Loss of Brazil to Croatia and Loss of India to Australia: The Why Behind The Similar Feeling of Loneliness

 Brazil lost to Croatia during the last Qatar World Cup Knock Out match after getting an edge over Croatia. In a similar way, India lost to Australia in the ICC Cricket World Cup on 19th November, 2023 after taking first three quick wickets while Australia was chasing India's score. 

The Qatar World Cup saw 31 best teams of the World out of the more than 200 football-playing nations which involves 250 million people of the World. ICC World Cup 2023 saw two best teams out of 10 qualifying teams within the 104 member countries of the World and 108 cricket teams. There are 4200 professional cricketers amongst 30 million registered cricket players of the World. The simple numbers show that Football is a more equal, libertarian, humanist sport  in comparison to cricket. The numbers also show that the degree of competition, rivalry, and passion is much greater for Football than for Cricket.

Then, ideally, if assuming hypothetically that my love for both the games and both the teams are equal (the teams being the Brazilian Football Team and the Indian Cricket Team), then from a sheer number or humanism or sports ethics perspective of egalitarianism, my sense of grief from the Brazilian Football Team loss should be higher than the loss of the Indian Cricket Team. 

The loss of Brazil kicked out my favorite football team from a competition that was fought in a more fair, egalitarian way in comparison to the Indian Cricket Team's loss from another knockout match of a Cricket World Cup. However, then to my surprise after Sunday, 19th November, 2023, I felt lonely in a similar way as I felt on 9th December of 2022. In this case, somewhere, the loneliness may be because in spite of my sense of patriotism for the country, I was more outsider to a kind of spirit that makes the sport reductionist in a knockout match while everything else surrounding a knockout match of a cricket world cup stands above the game or the sport itself. 

Yes, I stood up to sang the National Anthem (which I do for every Indian Match in any sports platform wherever India is performing) but after the match, I felt lonely but happy for the Indian Cricket Team which showed consistency, true sports art and craft. I felt the tears of Rohit in a similar way as I felt the tears of Neymar on 9th December, 2022. 

The last Sunday match definitely made me lonely but not lonelier. I realized it is a satisfactory feeling to be lonely with your thoughts of being an outsider to a spirit around a game which reduces the skill, art, and craft of the game in front of all other subsuming spirits of business, profit, brand, nation (not as a nation soul of Rishi Aurobindo but as a nation-state of Rishi Aurobindo), imageries, dreams, celebration, loudness. I realised actually by being an outsider to these spirits, I had become more of an insider now to the eternal core of the game itself. 

At that very moment of loneliness, I sensed a sheer epiphany of chill with a transcendence of my feelings of a void which were similar to Neymar and every Brazilian or anyone around the World on 9th December of 2022 who were and are equal insiders of the game. They are the insiders to the sports and its beauty of humanistic bonding threads beyond borders connecting sportsperson : the tears of every sports person who looses out in a knockout match even after their best submission, self dedication to the sports and the turf ground itself. 

I became lonely by being an insider but I realised how Neymar, Rohit were and are worshipped and remembered equally by many insiders like me who are patriots but also can understand the nation soul of Rishi Aurobindo. They are equal insiders to the game of sport by playing, worshipping, reading, researching and understanding it across and over the years.

Yes, therefore, I realized, being lonely and an insider to the sport and game, is never good or bad in its entirety. It is in this moment of realization, that I could sense the following. The understanding was that the loneliness of an insider to the game of Football or Cricket who gets to a conversation with their therapist - "Football" or "Cricket" is actually not pathologically a loner in the society or within the game. Rather, this loneliness is a cure to the ever widening outsider world of the game of "Football" or "Cricket". 

This battle between the Insider and Outsider will continue to stay for ever and hence I realized that it is never as good as it gets to be very good or as bad as it gets to be very bad while being or staying lonely. Indeed, such an insider existence can be healing even while feeling the tears of Neymar, Rohit at the same time!

