Circles: Starting the Indian Revolution (Part 4)

RSS Shakhas – 2

Ratan Sharda’s book, “RSS 360°: Demystifying Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh” outlines the vision and working of the Shakha:

Shaakhaa (shakha or local branch) of RSS is the public face of RSS. It is the powerhouse that energises and powers ordinary people to successfully carry out extraordinary feats and nurture pan-India organisations.

People often wonder how a small group of 10 to 20 people who come together for an hour and while away their time in playing games, doing some physical drills, singing patriotic songs or discussing some social issues and praying together, can build an organisation with 56,000 shakhas all over India with a daily collective attendance of more than half a million. If you consider approximately 100 members per shakha who don’t attend it every day this figure would come to nearly 5.6 million regular members. This network is spread upto district level all over India and in most of the places to Tehsil level. You can find village level shakhas in many states.

…The thought behind this unique set of tools or working style of RSS through daily shakha is that a person should willingly dedicate at least one hour in one’s day for the nation. Once this thought becomes a part of his personality, he will willingly increase his participation as the nation demands. Ultimately he reaches a state of mind reflected in a Sangh song that says, “tan samarpit, man samarpit, aur yah jeevan samarpit, chaahata hoon maan, tujhe kuchh aur bhee doon” (i.e. I have dedicated my body, soul and life to you, O’ motherland, I long to give you something more)

Writing in the foreword, Madhu Kishwar summarises it thus: “Running a Shakha needs no money, no infrastructure. All it needs is human capital and the willingness to offer time.”

Sunil Ambekar has more in his book, “The RSS Roadmaps for the 21st Century”:

The shakha timetable is an hour long. Its main components are standardized and have been the same since the time of its commencement. These are sharirik physical drills, boudhik intellectual or academic discussions, khel games and samta practice sessions for systematic parade. The RSS flag hoisting at the beginning of the shakha is protocol driven and swayamsevaks are taught to stand in attendance. The shakha closes with a prayer…Those assigned as ‘shikshak’ or teachers in the shakhas go through a vigorous training process.

…Just like the cell is the basic unit of a living organism, the shakha is the basic unit of the RSS. Every swayamsevak has a shakha to which he belongs.

…Shakhas are held in the morning, evening and night to cater to the increasing numbers and to incorporate diverse time schedules for people of various age groups. Weekly get-togethers called ‘saptahik milans’ are also held. Those who cannot come to the shakha can come to the monthly ‘Sangh mandalis’ or groups. These are non-shakha formations, informal setups convertible to shakhas on maturation. If Sangh mandalis gain critical mass in terms of engagement, they are moved up the value chain into weekly meetings, and if these experience traction, they progress to become daily shakhas and acquire a more formal structure. Through such sequential progression, the shakha network expands.

The pandemic’s digital disruption can create opportunities for new political entrepreneurs who can rethink the shakha and build on its strengths for the future.

Tomorrow: Part 5

Circles: Starting the Indian Revolution (Part 3)

RSS Shakhas – 1

Since RSS Shakhas are idespread in India and come closest to a national network of neighbourhood groups, let us start by understanding what they are and what they do. (For the moment, let us set aside any religious biases and focus on the idea and the activities.)

Here is what Wikipedia has to say about the RSS Shakhas:

The term shakha is Hindi for “branch”. Most of the organisational work of the RSS is done through the co-ordination of the various shakhas, or branches. These shakhas are run for one hour in public places. As per the RSS Annual Report of 2019, there were a total of 84,877 shakhas of which 59,266 are being held daily; 17,229 are weekly shakhas.

The shakhas conduct various activities for its volunteers such as physical fitness through yoga, exercises, and games, and activities that encourage civic awareness, social service, community living, and patriotism. Volunteers are trained in first aid and in rescue and rehabilitation operations, and are encouraged to become involved in community development.

