. Now, the board, I used to keep bugging them saying, why don't you introduce this, and they said, okay, you write the syllabus, so I did write it, and they approved it. I think now I'm offered in several schools. So, and you know, when I was at the school, we also ran a campaign to sort of make dissection optional for 12 standard dollars. You seem to make no sense. I mean, you're not really teaching anything to kids that they can't learn otherwise. And you're teaching them, it's okay to cut up some living thing, right? So, that kind of activism, environment, animal rights, and that was always part of what I was doing. So, Greenpeace itself had several years of existence and its own personality. They did things a particular way, and they needed to start and figure out what they were going to do in India. And in some ways, that's the time you come along and try and give it some shape or give it an imagination to what Greenpeace should look like in India, right? So, I was just trying to understand what are the influences, or what did you think about, or how did you get that going? I know there was always that teacher in you that, you know, was kind of like a continuous thread, but then there was so much more that had to be done. I remember the initial years, I mean, I think a year or two after you joined, you recruited some of us. And, you know, while it was all very exciting, I remember thinking Greenpeace was like a bunch of cowboys with guns. And I remember you telling me, I wish those guns could shoot straight, because that was the problem. We were doing crazy things in all directions. So, that's how I remember it, say 2002, and then, you know, talked to around a couple of years later. I mean, when you were still the executive director, I think, you know, Greenpeace was turning back a toxic ship, a warship from the France that was coming to be broken down in a lung, which was huge. So, Greenpeace was able to sit down with the government and actually, you know, negotiate something like that. So, what was that journey and how does one concede something like that? Yeah, I think even on high-density, it would be wrong to suggest that I had a sense of how it will all unfold. I think unfold is the correct word. What I think I brought to the table then, and what I think I'm still bringing to the table most of the time is, let's say, freshness and the sort of very great curiosity and interest in looking at what is the puzzle if you like. I mean, as you correctly pointed out, Greenpeace or any organization for that matter, I mean, the Krishna would be school if you like. Whichever, whatever, or the all-court puzzle, whichever one you took, everything has a personality. It's not like, you know, they're blank slaves. One of the things I always enjoyed doing was understanding that personality or one of the things that excited me, I think I should say, is understand that personality, accept the rules of that come with it. Right? For example, if you can run a professional organization like Greenpeace, then you have to accept the reality of the fundraising. It is not a people's movement in that sense. I mean, it is not an organization that's going to be run by volunteers. I mean, it's going to be paid professionals or paid staff. So I think, you know, we all brought a certain freshness to it and a certain desire to understand what it was and see how we can shape it, as you said, right? So I realized, you know, I learned a few important things. One important thing was that if you have to be a strong organization in India with your own mind, one of the things I would say about Greenpeace is that Greenpeace can do a lot of, you know, things that can appear stupid. But it would be stupidity that is driven by its own limitations. It is not, you know, somebody pulling the strings. It's not that kind of thing largely because it is, you know, funded in the way it was, which is individuals, you know, funding Greenpeace, right? So, you know, one of the things I recognized quite early was that that model of, you know, the whole organization being funded by small contributions from a very large number of Indians, right? Was a critical component for any civil society organization in India, for any activists organization. People's movements are another thing, but any activist organization organization. And Greenpeace is a great place to learn that because they've done it in various places in the world. So we learned that. Instead, we did that quite successfully. The other thing that, I mean, I learned, you know, in Greenpeace and I'm sure you learned too, is that campaigning is different from things like awareness, education, etc., because very often, you know, people in positions of power or authority to make the change that you're seeking, be it a law or whatever it is. The reason they're not acting is not because they don't understand what the problem is or they don't understand why this must be done. But the reason they don't is that the compulsions of their position, the pushers and pulls, the power relationships, the trade-offs that they are making are not allowing them to do this. I mean, they would not do this because it just does not work for them, right? So that's what one has to change. I mean, so that business of campaigning has being able to change the dynamics of power around the decision maker. At work, you see your part of it, research, your part of it, awareness, your part of it, educating the right people, your part of it, public mobilization, all these are means to achieving that change. So this is another thing that I learned. And of course, I also learned quite a lot about what does it mean to build an organization? I've never done anything like that before. In a school, you