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Ep 264: Barun Mitra, Philosopher and Practitioner
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Ep 264: Barun Mitra, Philosopher and Practitioner

Understanding the World in a Bottom-Up Way

In this section, Amit Varma introduces the topic of understanding the world through experience and intellectual knowledge. He shares a story about Narendra Modi's experiential approach to governance and how it has its limitations. He also talks about the opposite problem of imprisoning oneself in an ivory tower due to intellectual arrogance.

Modi's Experiential Approach

  • Modi's friend shared a story about his childhood experience with electricity that shaped his approach to governance.
  • Modi's experiential approach has limitations as there are things that one cannot understand through direct experience or mental frameworks.
  • This led to huge blunders like demonetization as he lacked mental frameworks that would help him make sense of complex issues.

Intellectual Arrogance vs. Imprisonment in Ivory Tower

  • The opposite problem is imprisoning oneself in an ivory tower due to intellectual arrogance, which leads to a top-down way of thinking.
  • Nehru's intellectual arrogance led him to believe that he could engineer society from the top down, while Modi thinks that what he has learned from his experience is all that needs to be learned.
  • A true understanding of the world can only come in a bottom-up way, where we search for truth by interacting with reality.

Introduction of Guest Speaker

  • Amit Varma introduces his guest speaker, Dada Money Baron Mitra, as someone who is both a man of ideas and action.

Introduction

The host introduces the guest, Baron, and discusses his accomplishments. They talk about how Baron's ideas are informed by ground realities and his admiration for Mahatma Gandhi.

Background of the Guest

  • Baron participated in a movement to get property rights for tribals using modern technology.
  • His ideas are informed by ground realities and he admires Mahatma Gandhi who made our freedom movement into a mass movement by taking his ideas to the people.

Importance of Public Policy

The host talks about how Baron's clarity comes from his curiosity and engagement comes from his genuine empathy. They discuss the importance of public policy.

Understanding Public Policy

  • The important word in the phrase "public policy" is not policy but public.
  • To understand public policy, one has to go past the abstract and look at the concrete.

Advertisement for Writing Course

The host promotes an online writing course that he teaches.

Information About Writing Course

  • The course is called "The Art of Clear Writing."
  • It costs Rs 10,000 plus GST or about $150 USD per month.
  • There are workshops, a newsletter showcasing student work, and a vibrant community.
  • The course consists of four webinars spread over four weekends where Amit shares all he knows about clear writing.

Interview with Baron

Amit interviews Baron about his life experiences and perspectives on various topics.

Childhood and Early Years

  • Baron grew up before the age of smartphones and sensory influences.
  • He rarely looks back at history except to figure out how it will shape or influence what he does next.

Importance of Ground Realities

  • Baron's ideas are informed by ground realities.
  • The important word in the phrase "public policy" is not policy but public.
  • To understand public policy, one has to go past the abstract and look at the concrete.

Mahatma Gandhi's Influence

  • Baron admires Mahatma Gandhi who made our freedom movement into a mass movement by taking his ideas to the people.

Clarity and Engagement

  • Baron's clarity comes from his curiosity.
  • Baron is open to challenge, which contributes to his engagement.
  • Conversations with friends can reveal new insights about them.

Childhood and Education

In this section, the speaker talks about his childhood and education experiences.

Primary Education in a Bengali School

  • The speaker's primary education was in a Bengali medium school.
  • He studied in a local school like most of the children in those days.

Naxalite Movement and Shifting Schools

  • The Naxalite movement happened in the late 60s, which led to schools being shut down.
  • The speaker's father shifted him to his uncle who was then living in Madhya Pradesh.
  • This was challenging for the speaker as he had no knowledge of English or Hindi at that time.

Learning English and Returning to Kolkata

  • The speaker learned English during his time in Madhya Pradesh.
  • He returned to Kolkata for his higher secondary education and pursued engineering afterward.
  • Engineering was one of two career options available to him at that time.