Social Tipping Dynamics: An Imperative for Mission LIFE

 

The clarion call of Mission Life by the Honorable Prime Minister of India imbibes Social Tipping Dynamics within the multicultural context of India. This is because Mission LIFE focuses on a social movement to – save energy, save water, adopt sustainable food systems, reduce waste, adopt healthy lifestyles, and reduce e-waste. The core principle of Mission LIFE is to create a mass movement to reduce mindless, destructive material, resource, and energy consumption to make people more pro-planet against the backdrop of ongoing human-induced climate change. This is more pertinent as climate change is already leading to disasters like floods, drought, and heatwaves posing humanity towards a journey of mass extinction along with the species on the Earth. 

Societies for the cause of the conservation of the planet for the future can only be mobilized through a sense of reflection within human beings by being role models and examples by themselves. When there is a change in the inner consciousness of humans across the world, it is expected that societies will also change accordingly. Such a change will thereafter be useful in impacting the behavior of people towards saving energy, and water and will facilitate to protection of the planet for the future.

Hence, this change in the behavior of the people will gradually lead to a tipping in society, leading to a mass movement for saving energy and the planet for the future. Therefore, if Mission LIFE of India has to be successful and contribute to a net zero economy goal by 2070, social tipping has to set in. Only when the social tipping will set in, people through a mass mobilization movement will start saving energy, and water. As the social tipping sets in people will start enhancing renewable energy usage and reducing energy demand through demand management measures using behavioral changes and action. This growth in the usage of renewables through social tipping has already been observed in various other countries in the recent past.

Global literature shows that the fast growth in renewables has led to an economic tipping point for adopting renewables. However, a corresponding reduction in fossil fuel demand and a system-wide energy transition have not happened. This is because social tipping dynamics have still not set in to move away an energy system completely from fossil fuel-based energy systems to renewable energy-based systems at a global, national, and regional level.

Various actors, tactics by different actors, and a range of conflicts have acted as a hindering factor in enabling this shift from fossil fuel-based systems to renewable energy-based systems of the future.  Tactics are often being applied by international, national, regional, and local pressure, and interest groups to hinder such shifts. However, no clear relationship exists between the tactics of pressure and interest groups and the actual shifts, and transitions. In carbon-intensive regions of Europe, it is observed that the role of national institutions, and responses to global and international pressure groups have determined the shifts from fossil fuel-based systems to renewable energy ones. Often, the shifts in the systems following social tipping dynamics work like a chaotic pattern of a natural ecosystem with multiple forces being at play to determine a shift or transition catalyzed by social tipping dynamics. Just like an Ecological System, in such a situation, small changes finally create big impacts in society when it comes to shifts from fossil fuel to renewable energy systems.

If Mission Life has to contribute to the net zero goal of the future, it has to be cognizant of these small nudges within society. These nudges are also going to be impacted by Public Policy leading to changes in people’s choices, behavior, and actions. Evidence of this lies in the fact that in Germany, as strong public policy and industry support got aligned with a decrease in the support of nuclear energy, the nudge worked, and solar energy sector started to grow with a shift in choices of people to solar energy taking them away from nuclear sources of energy. Gradually, when the demand picks up through these nudges, the costs of clean energy transition will also go down in the long run by reducing the upfront costs of solar installations.

This will therefore enhance the clean energy transition through a social tipping with a spiralling effect within the society in the future. Once, such a transition takes off, people’s conviction and belief in the clean energy systems go up further strengthening their future action for clean energy choices and adoption. This phenomenon has been observed in the case of the transition to electric vehicles, and electrification of heating and cooling systems in residential areas of developed societies. However, it needs to be tested for developing societies with multiple cultural layers like India.  This is because, in a developing country like India, subsidies for fossil fuels, energy infrastructure subsidies, the higher gestation period of fossil fuel-based energy infrastructure, and multiple social lock-in effects can delay the effects of social tipping nudges and can hinder the transition to clean energy choices by people.  The behavior can also be impacted by International Crises like War which can impact people’s future preferences for energy choices and adoption. For example, in the winter of 2022-23, energy demand in Europe went down expecting future high prices due to the escalating war between Russia and Ukraine. Similarly, the energy demand of people across Europe and the World reduced during Covid 19 but again it rebounded back in 2021 at a level which was similar to the energy demand levels of 2019. Hence, the impact of social tipping dynamics as a nudge and its impact on energy choices, actions, and behavior of people are often impacted by a global, international crisis like a War, Terrorism, Public Health Crisis, or Natural Disasters. The role of MISSION LIFE as a contributory nudge to attain a net zero economy by 2070 through social tipping dynamics will therefore also be dependent on these extraneous shocks and crisis events whenever they happen.

