The Art of Giving : Nandan Nilekani & Rohini Nilekani
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The Art Of Giving : Nandan Nilekani & Rohini Nilekani The Art Of Giving : Nandan Nilekani & Rohini Nilekani [email protected] https://scribie.com/files/90384fb421cf4d2dad784809cf640ae640f9e999 08/25/18 Page 1 of 16 The Art Of Giving : Nandan Nilekani & Rohini Nilekani [music] 00:07 Chandra: Hello, and welcome to the special show that we are calling The Art of Giving, because we©re in conversation with a billionaire couple of India Inc, for whom wealth has a very different meaning. It©s not about accumulating wealth or passing it on to the next seven generations, but the power to give it away. Nandan Nilekani and Rohini Nilekani, thank you so much for talking to ET Now, days after signing the Giving Pledge as part of which you©ve committed to giving away half of your wealth towards philanthropy. Is this your first television interview together in years, because that itself is momentous for us getting... 00:39 Rohini Nilekani: Probably so. Thank you Chandra for getting us together. 00:42 Chandra: Thank you so much. Rohini, I wanna start with you. You©ve worked in the social sector for about two decades now, at the intersection of state and society and market. You©re well entrenched in this space, so why now, why the Giving Pledge now, considering you©ve already been working in the space on issues such as sanitation and ground water? Is it symbolic? Is it to show publicly that you know you are committed morally to giving back? 01:09 RN: That©s a good question. We©ve been talking about this for a while, but it took me more than Nandan it took me some time to agree to publicly declare this, not because we were not planning to give away so much of our wealth, we always were, but I think it©s not so easy to give away wealth, and I felt that now is the time when Nandan is also giving much more focused time to this, and it requires both of us to be able to do it well. And, also I think we now feel that there is a pipeline into which we can give. It©s no use saying you©ll give and then not know how to give, so we have matured over the years. We know how to give better. We think we can do bigger and more strategic work. So, I think the time was right now, and also we feel that we can learn a lot more from the other pledgers of the Giving Pledge. So, it seemed to us the right time. If Nandan has something to add... 01:58 Chandra: Yeah. So, your own motivation, because it is interesting that you signed the Giving Pledge after coming back to the corporate sector, not while you were away. [chuckle] 02:05 Nandan Nilekani: That was just a coincidence. Because this was in the works now for several months. But I think the point is that as Rohini said, I think what the Giving Pledge has done is that it©s also brought together a set of philanthropists and that creates a forum in which you can share best practices, a forum where you can decide to collaborate, because these are large social issues that you want to collaborate on. So it©s a very effective forum in that sense. So, for us that©s as much valuable as saying that we have just signed the pledge. Giving away was already part of our DNA, it was already there, but this was a way to become part of a group that was looking at the same kind of problems worldwide. 02:48 RN: I also want to add one thing that we keep saying in India that our culture is not to show 08/25/18 Page 2 of 16 The Art Of Giving : Nandan Nilekani & Rohini Nilekani that we give. 02:54 Chandra: Exactly. 02:55 RN: I feel like that boat has left the dock. I think the signalling is very, very important, that if you©re going to be super wealthy, you©re going to have to be super generous as well. And I think that signalling matters. 03:06 Chandra: Right. I was thinking about this, and I©m sure a lot of billionaires, millionaires who are also parents would wanna know the kind of conversation you had with your children when you decided on this, because in effect you©re giving away half of their inheritance, but were they always coded to believe that, you know what, we are custodians, we are trustees, we©re not owners, we don©t have automatic inheritance. So, just wanna know the conversations that happened around that. 03:32 RN: You said it very well. I think from the beginning, there was no question that... First of all, we don©t fully believe that this wealth belongs to us as such, because however billions Nandan and Infosys may be, I feel a lot of luck, and he©s the first one to admit that, a lot of luck is involved in creating so much wealth. So we feel definitely, at least I feel like we are trustees and the children have known that from the beginning, and because they©re very interested in big ideas and they©re also very interested in philanthropy. I think it was quite easy for us. There was never any question of feeling entitled to all our wealth or anything like thing like that. 04:09 Chandra: Right. Which brings me to my next question. The meaning of money for you, you know what was it initially and how has it changed over the years? 04:16 NN: Well, I think it©s the... For us money is the fact that we can choose to do all these things. It gives us the flexibility to address issues. You don©t have to think about... It©s really the power to give away is the most important value of money, because I think beyond a point, your personal needs are well taken care, so it really doesn©t make any sense beyond a point. 04:38 Chandra: Yeah, in fact, I was just coming to that. When you talk about wealth creation for someone like Rohini Nilekani and Nandan Nilekani, when do you say enough is enough, I have earned enough, I have enough influence and money? Does it happen on its own natural course or how does that happen? 04:54 NN: No, no, that was a stage we reached a long time back. [laughter] So, we don©t think about it. So, I think last 20 years, we©ve been really saying how do we make a difference? It gives us the ability to do what we want, do the right things. So that©s been the main driver. And you know, we began our philanthropy journey, almost 20 years back. As you know, when we had our first ADR, whatever money Rohini got she put into Arghyam, so that was one big contribution. And then, I supported my alma mater IIT Bombay, way back in 1999. 05:29 Chandra: In their hostel. 05:30 NN: And we did many things. So right from that day, we©ve been focusing on... 08/25/18 Page 3 of 16 The Art Of Giving : Nandan Nilekani & Rohini Nilekani 05:33 RN: And even much earlier when we really were like, we didn©t have any serious money, I was always involved in small giving. I thought that was... That makes life meaningful for me as well. So, you have to do what you can, you have to be part of creating the good society you want to live in. I©ve always believed that. So, it was not a big step, this was not a big step. In fact, for me, not so much for Nandan, but having all this wealth was more difficult than choosing to give... Give it away, honestly. [laughter] 06:01 Chandra: Right, and I notice in your pledge, you had a very nice verse from the Bhagavad Gita, to really explain the... 06:06 RN: Karmanye Vadhikaraste, yes. 06:07 Chandra: Yeah, which basically underscores the whole aspect of Nishkam Karma. Just to extrapolate that, right? The four values that human beings are supposed to follow. It talks about, "Dharma, Artha, Kama, Moksha." In your case, it©s almost like you hit the "Artha, Kama" and you went back to "Dharma" to really redefine your moral duty. Was there any trigger in the last year, last two years? I just wanna understand. I know it©s evolved over a long period of time, but any trigger that you felt? After the elections, did you feel like, "this could be a better way of giving back than as an elected representative?" Anything at all... 06:41 NN: No, see what happened is after the elections, we started looking at the education EkStep Project. Now, Rohini had already been working in education for a long time through her work in Pratham Books, Akshara, but we said, "Let©s see, is there a way to use technology to do this at scale," and that©s what lead us to EkStep and that set us on an exciting journey of, is there a way to think about solving societal problems in a collaborative way using technology that led us to the whole thinking about... 07:09 Chandra: Right. Societal Platforms. 07:11 NN: Societal Platforms and then we realized that Societal Platforms requires massive collaboration, and therefore, it requires philanthropic money, because it requires risk capital to pull it off.