don't actually manage people. I mean, you may be a coordinator and stuff, but you know actually, you know, so building an organization. So in some ways, I would say accepting the challenge of building such an organization and then trying to understand what that challenge implied, right? And then going about it in a sort of systematic and a farmer user with a professional way. And you're right. It was quite an exciting journey from a very small organization to being a fairly large organization. Having almost at one time, maybe half a million Indians donating regularly to being able to have in, you know, 10, 12 cities where we had teams that were actually standing on the street and, you know, soliciting support for greenpeace. And I used to quite enjoy standing on the street and, you know, sort of soliciting support for greenpeace and making. I thought it was quite a fascinating thing because I think to this day, one of the challenges we have with our sales aside is that the people in sales aside very often do not really have good ways of talking about what they do and why they do and what is the need for what they do, etc. with the person on the street, if you like, right? So that I think was very, very valuable that, you know, you basically sustain yourself by appealing to the goodwill and understanding of ordinary people. And of course, every now and then one would have just as you were mentioning the Clements which is quite a inspiring story. We also have inspiring stories of how an auto-rich-shut driver on the street stopped, talked to our funders and then became a greenpeace donor on the strength of, you know, what was being said. So that was, you know, for me, that was like, you know, say as inspiring a moment of my time in greenpeace as the more political or more advocacy related or more campaign related victories. And I think the other part of what I enjoyed quite a lot in greenpeace is the somewhat important principle of kind of trying to do what it takes, rather than trying to do what you can. How can we do what it takes? I mean, within, of course, value bound reasons, but that is again something that I think has stayed with me since those days of building green tea. I mean, I learned quite a lot from it. It's a good ride. And I think we built quite a good organization. And one of the big things about green peas was also a fact that two kind of shift this power balance that you were talking about. There was a lot of confrontative action, right, which required individuals to take sometimes in order to amount of risk. So, I mean, I'm always curious as to how this group of individuals came together. How did you bring a group of people who actually ended up being fairly fearless for themselves, but completely driven by that larger purpose and, you know, came together to do what it took. And almost all the battles were like we were talking earlier, like a David and Goliath kind of thing where you were small, insignificant with hardly any money, and you were taking on something that was mammoth, right? So, to get people to feel that they could do it, that they had the courage that it can be done. So, that's the other element that was fairly unique. And so, if you can talk a little bit about how did that psyche come about? To be fair, we are as a country and society not short in that kind of courage to stand up, right? And if you remember some of our early colleagues, including yourself came very much from the environment to movement, including the Ravada Vajavandolan and the Bhopa groups and so on and so forth. In some sense, our society was, I mean, activism in our study was fairly well established. And we had a, you know, and you must remember some of the challenges that Greenpeace had in as a sort of activist organization and establishing itself in various parts of the world, was some parts of the world was not very amenable to this kind of activism. It wasn't in the culture. India was certainly not one of them. What I think we accomplished at that time quite successfully is those activists working within the confines or within the constraints of a formal, registered organization which had laws to abide by, which had, you know, I mean, it had a bunch of, it's a very different thing from, say, somebody from the community is standing up for their own rights, which actually also is different and simpler. And the real part of Greenpeace was we could actually do very, very high quality, say technical research on solar energy. We could communicate in a very sophisticated way. So in terms of leadership, what was your approach to it? How did you see yourself in this entire room? I think this business of doing what it takes. So for example, you know, if it means get a half a million people to give you money, you must probably talk to five million or rather your organization and your colleagues must talk to five million. And you recognize that talk to five million is a lot of work, not to mention time and a lot of heartache. These people on the street are not polite. They don't have time for their own lives, right? I mean, they're mostly saying to you, you're not buying whatever, right? I mean, I enjoyed the challenge of talking to ordinary fellow countrymen of mine and saying, with the support or whatever. But it was very important that for the organization, it was very important that this happened both from a sort of organizational point of view, but also strategically. I mean, in the sense that it created legitimacy, it kept the organization, I think if you look at Greenfield, if you were to think about it, two things kept its spirit alive, right? One was this basically standing on the street and literally, you know, through very hard conversations or very persistent conversations