Manthan Samvaad 2016 - Part 1
The first thought that came into my mind after hearing this event name is about spirituality. The word “Manthan” I relate with was thinking about something by going into the depth. The kind of image I was having in my mind for “Manthan Samvaad” is of monks having some deep discussions. In reality, the discussion was deep but not between the monks but between the intellectuals. This is the second time I attended this event and because of its awesomeness, I am unable to stop myself giving a space to it in my blog. The world should hear about it and about its talks. I never saw such diversity on the subjects in a single forum.
The event started its first talk with a personality who known to be the savior of the country in bad times Dr YV Reddy (Former Governor , Reserve Bank of India) the topic was Centre-state Relations. Through his talk, he emphasized on various things like how the planning commission works? How the state and centre decided about the money? How the flow of money governed by the government while distributing to states? He emphasized on points like how government should make sure that every state should be equally unhappy note my point equally unhappy rather than equally happy because whatever is provided from the centre to state, states will always ask for more. The planning changes every five years as the government changes. There is more cooperation between ministries than between state as whole. Before negotiating with third party in a country there are challenges negotiating in between themselves. The talk revolved around the various outcomes, challenges, problems and solutions.
The Second talk was from Aakar Patel (Author , Columnist) on the topic “English & its influence on our national priorities”. He impressed me as an audience with his beautiful Urdu with which he started the talk. I was amazed to see him speaking in Urdu with full on action later understanding the mood of the audience he continued with English. There was the depth in his talk which revolves around us the 2.5% of the people who use English as a first language. He pointed out how newspapers and print media have changed in last few decades. Media wants to show only news in which upper class is having an interest, there is coverage for indirani mukerjea but media forget to cover tribal belts. There is coverage about a single death but no coverage for death in Kashmir and North East. He took an example how none of the cases is been taken by the centre for violations and killings in these areas. He went on and on. The one point that I liked about his mentioning of the situation why country listen to this higher class English speaking people because they can communicate in common language despite of belonging to a different part of the country but in case of lower poor class people they do not have options to communicate for common cause, a poor from Telangana will speak in telugu a poor from Gujrat in gujrati and a poor from Karnataka in kannada this is how they can’t raise voice for common cause.
The next talk came from Bezwada Wilson(Activist and Raman Magsaysay Awardee) on “Democracy , Human Dignity & Manual Scavenging” which was so powerful that the audience given him a standing ovation. The powerful words he expressed cannot be explained, the emotion he carried out through his talk cannot be described. If you really want to see the pain for Dalits and lower class people you have to meet him not some politician. He described his journey fighting with the system for the upliftment of his people. He cursed the Manual Scavenging and asked us to answer why a human need to carry waste of another human. If there is a technology to go in space why government not introducing it for scavenging purpose? He flew with a thought process by involving each and every audience and questioned the system who still see people in a caste system. If there is no cast why people still add names “Dalit,maha Dalit” in front of posts ? Why people still not ready to accept the equality? He even raised a question that earlier people told them what to do and now they are telling what to eat? He raised questions of why the people who cannot afford a toilet has to pay for it and who can afford use it for free? He raised questions on why people can spent such a huge amount of money on swach bharath abhiyaan but cannot give a basic necessities to the people who are doing this service from 5000 years not even they got any credit from the society but still seen as untouchables.
I really saw the pain he was talking about for his people, how it takes continuous effort to him in understanding why they are forced to do such things?He talked about education , he talked about governance , he talked about the process of courts in India, he talked about government bodies and he talked how they differentiate it in accepting the truth and neglecting completion of the promises what has been told by them.
Keep an eye on the blog will be posting about experiences of below talks soon in next articles:-
1. Sofia Ashraf ( Rapper & Singer) on Rhyme & Reason: A musical Autobiography
2. Josy Joseph(Journalist,National Security Editor, The Hindu) on Vultures of Modern India
3. Manoj Saxena(Expert in Machine Learning,Venture Capitalist) on How Artificial Intelligence is rapidly changing the way we work .live and play
4. Pramath Raj Sinha(Founder, Ashoka University) on World Class Education in India
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