CHANGE MANTRA
India's ongoing socio-economic transformation is enabling unprecedented citizen agency, making them key stakeholders in the growth process. EPISODE #92
Dear Reader,
A very Happy Monday to you.
Addressing the National Law School convocation last week, Nandan Nilkeani, co-founder, chairman of Infosys and champion of digital public goods like Aadhaar, made several profound observations on driving societal change.
Exhorting the graduating class to be stakeholders in the much needed socio-economic transformation of India, he said:
“Possibly the most profound learning through my journeys is this: whatever new approaches, systems and structures we seek to make, the fabric of new ideas must enable citizens' agency.
By ‘agency’ I mean a sense of control and power over one’s life and an ability to not just have your voice heard but shape your realities and your future.”
It set me thinking. I realised that you could extend Nandan’s reasoning to explain the ongoing socio-economic transformation, which began in a trickle at the turn of the Millennium and accelerating at an incredible pace in recent years.
Every success is breeding citizen agency, rebuilding the trust quotient about public services and providing inspiration to redouble efforts.
The energy this is generating is enabling new policies to overcome resistance, especially from entrenched power brokers—who in the past have undone all the good work. So this week I explore this idea and have dubbed it the ‘Change Mantra’.
The spontaneous and inspiring cover picture of children, also India’s future, enjoying their accomplishment after scaling a peak, was taken by Mitul Grover and sourced from Unsplash. Thank you Mitul.
A big shoutout to Gautam, Arvind, Premasundaran, Aashish, Vandana and Kapil for your informed responses, kind appreciation and amplification of last week’s column. Gratitude also to all those who responded on Twitter and Linkedin. Reader participation and amplification is key to growing this newsletter community. And, many thanks to readers who hit the like button😊.
CITIZEN AGENCY
As already flagged in my introductory letter, addressing the convocation ceremony of the National Law School last week, Nandan Nilekani, who helmed the game changing Aadhaar project and co-founded Infosys, made some profound observations. Not surprising given the way the man thinks.
I was struck by the following:
“The fabric of new ideas must enable citizens' agency.
By ‘agency’ I mean a sense of control and power over one’s life and an ability to not just have your voice heard but shape your realities and your future.”
And then added:
“We are a society still stepping out of colonisation - of mind, body and heart. We brace ourselves to receive something - from our employers, government, and society. We hope it will be good, but often it is bad.
Most times, we are not connected to our power to do something, shape something, or even say something.
For the young, this is toxic because this is how they are made, and a society that does not empower them to act gradually disillusions them.
So all our new ideas must give people agency - agency makes ideas stick and grow. It is the most irreversible element of an idea.”
To overcome this alienation from the state, Nandan advanced his solution:
“We need this form of social engineering—this new leadership with the agency at its heart.”
“By ‘agency’ I mean a sense of control and power over one’s life and an ability to not just have your voice heard but shape your realities and your future.”
And then laid down the principles to guide institutions in the future. He framed it in the context of the judiciary, but the idea, so profound, can be extended to all:
“We must go even further and design the new future systems - of business, government and society - to create minimal friction, design for diversity, and prevent issues from arising in the first place.
Systems must be designed for trust and not the absence of it.”
Sharing the link in case you wish to watch the speech. Nandan’s address begins from the time stamp 1:26:00.
There is not much Nandan is saying that is not known to us. But the brilliance of genius is observing the obvious to make profound observations, while lesser mortals like us miss flagging the mundane in the first place.
He is also making the considered point that citizens need to be stakeholders for any idea or policy to be productionised. In short, they can’t be outside looking in, which is what most of India has been doing for the better part the first 75 years of Independence.
And for them to be stakeholders they need to experience the change, gain from it and hence be in a position to influence it. In this way the system will instil trust in the user; at the moment our instinctive reaction, every time we deal with some institution, is that we will end up paying some scalper to avail of a public utility—promoting retail corruption. The friction of use is a killer.
However, if these metrics are assured, citizens stay invested.
One clear way is to provide proof of concept. I believe, in little over the last decade India has begun to deliver on this promise, rebuilding the compact between the state and society.
It will be key to the country realising its true potential.
Monetising Identity
This journey of restoring the trust quotient with its citizens began in 2009 with the implementation of Aadhaar—the unique 12-digit identity provided to all residents of India. Looking back it turned out to be a solid foundation.
Solving for identity was the first step in the empowerment—looking back you can recall our struggle to prove identity in official firms by seeking out stamps of officials; imagine how this was impossible for most of India.
Aadhaar, also India’s first Digital Public Good (DPG), has since been monetised to create several more digital assets that have similarly disrupted and solved for payments, individual consent, delivery of covid jabs, ecommerce (Open Network for Digital Commerce), secure exchange of personal data (Account Aggregator) and sachet credit (Open Credit Enablement Network).