raising the resources you need to do your work. The other was the willingness to risk arrest and to go to jail and stuff like that. So that kind of kept the spirit alive, right? So in a way, I've always seen that it's important to be able to willing to and able to do the most difficult jobs in the organization. I mean, it's not quite the same as leading from the front. I mean, it's not like I'm saying I can do it better than you. It's not like I'm saying follow me. It's not like I'm saying I'm a model, but I'm saying it's an act of solidarity, if you like. I'm saying the willingness to do those things. It helped that I enjoyed it, but I mean, willing is very essentially part of the leadership and that also translates into the ability to give every one of those perspectives, the perspective of the person on the street, the perspective of the person trying to get your story into the media, the perspective of the campaigner who has thought a lot about the issue, the perspective of the activists who is willing to go to jail, and the perspective of the board, which is sort of trying to keep things clean. So all these perspectives were mine in some sense, right? In some sense, they're all like the different people feeling different blind people, feeling an elephant, right? They all had the perspective, they all had their validity, and you had to find a whole. I think I would say that has been something that I have both enjoyed doing, and I've had a fair success in doing it. And I think recognizing that it's that Kichri, if you like, that's the unique thing, not any one of these things. So then you had a stint at the Greenpeace International World, you went there and created a bit of havoc, and did what you had to do. Yeah, the high point of that, I think you mentioned in your previous question, right? Or the most disruptive part of that was I was the International Program Director of Greenpeace. And we had the climate conference in Copenhagen, 2009. Basically, it's become fashionable to say it's do or die, do or die for the planet on climate. At that time, it did, it seemed like the first big post-Cureto sort of do or die moment, right? In the entire climate campaign, Obama was the new president of the United States. There was also some hope, right? I mean, after eight years of George W Bush, so there's a wiff there. And Greenpeace is really struggling to find a new way of putting pressure. So came up with this idea that Greenpeace would organize several hundred people strong hunger fast through the two weeks of the conference. I mean, I ended up fasting with some ten other, only one other Greenpeace person, but the climate just is fast, where I made some very nice young friends, but that's a whole different story. But that actually brought this big, almost a clash of cultures and values within Greenpeace. There were a whole bunch of people in Greenpeace, especially within the community of activists in Greenpeace who thought the hunger fast was fundamentally violent. So it's quite interesting navigating that. I mean, on the outside of the interesting, that when it was, I was, of course, furious. But the Greenpeace is credit, and I would say to my credit, I didn't use my authority to say Greenpeace will do it. And Greenpeace did not dominate opinion in Greenpeace. The public opinion in Greenpeace, the Greenpeace kind of prevailed and they didn't do the Greenpeace officially never did the hunger strike. Well, that was fantastic. And it was like two weeks of hunger fasting. And one of my favorite memories at that time was I was the official Greenpeace representative at a dinner in Copenhagen hosted by the CEO of Cocoa. I'm not making this up, right? They were actually celebrating the fact that they had gone ozone depleting substance free on their refrigeration, whatever it was. So I ended up as a representative of Greenpeace in this thing. So I didn't eat, of course. So I drank water sitting with a bunch of coke executives. And the other thing that I, I've never put on a suit in my life. So that's, I mean, putting on the suit always had to be somebody else, right? So I was wearing my culpa and pyjama and this in Copenhagen in the winter and sipping water, and it's actually water in the universe. It's actually quite interesting, that conversation has a result of it. Coming back to the power of fasting. I mean, both as personal, I mean, of course, now it's a fact to fast for health reasons, but also as a tool for change. So, I mean, and then, you know, life took you to Amnesty, which is the whole world of human rights. But I think more interesting to me was the fact that by then, I think at least two or three times, Amnesty had tried to set up in India and failed. You know, it hadn't happened. I mean, everything seemed to stand against an organization that wanted to needed money to set up, but then where was that money going to come from? And so they just couldn't quite find a way. And then you came along and it actually got set up. You started using, again, retail fund raising driven. But how did that even get started? Like, so where's the money coming from and how did you get that set up? What was different? I mean, I didn't think that was proof of Greenpeace. I didn't think it was proof of Amnesty. I would not think it's proof of any organization today, which is trying to do that kind of work. That the government of the day, and it doesn't matter who the, what the political dispensation of the government is. No state is really going to take kindly to these kinds of organizations. In the case of Greenpeace, I would say it's not so much the state as much as the, say, corporate interest that Greenpeace went after that. Why other state would get up? And the case of Amnesty, of