College Experience

In this section, the speaker talks about his college experience.

Studying Engineering at REC Suratkal

  • The speaker went to REC Suratkal for engineering, which was located on a beach.
  • It was an incredible experience because it was outside of home and alone in a cosmopolitan place.

Problem Solving Skills Learned from Engineering

  • Engineering is about solving problems by breaking them down into steps.
  • This skill has been useful for the speaker throughout his career.

The Importance of Empathy and Compassion

In this section, the speaker discusses the importance of empathy and compassion in understanding people who may not see things the same way.

Innate Compassion and Empathy

  • When we are born, we are blind to a lot of things because we haven't experienced them yet.
  • Teachers who show compassion, reach out, empathize, and understand can help us become more aware of others who may not see things the same way.
  • Some people may be innately compassionate and empathetic while others may need experiences to help them see the world differently.

Intellectual Discourse vs. People-Centered Thinking

  • Too often, thinkers make the mistake of thinking about everything at an intellectual level instead of focusing on people.
  • The speaker emphasizes that everything is really about people and reaching out to connect with them.
  • Intellectual discourse can create a sense of knowledge and arrogance that blinds us to other perspectives.

Public Policy and Considering the Public

  • The speaker discusses his realization that public policy should consider the public rather than just focusing on creating rational policies.
  • He emphasizes that citizens should have a handle on any issue they care about as members of the public.
  • Education and awareness carry in them seeds of arrogance that can lead to blindness towards people.

What are we teaching and to whom?

In this section, the speaker talks about his approach to teaching and learning. He emphasizes the importance of recognizing mistakes and engaging with people who have different perspectives.

Teaching Approach

  • The speaker questions what is being taught and to whom.
  • He tends to think on his feet and deviates from prepared texts, which can be risky.
  • The speaker recognizes mistakes as opportunities for growth.
  • He engages with people who have different perspectives, even if they disagree fundamentally.
  • Engaging with others helps him push himself out of his comfort zone.

Breaking Out of Our Own Cocoons

In this section, the speaker discusses the importance of breaking out of our own cocoons or safe zones. He believes that engaging with people who have different perspectives is fundamental in today's context.

Importance of Breaking Out

  • The speaker believes that breaking out of our own cocoons is fundamental in today's context.
  • Engaging with people who have different perspectives helps us learn and grow.
  • Everyone looks at the world through a different lens, making engagement an exciting way to take on new challenges.

Understanding Local Needs

In this section, the speaker shares an anecdote about how local needs can differ from external assumptions. He emphasizes the importance of understanding local needs when designing interventions.

Local Needs vs External Assumptions

  • The speaker shares an anecdote about how local needs differed from external assumptions.
  • Understanding local needs is crucial when designing interventions.
  • People's needs and desires are specific and inaccessible to outsiders.

Introduction

The speaker talks about his interest in public policy and how he realized the importance of winning over the other side instead of defeating them.

Interest in Public Policy

  • In the late 80s and early 90s, India was liberalizing.
  • The speaker had a clearer idea of where he wanted to head and became interested in public policy as a way to shape the future.

Winning Over vs Defeating

  • Initially, the speaker focused on defeating the other side in debates.
  • After 10-15 years, he realized that winning over the other side was more important than defeating them.

First Direct Experience with Mass Movement

The speaker talks about his first direct experience with a mass movement led by Sharad Joshi that changed his perspective on public policy.

Sharad Joshi's Movement

  • In 2000, the speaker came across Sharad Joshi's movement for farmers' rights.
  • It was his first direct experience with a mass movement.
  • Sharad Joshi's ability to connect with people beyond intellectual dimensions inspired them to strive for change.

Importance of Political Capital

  • The policy can change if we can build political capital by taking people or significant numbers of people with us.
  • This realization turned him from focusing on policy to public policy.

Lesson Learned from Sharad Joshi

The speaker talks about what he learned from Sharad Joshi's movement and how it changed his perspective on public policy.