For a multicultural, federal, country with a wide variety of political economies between the center and states in India such nudges can get more and more complicated in the national and state contexts of India. It will therefore need a transdisciplinary lens of Social Tipping Dynamics to understand where MISSION LIFE of India can or might reach in the future in terms of its contribution towards the net zero goal of 2070 of the Indian Economy without compromising India’s developmental, quality of life goals and aspirations for the future with a sense of equity and justice for all sections of the society.

 

 

What is A People-Centric (/Just) Energy Transition? Framework Summary of Thinking of Last 20 years (2003 - 23)

 What is a People - Centric Energy Transition?  For, the last one year, this question intrigued me when I joined the academic administration space for a full-time position in 2019. Even in the academic administration space, the core demand to understand rural energy transition has never gone away since 2003. In 2003, when I started my journey in the Energy Transition space at the Public Policy Research Unit Laboratory of Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi Campus, with the guidance of Late Prof. Sanghamitra Das, transition to me appeared to be just a set of numbers in DOS coded STATA and in MS Access of 2003.

By analyzing the number patterns as a project research intern and by not going for an ICICI/CITI Bank Econometric Modelling Job or Internship, I was trying to understand the probability of chance of switching from firewood to other cooking options in rural households across villages of Uttarakhand (Uttaranchal at that point of time). 

Even after twenty years, the basic tenets of the story-plot have not changed. In the course of this journey, my Ph.D in between the journey also tried to prove a hypothesis that rural energy transition in the cooking paradigm of rural households of Bihar in a larger sense was or has the predictable chance of being nonlinear. 

By nonlinear, I meant that if income or expenditure rises by a certain amount within a certain rural household in Bihar, it does not necessarily mean that the same household will switch to LPG or clean cookstoves completely and stop using firewood. The thesis dealt with how households behave and how they decide about the switch. It analysed the contexts in which people of rural households in Bihar choose a clean cookstove or LPG and switch from firewood. The contexts proved that the switch to LPG or clean cookstoves from firewood are often spatially chaotic or follows a diffusion pattern of information within a social structure which is chaotic in nature. Here, by chaotic, I also mean that their diffusion patterns are nonlinearly dynamic over time across the different household spaces. 

So was my PhD thesis a take on - "People Centric Energy Transition?" 

"Did I work on "People Centric Energy Transition" during my research internship? Any work that I have been doing within the domain of rural energy transition or energy transition has been touching upon people, households, and society. Hence, can they be termed as - "People-Centric"? As always, I stay confused within the dialectics of thoughts that at what entry and exit points of research can a work be called -"People Centric"?

Is there any definition for these entry and exit points?

 A thorough search of literature and reading shows to me that there are no well-defined entry and exit points. Then the question is and was - "Why in 2003, no one was coining any research project on rural energy transition of people as - People-Centric Energy Transition?"

Questions do not end over here as the next one comes up as - "Why therefore in 2023 People Centric Energy Transition metaphor has come up for similar story plots within the space of rural energy transition?"

To move further, why did IEA at a certain point in time come out with the term - "Just Energy Transition"? What knowledge entry and exit points of research make this terminology - "Just Energy Transition"? I stay only bewildered and perplexed with no definite answers. Hence, my search for a cyclicality in terms of defining entry and exit points and understanding frameworks started to begin sometime in 2019 on the various metaphors of the same content that defines rural energy transition. Are these metaphors of - People, Just coming with a substitutive or complementary effect to the definition or they are mutually exclusive or substitutable?

The journey continued from 2019 till 2023 and then again I decided to do some more exploratory research on - "People Centric Energy Transition" to understand the evolutionary metaphors of rural energy transition more transparently.

Hence, I could see a sense, trend, and pattern of cyclicality in terms of defining certain preexisting core ideas over time and space within the domain of Energy Transition. Thus, is it so, that terms and ideas are finding out the space metaphors of rural energy transition or the space metaphors are defining the terms within the domain of Energy Transition. 