course, you know, it's very straight away the state itself as the year. So the thing that you come up against, right? This is not a unique feature to India. I mean, even in the United States or in the UK. And I mean, it is not like Amnesty is well liked. So I've always seen it as, you know, the challenge of building an organization like Amnesty in India is to build it in such a way that it can have a spine and speak its mind. Set up the organizational and the legal infrastructure and the funding in such a way that it can. And that was the attempt. I think the special thing is, of course, I had the experience of setting up green peas. And then, you know, recognizing this is as critical, right? So setting up Amnesty in a manner that will work, right, was what was very interesting. And of course, human rights, unlike the environment, there's a much more politically sensitive subject. The environment ought to be a lot more politically sensitive. One wishes it was. But in the case of human rights, you only have sneeze and, you know, everybody is like, you know, really upset with you. We should tell us a little bit about one interesting impact that you had. I mean Sri Lanka comes to mind the work there. So India, in the case of Amnesty, I was very interested in working on some issues, right, with international ramifications where, you know, India could actually be an interesting player. You know, one issue was that of migrant workers, all of South Asia, they were migrant workers in the Gulf. And their rights were very massive black hole, if you like, right, I mean, the World Cup and Qatar, I mean, brought it to light, but it was fairly obvious. And it was quite interesting to see how the home government, the Indian government, the Nepal government, the Pakistani government, the Bangladeshi government dealt with the sort of rights of their people. What did they do to protect those rights, right? It was quite interesting, the strongest government in that regard was the Nepal government. They had the most proactive policies, had a will to implement them and so on and so on. So it seemed like that's an interesting kind of mirror to hold up to ourselves. Right, the mirror is not that look at what Norway is doing for its expats and Norway probably has very few people, leave alone expats, but, you know, it is not like that, but you're saying like our own neighbors are able to do better by their own people. Right, so, you know, trying to find those kinds of interesting examples. And another interesting example was that of Sri Lanka and justice for the war victims. I mean, the Tamil war victims. I mean, I think, you know, having studied that issue quite closely, especially the end of that civil war in Sri Lanka, I think it was horrific human rights violations. And it appeared that the regime then was going to get away with it. Right. It was an international campaign to hold the regime accountable in the human rights system, which by the way is much stronger than the environmental, multilateral system on human rights. And the interesting thing is, you know, and therefore, honesty, what we brought unique was a certain ability to do a campaign, you know, very sharp way, politically smart way. For example, at that time, every political party in Tamil Nadu was in favor of accountability for the Tamilans in Sri Lanka and it was a coalition government. So they had a very strong hold. So we could basically supply information, material, do standard advocacy, you know, with the MP to sort of raise them, I mean, to supply them with material to do research, all that kind of stuff, signature campaigns. And we run a very hugely successful thing, almost three and a half million people signed our signature campaign and so on and so forth. And this is an interesting opportunity to do that. And in the process, you know, we restart a very large number of people. We also were able to get a very large number of people to donate to amnesty, etc. So building that whole thing was what I think was exciting and maybe special in the case of amnesty. Yes. One of the things that has been fairly unique about your journey is that, you know, you didn't choose to build your own organization, you know, you entered an institution, something that like we talked about with its own personality and kind of came in and gave it something, created some level of impact. And at some point you decided, you know, now I can move on and do something else. So what was driving you? I don't know if you're a serial CEO, like who was, you know, what did you want? If somebody had asked you, you know, how did you chart that course? What would have been? In some way, I think there are two things that have been the same through my life. One is sort of a, if you like, mean a quest to be a good human being. And what does that mean? We live in a very complicated world. I mean, the world has always been complicated. I certainly experienced myself as living in a very complex world. And what does it mean to be a good human being in that world? And that includes the way you treat people, the way you build relationships, your values, your lifestyle, you know, the consistency between what you believe and walking the talk, all that is part of, you know, this sort of good human being thing. And that's like an important, let's say, for one to have a better world and an energy and maybe it has some spiritual dimensions to it, too. I meditate and stuff like that. And the other is this thing of accepting that every situation is an opportunity. And there are no situations that are blind slaves. I mean, like, you know, in the last four, five years, I have actually started or have been part of a team that has founded organising. That doesn't mean there are no