Importance of Practitioner's Perspective

  • Sharad Joshi was not primarily an intellectual but a practitioner who pursued the issue beyond the intellectual plane.
  • The speaker learned that intellectual dimensions are important, but they need to be complemented by a practitioner's perspective.

Conclusion

  • The speaker learned that winning over the other side is more important than defeating them in debates.
  • He realized the importance of building political capital by taking people with us to bring about change.
  • He learned that intellectual dimensions are important, but they need to be complemented by a practitioner's perspective.

The Legacy of Sharad Joshi

In this section, the speaker talks about Sharad Joshi and his legacy. He discusses how people still remember him years after his death and how they hold him in high regard.

The Legacy of Sharad Joshi

  • People still give wedding cards with pictures of Sharad Joshi instead of gods.
  • The speaker is amazed at the level of bonding that people had with Sharad Joshi.
  • The speaker wonders how such a deep relationship was built with Sharad Joshi and contrasts it with today's social media connections.

Context on Sharad Joshi's Movement

In this section, the speaker provides context on Sharad Joshi's movement. He explains how he built a mass movement of farmers who were asking for the state to get out of the way.

Context on Sharad Joshi's Movement

  • Sharad Joshi was a great leader bureaucrat who came back to India in the late 70s and went into farming.
  • He realized that most agricultural problems had been created by the state and built a mass movement of farmers who were asking for the state to get out of their way.
  • Episode 86 explains this movement in detail.

Tale of Two Satyagrahas

In this section, the speaker talks about two satyagrahas. One is related to bt cotton while another one is related to protesting against illegal crops.

Tale of Two Satyagrahas

  • Cotton crops across India started failing in the 1990s due to pests like bowl worms.
  • Farmers had to use increasing amounts of pesticide to keep them at bay, and there was so much more labor involved.
  • Farmers heard of something called bt cotton which was a genetically modified kind of cotton that was being used across the world completely safe but illegal in India.
  • In 2002, all cotton crops in Gujarat failed except the 10,000 acres with bt cotton. The government wanted to burn these crops, but Sharad Joshi took around 10,000 farmers with him to Gujarat to stand with their fellow farmers.
  • The ban on bt cotton was lifted by the Washbury government.

Journey from Marine Engineer to Public Policy

In this section, the speaker talks about his journey from being a marine engineer to public policy. He discusses his experiences sailing around the world and how his views on the world developed over time.

Journey from Marine Engineer to Public Policy

  • The speaker was a marine engineer who sailed around the world before getting into public policy.
  • He didn't have any fixed ideas or ideological views when he was in college because received wisdom around him was flawed.

Introduction to Political Upbringing

In this section, the speaker talks about his political upbringing and how it influenced his views.

Growing up in a Political Family

  • The speaker grew up in a family that was very political from both sides.
  • His mother's side was actively involved with left politics in Bengal, while his father's side was deeply into Congress.
  • The speaker grew up anti-CPM or left in Bengal and Congress.

Father's Change During Emergency Time

  • The speaker saw his father change during the emergency time of 77 or 76.
  • He experienced the excitement of David versus Goliath thing.
  • The emergency made him curious to look and read to try to figure out what's happening all around because it's happening all around.

Impact of Emergency on Speaker

In this section, the speaker talks about how the emergency impacted him and expanded his sense of curiosity.

Turmoil During Emergency

  • The turmoil during the emergency happened in physical space which made an impact on the speaker.
  • Although there was less access to books and no internet in the 80s, reading was natural for him as he came from a family that read a lot.
  • The emergency made him wonder how different people can be and how they survive in such diverse situations.

Marine Engineering Experience

  • The marine engineering experience gave him a chance to see the world at no cost.
  • It increased his sense of curiosity or inquisitiveness about the gulf between different cultures.
  • His first introduction coupled with this experience was when he visited Canada for one of his ports.

Eye Opener Experience

In this section, the speaker talks about an eye-opener experience he had while visiting Canada for one of his ports.

