Hosting dialogues between unlike groups of people

Rohini Nilekani, who was last year named as one of the 48 ‘heroes of philanthropy’ by Forbes Asia — for having donated $40 million to myriad causes — believes that is not the case. A few years ago, Rohini, a former journalist, hosted a show on NDTV, exploring the ‘middle ground’ between ideological divisions that have polarised the business and voluntary sectors.

“The show was a huge learning experience for me,” Rohini tells Khaleej Times. “I had to do a lot of research, and I began to understand why there are such diverse responses to these hugely complex national issues.”

Getting business and social leaders together and learning how committed they were in their own way to making India a prosperous place was also a humbling experience, admits Rohini, who has now come out with a book — Uncommon Ground, dialogues between business and social leaders — based on her show.

“I think my belief that there should be many more platforms for conversations across divides was validated,” she says, explaining what the takeaways were from the experience of hosting the television show. “There were many points of convergence among the guests, even though they retained key differences.”

According to her, there is much work ahead “to forge the right balance between samaj (society), bazaar (market) and sarkar (government). But being able to put oneself in a position where the potential change to change one’s mind becomes a possibility is an important part of that journey”.

In this very critical decade of the 21^st century, she adds, we have the potential to re-imagine how business is conducted, and how the state delivers justice. “We have to get out of our comfort zones for that.” And there is a need to keep on creating and nurturing new and vibrant platforms for dialogues between unlike groups of people, asserts Rohini.

A typical Mumbai middle-class girl, Rohini joined Bombay magazine in the 1980s after her graduation. While studying, she had met Nandan Nilekani, an IIT engineer — at an inter-college contest — whom she married later. Nandan went on to co-found India’s top software and services company, Infosys Technologies Ltd. He later took over as CEO of Infosys in 2002, became co-chairman, along with N.R. Narayana Murthy, before being picked up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to head the Unique Identification Authority of India.

Rohini started the Akshara Foundation, an NGO that provides education to slum children, and also heads Pratham Books, a non-profit publishing house. She also established Arghyam, which works in the water and sanitation sector, by donating a billion rupees.

Uncommon Ground is Rohini’s second book, her first being Stillborn. “Frankly, I thought it would be easy to write a second novel, and I even got started on it,” says the writer. “But I found it hard to finish it. And then I got so involved with the non-profit work that the urgency disappeared.”

Unlike many talks shows on TV these days, Rohini’s was a more balanced and sensible show. “I think the media needs much more introspection on this,” she says, when asked to comment on the slanging matches that are witnessed on the talk shows. “But to be fair, some change seems to be in the air. We do hear more balanced points of view more often. But there is scope for more innovative learning experiences on TV, that’s for sure,” adds Rohini.

nithin@khaleejtimes.com