Hence to cure all my confusion, I finally came up with the below-mentioned framework of - "People Centric Energy Transition" -

The framework largely arises from Lacanian thinking which has three subdomains - a) The Real or Normative, b) The Symbolic, and c) The Imaginary. Often the Justice domains of Energy Transition are visualized through a Real and Normative lens. Within this domain, the policy perspectives are largely addressing questions of fairness, value systems, capabilities, and the tensions between them. In this framework, the role of individuals, agencies, policy agents, and societal fairness is also talked of through different metaphors of policy languages and paradigms. 

The Symbolic subdomain of People-Centric Energy Transition largely takes the narrational lens through the economy, ecology, and societal transitions. Owing to that, this subdomain largely has been following analytical paradigms of logic, order, and linear transition structures in explaining what is people-centric energy transition. While taking this approach, policymakers, agencies, decision-makers, and agents working in this subdomain are often moving towards an ordered energy transition paradigm. Such a paradigm is often a traumatic impossibility leading to the imaginary subdomain which is a world of scenarios and fantasies, fiction which can become real too in the long run.

Finally, therefore, arises the imaginary domain which is the gap between the real and symbolic self within the paradigm of People-Centric Energy Transition. The imaginary segment of People-Centric Energy Transition is therefore also a lot about Energy Culture which often throws out paradoxical outcomes with multiple truths and possibilities. Hence, like a Lacanian frame, the Imaginary Subdomain of People-Centric Energy Transition acts as a bridge between the Real and The Symbolic. 

Thus, what emerges finally is that - "People Centric Energy Transition" is like a Parallax and a Split amongst various subdomains. Within such a Parallax, People-Centric Energy Transition domains will continuously evolve with changing politics of space, time, knowledge, and wisdom and the cycle will continue forever in an evolutionary way. 

From "Burima" to "Gaza 2023": A History of Diwali

 Diwali is celebrated in the darkness of Kartik Amavasya through the festival of light to luminate our dark feelings, egos, obsessions, insecurities. 

However the same festival turns out to be an extravaganza of smoke, pollution, sound every year. This year the sounds are amplified with sounds of missiles, human cry to a higher frequency catalysed by few wars. The power of these sounds always dominate the voice of help from animals, people suffering from asthma, sound pollution. Is it this power of sound domination due to which fire crackers, agri residues, houses are burnt in New Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, Russia and many more: even though the acts are defined to be criminaĺ by law and norms of Kartik Amabasya.

The field of heuristics in Psychology will say that people cant personalise the distant pains to others from their acts and hence in the society fire crackers, houses, air gets burnt and polluted. Simple answers which can be relatable to me or you will be looked after as an answer to these complex questions of a society. Hence, I will always justify an action through such simple answers and continue to burn. It continues as my action is insignificant when in a society every human being is a criminal of some order, degree as knowingly or unknowingly, we burn something or the other. So my, our act of burning continues. Often it continues because the pleasure, benefits of living on an edge, with a false sense of pleasure power are higher than the costs of consequential impacts of that living on everyone in a society. Hence people continue smoking, drinking, cheating, corruption practices, dropping bombs, invest in high risk assets, engage in extra marritals, serial killers kill, abusers abuse and lovers continue loving.

Today, in 2023, in Diwali, suddenly all these reminded me of Burima Chocolate Bomb, Dodoma, Kalipotka of childhood at Kolkata. The names were all metaphors of my inexplicable escape from reality with a sense of pleasure, power and violence.

 Hence they are metaphors of my memories of childhood pleasure for getting an escape route from the reality of violence, vuĺnerability and power. All this was going fine till 2006, when the scary, anxious eyes of a stray dog at Diwali night made me nude in front of my power, pleasure and vulnerability. 

The darkness of Kartik Amabasya of 2006 therefore made me a jocker in front of the mirror. Since then, firecrackers left me even though it has not left the society. Hence metaphors of burima chocolate bomb memories, sounds and lyrics of war and pollution are still being written in a society - "Where it is normal to be a little bit of Criminal Everyday"!