Introduction to Western Culture

  • The speaker's first introduction to western culture was when he visited Canada for one of his ports.
  • He found that the people, roads, and everything else were actually as depicted in Bollywood films.
  • This experience coupled with his experience in a remote village made him realize that there is something going on that we need to grapple with.

Introduction to Public Policy

In this section, the speaker talks about his interest in public policy and how he discovered Julian Simon's work on population growth and its relation to economics.

Discovering Julian Simon

  • The speaker discovered Julian Simon's work by chance while reading at the British Council or American Library in Calcutta.
  • He learned that Simon had won a bet in 1990 that the prices of certain commodities would decline despite an increase in population.
  • The speaker was impressed by Simon's ideas and wrote to him, beginning a correspondence that lasted until Simon's death.

Free Market Public Policy

  • Through his correspondence with Simon, the speaker became interested in free market public policy and free market environmentalism.
  • His focus was on understanding how markets and economics could be applied to environmental issues, which he saw as a major challenge for public policy.
  • Despite having no formal education in economics or environment, the speaker felt free to ask questions and explore these topics from an outsider perspective.

Early Influences

In this section, the speaker talks about two turning points in his journey towards public policy. The first was gaining confidence in his ability to think and write through writing for newspapers. The second was reading Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" and Julian Simon's work.

Confidence Through Writing

  • Writing for newspapers gave the speaker confidence in his ability to think and write.
  • Editors may not have agreed with what he wrote, but they thought it was new and related to the liberalizing tendency of society at that time.

Turning Points

  • Reading Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" was a turning point for the speaker in the mid-80s.
  • He accidentally came across Julian Simon's work while reading other recommendations from Rand and others.

Public Policy Think Tank

In this section, the speaker talks about his involvement with a public policy think tank called Liberty Institute during the 90s. He discusses how exciting it was to be involved in so many issues and campaigns during that time.

Exciting Times

  • During the 90s, the speaker was involved in many issues such as intellectual property, environment, climate change, WTO trade, etc.
  • Being involved in so many issues gave him an opportunity to learn something new.

Grassroots Organizations

In this section, the speaker talks about discovering grassroots organizations that were focused on making changes from a people-centered perspective. He mentions one organization called ARCH that was particularly inspiring to him.

People-Centered Focus

  • The speaker discovered organizations that were focused on making changes from a people-centered perspective.
  • ARCH, a grassroots organization in Gujarat, was particularly inspiring to the speaker.

Yoshi's Movement

In this section, the speaker talks about how he became involved with the Yoshi's movement and how it changed his perspective on public policy. He discusses how the movement showed him that change could happen from the ground up.

Change From the Ground Up

  • The Yoshi's movement showed the speaker that change could happen from the ground up.
  • The speaker realized that what he saw with ARCH was not an exception but could be the rule.

Understanding Policy Change and the Importance of Practitioners

In this section, the speaker discusses two key learnings related to policy change. The first is related to forest rights movements in India, which led to a policy change recognizing the rights of tribal and indigenous communities living in forest areas. The second learning is that legislative change is incremental and never perfect. The speaker emphasizes the importance of practitioners in implementing policies.

Forest Rights Movement

  • Archway was deeply involved in the forest rights movement for tribal people.
  • The government passed an act in 2005 recognizing the rights of tribal and indigenous communities living in forest areas.
  • Although more people's rights need recognition, some progress has been made through using satellite imagery and GPS technology.

Importance of Practitioners

  • Shahrukh Joshi was a practitioner who made a difference by implementing policies.
  • Engineers are practitioners who play an important role in implementing policies.
  • Gandhi is an ideal practitioner who embodies the importance of putting ideas into practice.

Archwini Forest Rights Movements

In this section, the speaker talks about his observation on counter-intuitive ideas and how he learned that people from their lived experience can arrive at similar ideas. He also discusses the misconception of population density and poverty.

