The topic: The economic empowerment of women in rural India. There were 40 people in the room and a similar number on the screen—crystal clear with great audio.
Quickly, the conversation turned to the ‘care economy.’ It was not clear to me what that meant in rural India, but many people seemed to be sure. Somehow, crèches became the focus of the discussion.
Because there seemed to be a general consensus that crèches could serve the nutritional needs of very young children, provide more mothers an opportunity to join the workforce and also employ women themselves.
The fluent economists debated the wage premium that would get the best women from the village as crèche workers. Progress on this matter was bogged down since 20 of the people in the meeting seemed to be economists and they got into the thick of what data was available and what should be used.
The two high-profile policymakers who were there made elaborate statements about how the most important thing would be to design incentive structures to ensure accountability of the crèche workers. Also, the importance of installing CCTVs in all crèches.
The economists warmed up to the centrality of incentive structures and CCTVs and agreed among themselves that while they can keep debating the data, the wage premium would be the key issue, and that private capital must be encouraged to invest.
A donor working on feminist causes intervened with a very lucid description of how any such programme must keep the agency of women as the centrepiece; he did not mention anything about children.
A well regarded academic talked about how caste will have to be accounted for in crèches. There were resounding echoes of agreement to a comment that digital tools must be used to empower crèche workers.
With each comment, the distance from the reality of an Indian village kept growing. Of course, the gleaming 25-story tower was from a different world. The CEO of the co-host organization had invited me to this meeting with a very specific mandate: to bring all such conversations “back to Earth.”
Before I could say anything, another invitee of that organization spoke up. He spoke in Hindi and said that while he can understand English, he can’t speak that language well. He started by saying, “Aap sab yeh kyaa kyaa bol rahen hain.” What are all of you saying? Here is a summary of what he said subsequently in English.
You will get the crèche workers you will get; there are no “best women” in the villages to become crèche workers. A wage premium is an irrelevant matter where many do not have a wage, and those who do, earn very little. Private capital, digital tools and agency can only be talked about in such rooms. He said more, and I translated whatever he said to English, at the end of which I added my own two bits.
Agreeing with this sage from Odisha, I endorsed his view that almost nothing that had been discussed was real or relevant in the context of the few hundred crèches that we run in such villages. A few who had been quiet till then joined forces with us. The co-host was happy with the dose of realism injected. Mission accomplished.
When we were leaving, the sage from Odisha said to me, “Inn logon ka sach se koi vaasata nahin hai.” These people have no relationship with the truth.
He was echoing the philosopher Harry Frankfurt, who in a 1986 essay and subsequently in his book On Bullshit explores a phenomenon that we can politely describe as ‘talking nonsense.’
The essence that he arrived at was that while a liar tries to hide the truth, the one speaking nonsense has no regard for the truth. This is more dangerous than lying because as it spreads, the very notion of truth is up for grabs.
In that entertaining episode in a gleaming tower, we had an example of a particular kind of nonsense—well intentioned nonsense. Many speakers sincerely seemed to believe that they were speaking the truth or something close. But they were untethered from reality. And that’s because they were in the vice grip of three forces.
One, a commitment to abstraction and methods of abstraction—from economics or sociology or from policymaking and the like. Two, self-righteousness—stoked by ideology or the self-gratifying notion that they are doing good or know better or both.
Finally, distancing; few people in that room had been to an Indian village. They seemed equally distant from other realities of India, including possibly the slums at the foot of that gleaming tower. But all appeared steeped in their abstractions.
The world is increasingly full of well- intentioned nonsense. Some arenas of work seem particularly inclined to it—universities, think-tanks, policy circles, multilateral agencies, donors. Not all these, of course, and not everyone in them are so inclined. But they would all do everybody a good turn if they cleaved closer to ground realities.
