Last month while covering the flood from Western Maharashtra, I shot 3300 photos & wrote around 10,000 words. After traveling several villages & talking to hundreds of families, I’ve made a few observations.
We’ve to be much better. What’s the use of those qualifications if your research & innovations don’t help the most affected people?
The students must learn about the context. You can’t keep working for the betterment of the top 1% saying you achieved it, it’s your merit, or it pays. Trickle-down economics has never worked & please don’t add more case studies to the known fact. Make the model of capitalist education obsolete.
Education has to be democratized. Since several graduates turn away from innovating for the society, there has to be a mechanism to ensure that research is not restricted only to the capitalist hubs of Delhi, Mumbai & other metro cities. Education should not be restricted to the privileged.
Smash Patriarchy. Be it any crisis, it’s the women & the children who suffer the most in the rural. We won’t be able to solve these problems by mere hashtags, tweets & clicks. It’s high time people start working on the ground. Get to the roots of the problem. Identify community members who are doing incredible work, learn from them & help them reach more people.
Don’t just write your papers to get degrees. That’s just a big congratulations then. Do action-based research. Let your work start a discussion. Don’t be a parachute journalist or researcher. Listen to what the people have to say. If you don’t understand how to go about this, here’s a simple trick. Ask the affected people, what is one societal odd you don’t want to see in this world? Collect the answers & I am sure it will speak volumes.
It takes everybody. Go talk to the kids about climate change. Teach your skills to the marginalised. You will learn much more when you help others. Don’t just work on your goal, that’s underestimating your skills & capabilities. Be much more than your profession.
Inspire the next generation. Show them that yes, a better world is possible & we can be much better. Level up the benchmark & rise up.