The RSS website adds: “Simply put, a shakha is a daily gathering of swayamsevaks of different age groups at a predefined meeting place or ground for one hour. The daily routine programs include physical exercises, singing patriotic chorus, group discussions on varied range of subjects and a prayer for our motherland. But that is not the end. As the third Sarsanghchalak of RSS the late Sri Balasaheb Devras said: “The RSS Shakha is not just a place to play games or parade, but an unsaid promise of the protection of the good citizenry, an acculturation forum to keep the young away from undesirable addictions; it is a centre of hope, for rapid action and undemanding help in case of emergencies and crisis that affect the people…The most important aspect is it is a university for training the appropriate workers to be made available for the requirements of the various fields of life of the nation.””

A reddit thread has more info:

Most RSS shakhas meet daily morning for about 1.5 to 2 hours. …Some RSS shakhas have started to meet in the evenings to accommodate the schedule of working professionals. RSS shakhas usually meet in open public grounds or parks. School or college grounds are popular meeting places. Some shakhas may even meet on the grounds of private organizations like factories and offices.

Shakha activities are designed to help an individual develop physically, mentally, spiritually. They are also designed to help a person develop as a volunteer, a team member, a leader. They help a person to become more confident and aware. They also help with personal and professional networking, getting over shyness, fear of public speaking and other personally limiting characteristics. All the activities are mostly based on traditional Hindu or Indian practices.

Shakhas typically start with the hoisting of the Bhagwa Dhwaj, the saffron flag. The assembled swayamsevaks salute the flag, and then they do physical warm up exercises, surya namaskar and other yoga. After the exercises, they play games. Shakhas conduct a surprisingly large number and variety of games, most of which need very basic or no toys or tools. In addition to games, there could also be training in dand (fighting with sticks) and niyudh (martial art with no weapons). All these physical activities are always fun and serve to improve physical fitness, confidence and team spirit. After the games, there could be some singing of group songs or prayers. The shakha would then have intellectual activity like a group discussion or a speech by an individual. The topics of the discussions and speech could range anywhere from current affairs to historical incidents to philosophy. Their objective is always to improve the awareness, intelligence, thoughts of the swayamsevak. At the end of the shakha, the swayamsevaks assemble in front of the flag, do the daily prayer (Namaste Sada Vatsale prayer in Bharat; outside Bharat, the prayer is Sarva Mangala Maangalyaam), salute the flag again and then disperse.

Other than the daily shakha meetings, the shakha aims to keep all the swayamsevaks connected to each other, and connected to the organization at the city, state, region and national/international levels. The shakha members also seek to be connected with the neighborhoods in which they exist and function. They establish connections with individuals, both prominent citizens and average citizens, with other organizations, etc.

The shakhas also celebrate six utsavs or festivals in the year.

The shakhas also have periodic organizational planning meetings (called baithaks) for planning the activities of the shakha. Shakha members also do sampark (contact) meetings for the purpose of staying in touch with each other, with other non-shakha citizens, etc.

The RSS Shakhas and its volunteers have played a huge role in the BJP’s rise over the past 40 years.

Tomorrow: Part 4

Circles: Starting the Indian Revolution (Part 2)

Social Infrastructure

Eric Klinenberg, in his book “Palaces for the People”, discusses the importance of social infrastructure. He explains:

Public institutions, such as libraries, schools, playgrounds, parks, athletic fields, and swimming pools, are vital parts of the social infrastructure. So too are sidewalks, courtyards, community gardens, and other green spaces that invite people into the public realm. Community organizations, including churches and civic associations, act as social infrastructures when they have an established physical space where people can assemble, as do regularly scheduled markets for food, furniture, clothing, art, and other consumer goods. Commercial establishments can also be important parts of the social infrastructure, particularly when they operate as what the sociologist Ray Oldenburg called “third spaces,” places (like cafés, diners, barbershops, and bookstores) where people are welcome to congregate and linger regardless of what they’ve purchased. Entrepreneurs typically start these kinds of businesses because they want to generate income. But in the process, as close observers of the city such as Jane Jacobs and the Yale ethnographer Elijah Anderson have discovered, they help produce the material foundations for social life.

