King's Business School hosts: Dr. Raghuram Rajan and Sam Pitroda A report by Sayali Marathe
The National Indian Students and Alumni Union UK held its Annual India Townhall at King’s College London on the 23rd of October 2019. Each year, NISAU organises perspective-based talks and invites prominent speakers to give their ideas and quite literally, perspective. On this occasion, the two esteemed guests present for discussion were Dr. Raghuram Rajan and Sam Pitroda and they spoke in-depth about Gandhi’s ideas and their relevance in present-day politics.
Dr. Rajan is a prominent Indian economist who served as the 23rd Governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 2013 to 2016. Having changed hats between various roles, Dr. Rajan provided his insight on the economics of today’s politics. On the other hand, Pitroda is a telecom engineer, philanthropist, and entrepreneur; he was raised with Gandhian values and thus, weighed sides on the Gandhian.
The event started with a brief overview of the event’s organisers and hosts: NISAU and King’s College London. Dr. Kamini Gupta, Lecturer in International Business & Comparative Management at King’s College London, then took to the stage to give her two cents on the matter, and introduce the topic and the speakers. Sam Pitroda and Dr. Raghuram Rajan then took turns to address the crowd in their much-awaited and edifying speeches.
Mr. Pitroda began by giving the audience an insight into his childhood. He explained how the principles of Gandhi were instrumental in making him the person that he is today. “Gandhi is more relevant than ever today; the world is at a crossroads because of connectivity,” explained Mr. Pitroda with urgency in his voice. He went on to explain the power of connectivity facing global crises and touched upon some major protests going on.
On the subject of India, he expressed grave concern for the state of India’s democracy. He made his view clear: to stabilise India’s democracy, the current government needs to use Gandhian ideals to decentralise in order to liberate ideas and democracy. He ended his speech on a thoughtful note with, “We need to fight propaganda and get Gandhi back.”
Upon Raghuram Rajan’s ascension to the podium, the room fell silent: anticipation filled the air. He first echoed the same concerns as Mr. Pitroda about India’s failing democracy. He believes that Gandhi’s ideas about democracy are vibrant and important because they emphasised dialogue. Furthermore, these ideas banished the concept of centralisation or grouping under a single theme or idea because the diversity of the nation. At the same time, he addressed other problems currently plaguing the economy; especially, economic growth.
To discuss solutions, he delved into a controversial question: is India better off becoming authoritarian? He, himself, condemns authoritarianism, however, as a hypothetical question, he believes it’s a pipe dream to even think about going back on democracy to achieve economic growth. He ended his reflection with a solution of his own. He suggested the invention of a new model of democracy for growth would strengthen India.
After this, the floor was thrown open for questions for both guests: the hosts and audience engaged with each other with much enthusiasm. The guests were more than obliging and answered every question with excitement. Many of the questions, unfortunately, revolved more around the current state of Indian politics than the prescribed topic.
Nonetheless, it proved to be an exciting give and take of information -- the audience was extremely thrilled to get their questions answered. A suggestion for the hosts for next time, however, would be to give a chance for the audience to ask more questions -- both hostesses took up at least 4 questions and barely ending up with enough time for enough questions. Apart from this, they were unable to give attention to people in the back or the balcony.
NISAU did an excellent job of handling the entries and the lines outside Bush House were extremely indicative of how popular the event was. Having said that, they massively underestimated the amount of space in the Lecture Theatre and oversubscribed to the event. When I spoke to KCLSU President, Shashwat Jain, I was told that it was a NISAU issue: they had oversubscribed by 600 people for a venue that only had place for 400. As a result, many people, including me, were left waiting outside the venue due to the cancellation of tickets which hadn’t been reflected in my own e-mails. However, they were accommodating and eventually let about 15 of us who were waiting eagerly to get in 10 minutes after registration was done. We didn’t miss the event and were given balcony seats.
A recommendation for NISAU would be to oversubscribe within reasonable numbers. Oversubscription is understandable since a lot of people eventually don’t show up, however, 600 seats are just careless. Despite the major obstacle, NISAU and King’s need to be congratulated on hosting such prominent speakers and giving non-King’s and King’s students alike the opportunity to see them live!
Written by Sayali Marathe