constraints. That doesn't mean there are no boundaries. You can't just create something out of thin air, right? I mean, it has come from histories. Certainly the people have history. I mean, supposing you, you know, you and I right now work together in an organisation called Roode Bridge that provides fundraising, retail fundraising services to NGOs. Right? It's that connection to what we learnt at being peace and form. I mean, you have a history. Our colleagues have histories. So it's not coming out of nowhere. So in some sense, if, say, Mr. Prengi says, you know, he set up the same thing, he philanthropic initiatives. I had the good fortune of him saying to me, right? Then it's exciting, but it's not a blank slate. So it's always that coming together and trying to find that kind of, you know, hold. I mean, trying to create that elephant out of the different sensory perception of the people around it. That's always the challenge. And I think it is wrong to think that if you are the, say, the actual founder, you could basically do whatever you want. It's not true. So I have always enjoyed that position. I mean, it's a, it's, and I've always seen it as that. I mean, deadly serious because you do want to have impact. You care about the outcomes and you care quite a lot about the outcomes. You care about them. You go to care about having an impact. But nevertheless, it is okay. A puzzle. I mean, nevertheless, it's a system. It's a very complex system in which, you know, you're trying to create a space in which you're trying to create an energy, a direction. And as Krishna Muthi, I'm a jake, Krishna Muthi just to say, what can you do alone? I mean, that was always quite clear to me. There's nothing much you can do alone. You can write a book, maybe, but, you know, some of us who, I mean, I can write a book with full read, right? So that's always the challenge. So what can you do with the cards you have been dealt with within the rules of the card game? I mean, it's always been the interesting question. And I must say I have enjoyed that and I've brought a lot of energy to those games. Pick up those deck of cards and pretend that they are the best deck of cards. Not pretend. I mean, feel like they're the best deck of cards that you have. They're the only deck of cards you have anyway. So then do what you will with it. And people are also fun. And we learn how to work with people, how to give people space. I think one of the things that happened in the last 20 years in society is, it is no more a place where the people who are coming into, are coming in with the sense of, I will apprentice and learn. They're very much coming in as people who want to make an impact from Devon, who know or who have studied or who have qualified in some sense, who see themselves as, who was and shake us, if you like. They're not the older, more traditional organization where the leader or the founders and so mentored a bunch of people and everybody followed that line. Is not the state of the forest. You notice, right? People want to make it concrete. So how to create space for that? How to create space for all that energy? And it's good energy. Right. So walking away from an organization and walking away from everything that you built, right? I mean, that seems to be like the biggest pain point for most organization. And someone who's been around, you know, leaves, both for that person as well as for their entire environment. And you know, so you've had several ins and outs and starts and initiatives. So how, you know, what would be some of the thinking around that? I mean, it's that old African fraud, isn't it? I mean, they're almost cliched around, right? If you want to go far, walk together. You want to walk fast, walk along. So, you know, it's that, and of course, walking alone, you know, if you're very strong and very powerful, you can drag a whole lot of people along and but going together is something else. Actually, I recognize that one has to go together. But I also recognize that going together is not a matter of consensus. Going together doesn't mean that there are no leaders. Going together doesn't mean that a different phase is in that journey. Different people will lead. Human beings need leadership. That's not what I'm talking. So it's always been this play and how do you get a bunch of people? and point them in a direction and walk along. And how do you not shy away from having to lead when you need to, or allowing others to lead when it's needed? Sometimes you start to have this feeling, and then you know it's time to kind of, I mean that setup is not working for you anymore. So that's happened a couple of times. Sometimes it's also happened that, you know, the whatever is coming your way is quite interesting and attractive. So you kind of go in that way. But through it all, I would say that I've never defined myself as, one of my professional roles of that time. But I've always seen myself as someone who wants to be, or who's doing his damn best, to both be good and do good. I had my definitions of good, of course, but that's what it was. And I was using whatever was at my disposal to do so. And these were all means to that end. The green piece, all the azimuth and the flants, the green shakers, all the school, whatever else. So around the time, let's say you were an amnesty, I just wanted to draw every other attention to the world outside and how the political context was changing fairly drastically. And then having one organization that you were part of setting up and driving, which is green piece, being confronted, you know, with the kind of political activity that wasn't very accepted. And then slowly that also moving to the kind of work amnesty was doing. And the repercussions