What doesn’t qualify as social infrastructure? Transit networks determine where we live, work, and play, and how long it takes to move between places. But whether they’re social infrastructure depends on how they’re organized, since a system designed for private vehicles will likely keep people separate as they travel (and consume enormous amounts of energy), whereas public systems that use buses and trains can enhance civic life. Although they have obvious social impacts, waterworks, waste treatment facilities, sewage systems, fuel supply lines, and electric grids are usually not social infrastructures. (We don’t congregate in these places.) But conventional hard infrastructure can be engineered to double as social infrastructure.

So, why is it important? Eric Klinenberg elaborates in an interview with Fatherly:

I think that when we invest in good, shared spaces we get all kinds of returns. We can build bridges. People who live around each other can create something that feels more like a community. And that’s important. In disasters, creating networks of care, and mutual support [is important.] But it also matters every day for people’s feelings of life satisfaction. We can give people access to happiness that they don’t get from just succeeding in an individualized market economy.

I think for a lot of people, good social infrastructure is a lifeline. It’s not just about relationships. A good library creates opportunities for personal fulfillment, for learning, and for mobility. That’s one of the reasons that the United States has invested so much in that in the past.

Parks created opportunities for recreation. But also for health. We have all sorts of evidence that people are healthier when they spend time outdoors and in green environments and a little less time hunkering down at home in front of a screen.

Even as India has not built its hard infrastructure, it has also under-invested in social infrastructure. Can we change this? What we need to do is to think how to create social infrastructure in post-Covid India – one where we are socially distanced but virtually just a click away. What would a 2020s shakha look like?

Tomorrow: Part 3

Circles: Starting the Indian Revolution (Part 1)

Libraries and More

In January when I was in the Bay Area, one of my meetings took place at an unusual venue – the Mountain View Public Library. Unusual because most meetings tended to be at Starbucks or some café. (Fun fact: The US has more public libraries than Starbucks or McDonalds.) When I arrived at the library, I was amazed at how big it was. There were also meeting rooms where one could have privacy. There were also computers with Internet access. The library was much more than a home for books; it was a resource for the community. And perhaps the person I needed to thank was Andrew Carnegie.

During 1883 to 1929, a total of 2509 libraries were built from money donated by Carnegie. These libraries – across the US, UK and Ireland, and Canada – became knowledge hubs and meeting points for local communities. Here is an overview from NPR on the impact: “Public libraries became instruments of change — not luxuries, but rather necessities, important institutions — as vital to the community as police and fire stations and public schools… Temples of learning, ambition, aspiration for towns and cities throughout the United States.”

I thought about my own experience with libraries in India. When I was in college, I visited Mumbai’s British Council Library at Nariman Point often. They had a very good collection of books. I discovered the Asiatic Library at Fort quite late in life. For some reason, it didn’t seem as attractive – dark and gloomy. (Or maybe that was my mood the day I went.) One of the best libraries I have visited has been the Kavi Narmad library in Surat – the collection of books is huge, there is a separate children’s section, and there is a large well-lit room for reading newspapers and magazines. Friends talk about the Nehru Memorial Library in Delhi, but I have never visited it.

Most libraries are places of silence – they did not encourage community. They are lonely places – and perhaps that’s the right focus for libraries. Besides the fact that India lacks an adequate infrastructure of public libraries, what we also miss are places where people can gather and connect with each other.

If we had to start India’s political and economic revolution that I recently wrote about, it would be very important to bring people together and change minds – one at a time. For this, there would be a need for neighbourhood cells all across India with a dual purpose – creating the social infrastructure and an organised cadre.

It was in this context that I started thinking about the shakha (meaning, branch) – popularised by the RSS in India. Friends who had attended the RSS shakhas in their youth spoke positively about the fun and game activities and the bonding – and of course, the indoctrination. But when I asked if they would send their kids to the shakhas, the answer was a universal No. While the physical shakhas may not be as active as they once were, how could we rethink the concept of the shakha to bring people together in neighbourhoods and foster a common bond between them? Could a new version of the shakha – the local “Circle” – become the foundation for building India’s social infrastructure?