Counter-Intuitive Ideas

  • Every voluntary interaction between two people is a positive sum game.
  • Spontaneous order is the way societies, languages, and cultures work.
  • Farmers and forest leaders hold identical ideas to the speaker except that those ideas come from lived experience.

Population Density Misconception

  • The belief that population is the greatest problem in India has been incentivized by others.
  • There is no correlation between population density and poverty.
  • Coercive policies on common people are crimes against humanity.

Ayn Rand's Influence

In this section, the speaker talks about Ayn Rand's influence on Twitter and how it has become fashionable to judge her work without reading it.

Fashionable Judgement

  • It has become fashionable to judge Ayn Rand's work without reading it.
  • The smallest minorities are individuals which we should all internalize.
Video description

Intellectuals need to get out of their ivory towers and take their ideas to the people, learning from them in the process. Barun Mitra joins Amit Varma in episode 264 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about what he learnt from his decades combining reflection and activism. Also check out: 1. Barun Mitra on Twitter, and at The Print, Indian Express and Pragati. Also, a bio. 2. India's Agriculture Crisis -- Episode 140 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Barun Mitra and Kumar Anand). 3. The Anti-Defection Law -- Episode 13 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Barun Mitra). 4. Sell the Tiger to Save It -- Barun Mitra. 5. Lessons From an Ankhon Dekhi Prime Minister -- Amit Varma. 6. Nehru’s Debates -- Episode 262 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh and Adeel Hussain). 7. The State of Our Farmers -- Episode 86 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Gunvant Patil). 8. Farmers, Technology and Freedom of Choice: A Tale of Two Satyagrahas -- Amit Varma. 9. Down to Earth -- Sharad Joshi. 10. The Ultimate Resource -- Julian Simon. 11. The Simon-Ehrlich Wager. 12. Population Is Not a Problem, but Our Greatest Strength -- Amit Varma. 13. Too Many People? -- Nicholas Eberstadt. 14. Atlas Shrugged -- Ayn Rand. 15. Ayn Rand on Amazon. 16. ARCH-Vahini and ARCH Gujarat. 17. The Double 'Thank-You' Moment -- John Stossel. 18. Spontaneous Order. 19. The Emergency: A Personal History -- Coomi Kapoor. 20. Understanding Gandhi. Part 1: Mohandas -- Episode 104 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ramachandra Guha). 21. Understanding Gandhi. Part 2: Mahatma -- Episode 105 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ramachandra Guha). 22. Romulus Whitaker on Wikipedia, YouTube and Amazon. 23. The Skeptical Environmentalist -- Bjorn Lomborg. 24. The Better Angels of Our Nature -- Steven Pinker. 25. The Three Languages of Politics -- Arnold Kling. 26. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (Vasant Dhar in conversation with Jonathan Haidt). 27. Online Disinhibition Effect. 28. Memories and Things -- Episode 195 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aanchal Malhotra). 29. Think Again -- Adam Grant. 30. Democracy in Pakistan -- Episode 79 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pranay Kotasthane and Hamsini Hariharan). 31. The Use of Knowledge in Society -- Friedrich Hayek. 32. The Trees -- Philip Larkin. 33. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. 34. The Mahatma and the Poet -- The letters between Gandhi and Tagore, compiled by Sabyasachi Bhattacharya. 35. Gora -- Rabindranath Tagore. 36. The Home and the World -- Rabindranath Tagore. 37. The Miracle of Calcutta -- Manubehn Gandhi. 38. Lakshmi: An Introduction -- Devdutt Pattanaik. 39. A Godless Congregation -- Amit Varma. 40. Hind Swaraj -- MK Gandhi. 41. Flying Spaghetti Monster. 42. Every Act of Government Is an Act of Violence -- Amit Varma. 43. Taxes Should Be Used for Governance, Not Politics -- Amit Varma. 44. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on Covid-19: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. 45. India Awakes. Check out Amit’s online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It’s free!

Ep 264: Barun Mitra, Philosopher and Practitioner | YouTube Video Summary | Video Highlight