that had both on the organizations, not just these, but a whole lot of other organizations, as well as you personally. So if you can just talk about how this huge shift, which may have been something happening in slow motion, but something that caught up with a lot of it. It wasn't even happening in slow motion, right? It was always happening. When who likes being told that what they're doing is not up to the mark, who likes being told in, let's say, black and white terms, in somewhat harsh terms, in somewhat pompous terms, if you like, trying to understand the other side. So that has always been the case. And this is, however, I think the, let's say, I think, other big thing that's happened in the world is the last 20 years at liberal consensus, or the sense that the whole of the world, after the end of the cold world, the whole of the world was going to end up as a liberal democracy, with the possible exception of China. So that has broken down. I mean, you can clearly see that, I mean, it may never have been true, but certainly that sense has broken down. And now there's a sense that there may be other ways for nations to flourish, or other ways for nations to assert themselves, to find their place in the sun, whatever you want to say. And I think, therefore, the kind of things that, let's say, I grew up, taking for granted, or as uncontested goods, things that were uncontestedly good, like freedom of expression, or the right to say anything you want, or the freedom of association, so to speak, right? I can associate it with anybody. I mean, money being a former association, right? So the idea that why should, you know, I be restricted from taking resources from anywhere, right? Those kinds of thought process have certainly got shrunk in their legitimacy, the other competing idea that have come to the fore. Ordinary people have also internalized that. And I think, you know, it would be unfair, or it would be not very honest. If we in society did not also acknowledge our part in the loss of space, to me, it seems it's come from two or three places. One place where it's come from is our own increasing disconnect with our own societies. I mean, our inability to talk to the ordinary concerns of people around us, right? We could talk to the concerns of people like us, but we could not talk to the concerns of the ordinary people, right? I mean, the humorous account, the numerous, humorous episodes in the street fundraising illustrates this, right? So Greenpeace is working on toxic waste and preventing toxic waste from being dumped in India, why are these ships in Allah? One of the standard questions of street fundraisers is, so what are you doing in Allah? Are you building a hospital? Oh, you're greenpeace, say, and do you plant trees? And then you say, no, and will you at least lean the garbage on my street? So this is something that, you know, we have done to ourselves, right? There's certain esoteric vocabulary inside our vocabulary. You've certainly done this process. I would say we should take some of this one. The other thing is, I think, with the professionalization of our sector, the perceived, at least the perceived, if not the real, right? At least the perceived gap between us and our talk has widened. Right? So, I mean, this idea that we are lot-aise-seeping or avocado eating, whatever, right? Young people sitting in cafes or restaurants or whatever. Or going to international conferences, well paid. So as a result, let's say, it's led to a credibility erosion. I think there's also growing, let's say, myth that the sector is about service delivery. Myth is not a good word. Can I have a few lines? It's willfully cultivate it. I mean, and the corporates sort of also perpetuate this, right? I mean, the government is not able to deliver service as well. So, you know, or at cost. Although, if you look at the very successful social welfare infrastructure that's been built in this country, I mean, every one of them has originated in civil society. I mean, every one of those ideas has been made in civil society. In fact, given other kind of an example, like, you know, when I met Dr. Manmohan Singh, when he was a Prime Minister of India, as Greenpeace Executive Director, we had something called the Energy Revolution, an Energy Scenario for India, right? And at that time, we must have been 2004 or something. It had numbers for 2020, when 2030, 2020, right? Some numbers, right? And both Dr. Manmohan Singh and Tuturachavan, who was the PMO Minister, who was there, they thought the numbers are outrageous. They were laughable. But India exceeded those targets in 2020, right? They said, this is all pipe-bremely. So, point I'm trying to make is that the civil society has been visionary of that there's no doubt. I mean, who could have conceived of Mandraiga? Something that we should be, you know, very proud of and something that we should be recognized for. You know, I would say in the 20 years that I have been in civil society. I'm not including the 10 years as a good teacher. I've gone from, say, all my classmates, perceiving what I'm doing as fantastic and good to a bunch of them, thinking I'm India's enemy, right? I mean, so this has happened to us, right? You know, it's quite unfortunate. And this is despite the fact that I think really big and positive changes to our society, to the environment, have come from the do-gooders' service, from the activists, from people like us. So, I mean, just to bring you back to the now, right? To where we are today. So, I mean, in the last, you know, after your stint, at the Asimtimjee Philanthropy, I mean, I know that you delivered Swiggy pizzas for a while, but, you know, trying to see what that side was like. And maybe you have a story