Tomorrow: Part 2

MyToday: Magic of Micro Emails (Part 6)

The Future

Looking ahead, there are many directions this can go. The first goal is to expand the breadth of the content channels – especially, creating some more “serial feeds” where new subscribers start with the first in the series rather than the latest. These serial feeds could be used to create an educational series on different topics – spread over 30 days (microns). Additionally, channels could also move beyond text to have rich content – images, animations, audio or embedded video.

The second idea is to “platformise” MyToday – making it possible for publishers to create a channel on their own and start their own service. Since there is a double opt-in for subscribers, there is no worry that publishers can spam their subscriber lists. This will help us scale it out and offer a breadth of choices to subscribers.

The third possibility is to build in the option of payment for creators – on the lines of what Substack and ScrollStack are doing.

There are more ideas: use a combination of an app and WhatsApp for subscription management, allow subscribers to set the time they want to receive the content, automate the content for some channels,  bring in AMP and dynamic content in the emails to showcase the power of the medium by enabling greater interactivity (can be especially useful for puzzles and real-time updates), and maybe even create our own email inbox service just for MyToday. The possibilities are many.

Of course, first MyToday has to work. My operating belief with all new projects is that they are failures until they succeed. So, a lot has to be done to create a service that people like and spreads virally. Three key metrics that are important for me are: R (reproduction number) for MyToday needs to become 2 (so that each person brings in two new subscribers), S (average subscriptions per person) needs to be 3, and the T (the time between an email arriving in the inbox and it being read) needs to be less than an hour.

MyToday is both a B2C and B2B initiative. I am trying my hands again at B2C after a long time. A lot has changed in the world in the past decade. Mine is an idea from the past. Will it work? Let’s see!

MyToday: Magic of Micro Emails (Part 4)

Daily Delights

I had tried multiple variants around MyToday after the SMS service had to shut down a decade ago because of the increase in SMS pricing. There was MyToday Mobs (SMS groups), MyToday mobile portal and MyToday Store (paid SMS subscriptions). All of them failed. For some reason, the “MyToday” word stayed with me – it evokes something that is personal and current. I kept imagining different kinds of consumer services with that name. And that is how the current MyToday idea came to life – merging the microcontent subscriptions idea with email as a delivery channel.

MyToday in its latest avatar is a 2-sided platform – publishers and subscribers. And it is free for both. What binds them together is permission – subscribers voluntarily opting in to content from publishers. Publishers can be media companies, FMCG brands, pharma companies, consumer electronics manufacturers or even political parties – anyone with a message that can be made into small capsules that would be of interest to recipients.

The “free” part for brands is an innovation – no one offers communications free for enterprises. Netcore is perhaps the only email service provider globally who can do this – because of its email experience combined with the lowest operating costs. This is a way to make email more inviting and exciting for businesses and their present and future customers. My hope is that this will open up new vistas for Netcore globally – and help us connect with businesses for their regular email communications also.

MyToday is an experiment – let’s see if it works. It has to spread virally for it to succeed. I will need to build both sides – the publishers and the subscribers. I have started with a small team that publishes content on 20+ channels to begin with. Hopefully, this can interest enough subscribers to get the flywheel going.

For me, the four alluring elements of MyToday are:

  • Push: content is delivered to the inbox – there is no need to visit multiple sites to consume it
  • Microcontent: each message is short and to the point, and thus can be consumed is just a few seconds
  • Curation: each micron is chosen and crafted by a person, rather than aggregation with little regard to what may be important or interesting
  • Variety: multiple options available in a single place, rather than having to go to different sites to discover interesting content

What I like is that I can now stay updated without having to worry about the low signal-to-noise ratio on other sites and channels. I know the most important news at a glance twice a day. I like the thoughtfulness of the daily quote. I am discovering my love for poetry, and learning to like Hindi kavitas. My hope is that each of us will discover something we like – and over time, it becomes a habit. Like MyToday SMS once was.

Tomorrow: Part 5

MyToday: Magic of Micro Emails (Part 3)

Email Power

Email is what Netcore has excelled at over the past 20 years. We had started by setting up Linux-based email servers for corporate customers (as an alternative to the very expensive Microsoft Exchange). A decade later, around 2007-8, we launched an email marketing platform for companies who needed to do mass mailing to their subscribers. A few years later, we added an email API service. Through the years, email has powered Netcore’s growth. Today, Netcore is amongst the top 5 global email platforms, delivering over 10 billion emails a month for its enterprise customers.

