Fellowships for Service : Part I – Perspectives from India

Introduction

Fellowships as an ecosystem have come a long way in India since independence. On April 10, 1917 Mahatma Gandhi visited Champaran on the request of Raj Kumar Shukla (a representative of the farmers). During his visit, Mahatma Gandhi met with the farmers, families and scores of villagers to understand the problems. He deputed a group of youth consisting of Rajendra Prasad, Anugrah Narayan Sinha and Babu Brajkishore Prasad to do a detailed study to understand the problems and look at possible courses of action. The group diligently worked towards collecting  data, assessing impact, and challenges. Subsequent action under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi led to the transformative Champaran Agrarian Bill that almost accepted all recommendations made by the group. This set the foundation of change by the efforts of Mahatma Gandhi and a group of youth. The youth were given an opportunity to work towards understanding problems of agrarian India and act for change. Among these youth was Mr Rajendra Prasad who went on to become the first President of the Republic of India. Anugrah Narayan Singh went on to become the Deputy CM and Finance Minister of Bihar. This incidence of more than 100 years ago articulates the power of Youth, Opportunities for Good and historical credence to how “Service” was looked at in the subcontinent. In this article, we will aim to look at 3 facets of change in India – “Service”, “Youth”, “Opportunities for Good” vis-à-vis the fellowship ecosystem.

Ecosystem 

Fellowships can broadly be categorised as – 1. Academic 2. Praxis-driven for individuals with an interest to pursue a course of action. The fellowship sponsorships come from two distinct sources – 1. Government (Central or State or UT) 2. Non Government (Foundations, Individuals, CSRs etc) – which are driven by the individual agenda of the source in particular. The fellowship offerings include – 1. Research 2. Masters/PhD 3. Intercountry exchange programs 4. Service fellowships. These fellowships have varied from engagement with fundamental sciences, agenda driven research to equipping marginalised populace access to opportunities to creating opportunities to serve communities by solving problems in the social milieu. The fellowships supporting community and context connect have been primarily – inter country and service – oriented. The significance of people connecting across countries is significant as it enables furthering of cooperation and understanding among populations. The American India Foundation has run the William J Clinton Fellowship for service in India since early 2000s now popularly known as the Banyan Impact Fellowship. It is one such instance of cooperation among people.

It is interesting that “development” as a practice with its “interdisciplinary” leanings utilised fellowships as a medium to create direct and meaningful impact. The fellowships in this domain have been structured as per domains, calibrated programmatic interventions and rationalising the human resources in the ecosystem. The role of youth as part of the demographic dividend of a society has been a key in the fellowship ecosystem. The fellowships can broadly be categorised to be in the following domains –

1. Education
2. Livelihood
3. Health
4. Youth development
5. Climate change and Sustainability

Youth and Fellowships

Most of the fellowships available are offered to the youth, constituting the graduate and post- graduate students. Over the years, experienced youth with relevant domain skills have been roped into fellowships to drive the mandate. The opportunities for youth engagement through fellowships look into the following aspects –

1. Engagement with challenges and interesting work
2. Exposure to valuable professional networks
3. Human resource gap
4. Funding to support work

Engagement with scenarios which are challenging offer the youth an opportunity to get involved. These can be utilised to use the creative, diligent and youthful energies to devise solutions. This needs freedom in selecting the approach and putting in place the solutions. Offering this is key as it enables in depth understanding devoid of structured constructs of implementing solutions. Exposure to valuable professional networks is also very important as it enables devising solutions, deeper impact and scale. The developmental challenges are complex in India keeping in mind – context, topography, community practices, culture and linguistic diversity. This gets accentuated with a lack of quality human resources in the development space. Fellowships offer human resources to the development ecosystem and exposure to these complexities to fellows leads to an enabling of innovative solutions. Fellows as an effective participant in this process garner leadership abilities bridging the resource gaps at the same time. This leads to the contribution  of developing informed and equipped human resources for the ecosystem as well, carrying an experience and on ground understanding of issues. The fellowships enable the youth to also explore ideas and build solutions through funding support. This is key in driving the vision towards a real time solution for the youth.

Opportunities for Good and Fellowships

The fellowships offer “Opportunities for Good” to individuals who are interested to learn, create positive change and carve a career path in the long term with set principles. In developing countries across the globe there is a deep divide in the economic and social opportunities for people. Challenges due to these conditions around areas like health, education and livelihood need to be looked at with an evolving perspective. Countries like India with its unique sense of cultural, geographical, language and historical diversities are a hotbed with innumerable opportunities for good. Yet the abilities to work with these opportunities need to be built in with fresh approaches. 

Fellowships offer the opportunities to interested individuals to be part of these unique settings to work on issues across domains. The construct of creating a space with resources, exposure and facilitation for entry and action makes the fellowships a unique model. Individuals with a keen interest and direction can work with these opportunities. Innovative approaches, interdisciplinary thinking and youthful energies create the space for stakeholder engagement. The sense of doing good pervades the experience and contributes to using these as a building block for future pathways. These can be social enterprises (for or not for profits), product development, informed human resource, policy planning roles etc.

Service & Fellowships

The majority of fellows serving in the development space across different geographies, communities, work-areas etc have been largely young people (18-35 years of age). The connection with causes that can be established at a relatively young age is higher as compared to later stages of life. The risk taking capability is more in addition to the abilities of exploring newer communities, cultures and regions. This in turn offers the opportunity to rationalise a vision for life driven by the exposure and experience.

The sense of service while working on development domain issues is a key driver to shape long term vision. The engagement with issues at the grassroots on – education, health, livelihood etc – leads to framing solutions for all or even specific contextual interventions. This is all the more essential for long term engagement with the collective mandate as society for betterment of all. Fellowships intertwined with the concept of service support the mandate of creating solutions versus effective impact. 

Conclusion

As per approximations, there are 120+ fellowships running in India. For a nation with 28 states, 10 union territories and a population of more than 1.4 billion and 600 million youth aged between 18-35, the fellowship ecosystem is developing. The cultural, social and economic indices vary topographically, region wise and within states as well. The fellowships are driven by characteristics of – region, diversity, problem solving, domain focus etc. Key driver is the youth that gets engaged as part of the fellowship for change. It is therefore essential to articulate the basics of engaging in fellowships. As the “youth” would be leading the nation and its people towards change in the coming times, it forms the core in addition to the elements of “service” and “opportunities for good”.

For fellowship programs that can blend in the above mentioned 3 would be a key to investing in a better tomorrow through action in current times. The fellowships in India – Gandhi Fellowship, Banyan Impact Fellowship, Teach for India etc offer interesting insights into the process involving youth at the grassroots directly involved with people. We intend to look into the experience, impact and future in the next blog post.

References

1. ProFellow [21 Fellowships in India for Study, Research and Professional Development | ProFellow]
2. India Development Review [Social sector-related fellowships | IDR (idronline.org)]
3. US News [What is a Fellowship and Why Pursue One (usnews.com)]
4. The Idealist [Fellowships | What They Are and 3 Reasons Why They’re Exceptional – Idealist]
5. The Times of India [India Population: Is India’s rapidly growing youth population a dividend or disaster? | India News – Times of India (indiatimes.com)]
6. Government of India [States Uts – Know India: National Portal of India]