there, but there were like three or four kinds of organizations that you helped put together. And all linked to some story at the back, we talked about the warden at the pool, and then there was, you know, we lived coming out of that with the individual fundraising, root bridge coming out of that. And then, what we were just talking about right now, the need for that multicultural dialogue into think in a particular way about the future of its orbit is coming there. And then yet, you know, very quickly, you created those and, you know, stayed a little bit far away from them as well, or gave it its pace to grow, very quickly. So, you know, maybe you want to tell us about that journey. Yeah, so I think around 2018, I reached a point when I was like, when that, you know, mix between fast and going together was kind of coming apart for both myself and 20 ecosystem. That point, I mean, I'm so, I was saying, okay, I mean, I've done five years, I've done my bit. And I have a full of ideas as well. The aftercare, I've enrooted itself in my own experience of looking after or being of living along with those young men. Then, and I think the other thing that, especially my time in Greenpeace, and my time at Greenpeace International, one of the things that brought home to me, is that the complexity of the world was like growing dramatically, the problems that we were encountering, were getting more and more wicked in the design sense, they were getting wicked problems. And, but the minds that we were bringing to the problem, especially the minds in society, were just not keeping pace. We were not getting really sophisticated, right? And it also seemed like it's not a matter of cultivating individual brilliance, but it's a matter of, you know, cultivating a collective, you know, bringing the people so the elephant can be sensed. Right? You're bringing all the perspectives together. So that was the origin of what is now the Socrata's foundation for collective wisdom. And then the fundraising thing, we know that in India, you know, I think I always take this challenge to, to say, raise your money in this country as a good one. That's something. We have a large middle class. We have a large number of people who care about these things. We have a very large number of people who care about even the most, let's say contentious issues in our country. So why can't we build all the things organizations that are rooted and are supported by this community. So like you know BPO is sort of like organizations companies have been able to outsource certain things to BPO's. Can we create an organization that can be a turnkey service provider for retail fundraising services to India? I mean that's the idea of root grid. And then Socrates, I just mentioned this idea of bringing people together and having multiple dialogues and convenings and so on. So there are three or four organizations that you know I was part of the founding team. But I think this time around I was not a serial entrepreneur but a parallel one whatever that means each one of these had a cleave in the long journey of my professional life with whom I have thought about this for many years and they became my co-founders. In fact they became the chief executive if you like and I was more so what accelerated that last bit was you know as it happened you know I discovered two years ago that I had cancer so some of my attention was I think legitimately diverted to looking after my health. So that accelerates the process but I think that's no bad thing. I think it's been wonderful to see these organizations sort of flourish do their own good find support. You know I'm now on these sort of WhatsApp groups of these organizations where there's a lot of chatter. It's been fascinating to watch it and not do anything about it. I think the big shift has been I think the people have co-founded these things with and other leaders of these organizations are still kind enough to you know actually pretend everyone went to want my advice right so it still keeps the old man feeling like he's relevant but I think the big challenge for me has been to learn to give advice then asked only and then except if the advice is not taken up except that it's not that's what it means right it means to be an advisor that's what it means to choose that position and then sort of have the inner discipline to stay there as a kind of health thing as well as fun thing I've spent almost amount of time and energy walking in the last couple of years and I discovered on my sort of pacer app that in 2021. I had 222 this 2023 right 2022 I'd walked 6,950 kilometers so all in Bangalore whether it means not like event or so and COVID happened and during COVID I realized that you could actually do a lot of meetings online but still walking you know so the common part is a favorite one signals are very good it's quiet so you're not disturbing the other people on the call and then I also started taking to doing meetings walking. Yeah so one question is what were some of the influences you know through this entire journey you've talked a little bit about Christmurthy but I know that you know they've been several. Yeah so being quite an interesting set right so Gandhi was a very big influence growing up my father was somewhat Gandhi and through him when he's picked up a reverence to the old man I don't mean my father right not in Gandhi really harder to have reverence for one's own parents yeah so Gandhi was a very big influence and in IIT we're in the library we're like complete works are Gandhi over something I took away stayed with me in the sense of simplicity or whatever else I mean so Gandhi was a big figure non-violent and I think Gandhi's questioning of technology like especially as