Even with the rise of alternate communication and interaction channels (SMS, WhatsApp, push notifications on mobile apps), email’s charm has stayed. For many, their email address is their identity. With the mobile number, the email address is the only other universal option which allows a business to communicate to its customers. The ability to ‘push’ messages direct to an inbox is what makes email so attractive. Of course, this ease has also come with abuse – as spam has risen through the years. Consumer email service providers like Gmail have also risen to the challenge to ensure as clean an inbox as possible.

The alternatives – SMS and WhatsApp – don’t have the same advantages that email has. SMS in India costs almost 10 times that of email. (The SMS inbox is now filled with spam that is very hard to control.) WhatsApp has many constraints for businesses seeking to engage with their customers and is nearly 30 times more expensive than email. The humble email still wins hands down – in terms of cost and convenience.

Email-based communications from businesses is what fills our inbox. Most are long with many different clickable options. At times, we read and act. But many times, we just ignore. This is where I began to wonder – could the ideas that made MyToday SMS a success be applied to email? Short emails that can be read in just a few seconds and which subscribers actually looked forward to. The religious quote (“voice of God”) in the morning, the joke in the evening, the news and market updates during the day, a bedtime story or poem, the health tip, the factoid I did not know – all curated and delivered to my inbox. Without me having to wade through zillions of Twitter noise or website pop-up ads. Simple, clean messages readable in a few seconds that inform and educate.

While we could create a number of such content channels, the brand opportunities were also significant. I would love to get nutritional messages from Amul, health tips from Cipla, gadget updates and usage tips from Samsung, book excerpts from Penguin, OTT recos from Netflix, short news explainers from Indian Express, and more – and I would willingly give my email ID to brands to communicate with me. “Keep them short – and I will give you each 15 seconds of my attention daily.”

And thus was born the idea for the new MyToday – via email.

Tomorrow: Part 4

MyToday: Magic of Micro Emails (Part 2)

MyToday SMS

In late 2006, I had started a service very similar to the idea I just described over SMS – it was called MyToday Dailies (and later MyToday SMS). It was a free subscription service – all one had to do was to SMS – START <channel_name> to subscribe and STOP <channel_name> to unsubscribe. The service grew rapidly – person-to-person, one subscription at a time. At its peak, it had over 4 million subscribers with an average of 2.5 subscriptions per person, and we were sending 12 million SMSes daily. Each subscriber had opted in and could opt-out any time they wanted. It was a true daily delight for people!

I had presented about MyToday at a conference in September 2008 and here is how I summarised it:

To subscribe to any of our 50+ SMS channels – ranging from News to Cricket, from Health Tips to Beauty Tips, from Jokes to the best movies to watch on TV tonight -people just have to send a single SMS. It could not be easier.

Here are some figures that will speak to how HUGE the potential is.

  • Our free SMS subscription service, MyToday Dailies, has grown to 3.7 million subscribers in less than 2 years – all via word-of-mouth. We continue to add thousands of new subscribers daily.
  • We send 12 million SMS everyday – accounting for 4% of India’s SMS traffic.

The daily SMS we send has become a habit for MILLIONS of people. The right-of-way we have because of that habit we created can now be monetised in various ways: from ads to leads, from paid channels to transactions.

We recently had Nielsen survey over 2,000 subscribers of MyToday. Here are some amazing statistics. The average age of the subscriber base is 25 years. 75% of the 3.7 million subscriber base is less than 30 years. Nearly 80% belong to SEC A and B.

75% of the subscribers read every SMS that they receive. For the vast majority, MyToday has become the primary source of receiving news and information.