As a regular reader you would have noted that I repeatedly trace this journey of India’s unique digital economy. The latest instance was in the newsletter published on 15 August—India’s Independence Day—where I laid out the promise of Digital Democracy.
Hence, I will not repeat myself. Instead, I am sharing the link below in case you wish to re-read it.
Also including the related post of Capital Calculus on StratNewsGlobal, where I spoke to the brilliant Pramod Varma, chief architect of Aadhaar and tech evangelist.
Ideally, read the newsletter and then watch Pramod unpack the powerful idea of empowerment enabled by India’s unique digital commons.
Sab Ka Sath, Sab ka Vikas
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi coined this slogan, most believed it was just that. After all we have been hearing different versions of the same claim by past leaders.
But there were several distinct differences from the past, which handed the incumbent regime an advantage.
One, India, since the turn of the Millennium, has rapidly morphed into an aspirational society. Not only did India economically trade-up (in a relative sense, wherein you were cycling instead of walking, driving instead of cycling and so on), but it also underwent a demographic shift—65% of India was less than 35 years of age. Both of them were a deadly combination in generating aspirations.
Second, high profile judicial scrutiny of big ticket scams in sale of coal mining rights, telecom spectrum and so on, had made the state more cautious about graft. As a result, the downside risks to corruption had gone up.
Third, the launch of Aadhaar was, as pointed out above, a game changer. Combined with the bank account (Jandhan) and an individual’s mobile it generated an economic GPS which enabled government to cut out leakages and pilferages by intermediaries. During the two years of covid-19, when such Direct Benefits Transfers peaked, the savings to the national exchequer is over Rs 2 trillion!
In short the means existed. All that the Modi regime has done is to provide the political will.
Even its worst critics will concede that India has dramatically scaled its ability to deliver basic services such as electricity, drinking water, subsidised food, financial inclusion, highways, rural roads and health insurance. Every success is breeding citizen agency, rebuilding the trust quotient about public services and strengthening the voice of the user.
All of this contributes to the citizen agency that Nandan enunciated in his convocation speech. It is then clear that the new stakeholders have begun to influence their future and consequently India’s. In a democracy this means more voices and noise, especially since aspirations always exceed reality.
It is imperative therefore to provide a just institutional framework to guide decision making, particularly in dealing with tricky trade-offs like development versus environment.
Indeed, Nandan has the last word on this:
“We can and should imagine fundamentally new processes with citizens at the centre and bring technology, community and human ingenuity to unleash a new era of the rule of law and meaningful access to justice.”
Recommended Viewing
Sharing the latest post of Capital Calculus on StratNewsGlobal.
This time I put the spotlight on the Account Aggregator framework. AA, operates like a bank and is also licensed by Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The difference is that they act as an intermediary facilitating a secure exchange of consent-based information between a provider and a user.
In the process it turns information into a collateral on par with an asset—setting the stage for a dramatic pivot from asset-based lending to one driven by cash-flows.
The guest for the seventh episode was B Mahesh, co-founder and CEO of Sahamati, the AA alliance.
The conversation was a fantastic learning experience. Was blown away by the immense potential of this framework. At the moment 1.1 billion accounts are AA enabled. Yet only 1.5 million are active. There is a potential waiting to be tapped. Mahesh believes AA will top UPI, which recorded little under 7 billion transactions in August!
Sharing the link below:
Hope you enjoyed the episode and bought-in to the idea of 'Credit Democracy'.
Recommended Reading
Sharing the latest work of this stunning young talent, Akriti Sondhi. As a regular reader you would recall some of her work has been used as the cover picture of this newsletter.
Her latest project, Rainbow Puddles, got written about in PetaPixel, a leading global journal on cutting edge photography.
“The Paris-based photographer stumbled upon the idea for the series when she was simply strolling down the street on a rainy day back in 2019.
Marvelling at the phenomenon known as ‘rainbow puddles’ — the mixing of oils and water on pavement — Sondhi began to ponder about larger and not so marvelous mixtures of the two substances.”
Sharing a sample below:
Click this link if you wish to read the entire piece.
That’s all for this week.
Till we meet again next week. Stay safe.
Although this is a different write up about something new, the underlying message of empowerment continues Anil. Another observation is that all recommended steps for a dynamic national growth, are aimed at maximum inclusion and the lower costs of boarding are crucial for that to happen. As correctly identified, the human capital of 65% of the population below the age of 35 years, of a total of 1.35 billion people, is an ace in the hands of the nation, to be successfully encashed in the coming decades. India is at the crossroads of destiny and as mentioned by Mr. Nilekani, an able leadership will be able to guide the development of human resources. Very well written 👏. Keep enlightening us Anil.
Dear Anil,
A very informative and interesting article!!
It is always a pleasure to listen to Nandan Nilekani.He also spoke about the 21st century skills which are an integral part of the New Education Policy, 2020.
The transformation is taking place in our economy though the pace is slow, but the future definitely belongs to India !!