a student in IIT having someone like Gandhi asking these questions you know I did you know you kind of took technology the answer to everything right I mean you don't bother what the question is for every question technology the answer that was a sort of almost a reason for existence of a place like IIT so Gandhi's questioning of technology as a force for the emancipation of society if you like especially the weakest in society for something that I took quite a lot of heart from and then of course the the Krishna would be the himself and the Krishna would be school 11 years in the school and therefore Krishna would be himself that willingness to question not take anything for granted not follow not take kind deed authority so so that that was something that okay the Buddha Buddha has been a very strong influence and awfully I also appreciate begin to appreciate much more say Ambedkar's connection to to without and to Buddhism on his very conscious choice I mean he did say that I'm born a Hindu but I will not die one you know Mehta Patkar has been someone that I really admired quite a lot courage the ability to really stand with the poor and marginalized and some of the people some of the founders of Greenpeace people not very well known in this country but the international executive director and Greenpeace and I joined man called Gertlipol who sort of flew on a gas balloon across the Berlin Wall from the west to the east and the funny story was as they were flying from the west to the east most people thought they were people escaping the east to the west and were accidentally going the wrong way and they kept showing them saying you know that way to freedom that's all so the kind of let's say somewhat the willingness to play at the edge I mean Gertlipol is a must say quite an important inspiration so the other question I had for you is that the next decade of civil society I mean what is how do you see that unfolding you know what would be you know something that you would say to young leaders emerging who are there to kind of take that forward let's say the game or the situation might appear different but there are some continuities right I mean the change that you need to have has to be built on a continuity I mean on you have to understand what is constant and what is changing and adapt to the change while you know knowing what to do with the constant right so one of the constraints I would say is that what brings about change has not changed right and it's some combination of Seva, Sangha, Nirmar, Chintan you know some combination of these things some combination of actually providing service and helping people some combination of standing you know combining that with some standing up and saying he will not accept this right resisting if you like to some new thought and you know some institution being and I think I would say that people trying to make change today and in the next 10 years must recognize those and must also recognize that change is a complex beast right and it takes all these things acting in some synergy and I think they should recognize that they will never be able to do it all but somehow they'll have to build connections networks they'll are dance with the others and others I think increasingly this is a big change I think we'll increasingly include what looks like the other side the world I think is too far us to not require that or the problems are too wicked for it not to require that so to recognize that you love to collaborate from the beginning and to recognize that it is not about your idea but about being collected and so on it's about everybody bringing their bitch and creating a kind of synthesis and that's really something that you would have to recognize and to watch out I would say for the limits of professionalism as well yes it is a profession yes you can make a career out of it all that is true and that maybe even good things but to recognize that that is not what they came to the sector for it is necessary but not sufficient these are some of the things I would say to young generation and I think other important things there's so much data out there that actually you can test a lot more right you don't have to imagine so much you can combine a vision with testing these are some of the things that I would say and young one other thing which is that as someone who's on this continuously dancing with the wolves right it's tiring and at the end of it like how do you hold yourself right like how do you keep that core alive and not get tired and disillusioned and you know all the rest of it I mean you you're going the fire is warm you know hanging around in the corner is not right it's actually quite exciting I mean and I think recognizing that the other side exists that other points of view exist sometimes and very often the other points of view a dominant. There is a lot of power in their house. I mean so enjoying the fact that one is a devet, right? And will always be. I think it's fun. I mean, at least I've had fun. And I think it can be fun. But one must accept that that's the nature of this. So I really think that increasingly in our world, this black and white don't exist anymore. - Oh, thank you, Anand. This has been like a fascinating conversation. - Thank you, Deva. It's been, as I get older, I get more and more gathered as an opportunity to have a long conversation and to reflect on one's life. I enjoyed it as much as you saved it. - Thank you. - Thank you. - Grassroots Nation is a podcast from Rohini Nilekini Philanthropies. For more information, go to RohiniNilekini Philanthropies.org or join the conversation on social media at R&P_Foundation. Stay tuned for our next episode and thank you for listening to Grassroots Nation.