Some other posts from that period:

  • September 2008 (reflecting on the launch of the service): Doing SMS services was actually going a step backward. But I put my ego aside and decided to give that approach a try. It did come down to a decision I had to make — Go or No Go. Luckily, I chose Go despite some misgivings. And that was how MyToday Dailies was born.
  • September 2008: “We grew slowly for the first couple of months. We had started with CRICKET, but then launched some more SMS channels. I remember a picnic we had gone on New Year’s Eve and us celebrating the 10K unique subscriber figure. All growth was happening word-of-mouth. We had done some initial promotion on radio and through flyers, but nothing after that…It was the New Year of 2007 which brought a tremendous surge in growth. And the channel which powered that for us was BIBLE. The word-of-mouth growth for that had to be seen to be believed — every day saw a few thousand subscribers signing up. This was complemented by NEWS and CRICKET (perennial favourites). We also had a few ads in Mumbai local trains up that month. Suddenly, the positive spiral of growth was at work and it was like going back to the early days of some of the websites that I had launched. People loved the fact that the SMSes just came to them — they were casually interested in News or Cricket, and this was a good way to stay updated with what was happening.”
  • August 2008: Netcore has succeeded in creating a unique new model of VAS through its award-winning product portfolio ‘MyToday’ (GSMA Mobile Innovation Global awards 2008, Runner-up, ‘True Mobile Startup’ Category). It has created a phenomenally successful direct-to-consumer service, MyToday SMS dailies, building up a subscriber base of over 3.5 million users in less than 2 years. This new ‘digital mass media’ service is currently ad-supported & free to user, demonstrating for the first time that VAS services need not always be paid for by subscribers. Businesses can contribute to generating revenue as well. This new model needs to evolve to a broader definition of VAS wherein a Right of Way is created to a subscriber & businesses pay for that right of way. We believe that subscriptions will be key driver in this ‘VAS 2.0’ paradigm.

The service came to an abrupt halt in 2009 when TRAI increased SMS pricing overnight to combat spam. What was a sub-1 paisa SMS became almost an order of magnitude more expensive. We were sending over 1 crore SMSes daily at that time. We obviously could not spend 10 times more and survive. Our efforts to persuade TRAI that ours was an opt-in service and should not be clubbed with other messages did not work. (On a separate note: this was yet another example of how hard it is to do business in India – regulatory action killed a promising, award-winning service overnight.)

The viral growth of MyToday Dailies (SMS) at that time stayed with me. And in recent times, I wondered if such a service could work in today’s times over email.

Tomorrow: Part 3

MyToday: Magic of Micro Emails (Part 1)

Microns

Imagine getting very short emails from brands you like and trust that inform, educate and delight. These “micro newsletters” (microns, as I term them) can be read in 15-30 seconds unlike the regular emails that we typically get from brands which are full of images, text and links. Think of them like SMSes – you want to see them right away rather than later. The microns are not ad-driven, but content-rich. They could have breaking news, market updates, thoughtful quotes, recipes, health tips, travel recommendations, an excerpt from a poem, a brief on a new topic. The point is that you, as an email subscriber, see them almost as soon as they come. And in that fleeting moment, you are also exposed to the brand. Microns come daily and automatically – at the same time. Their goal? Become a habit in your life.

For a brand, microns are easy to create because they are much shorter. They daily connect with the recipient (customers or prospects) helps foster a closer bond. Emails tend to have a low open rate – which is where microns come in. Because they can be instantly consumed, there is no reason to leave them for later. It is almost like SMSes – we tend to see them as soon as we get them because we know it will only take a few seconds. Email still remains the most inexpensive communication channel – costing a fraction of the cost of sending SMS or WhatsApp. While app notifications have a zero cost to send, they do not have a 100% delivery rate – since many users simply turn off notifications. Useful microns can be shared on WhatsApp or other social media thus creating a potential viral effect and bringing in future customers to the brand.

Now imagine if microns can be made free for brands and with a double opt-in for subscribers – it’s a win-win on both sides. Recipients do not get any spam, while brands can scale the base without worries of cost implications (especially since messages are sent daily). Sounds too good to be true? This is exactly what MyToday aims to do – offer free daily email newsletter subscriptions that are valuable to both consumers and brands. It is the first-of-its-kind 2-sided platform – free for both sides (publishers and subscribers).

There are many questions that can be asked: In a world awash with content on websites, apps and social media, why is a new format – or even more content – needed? Our inboxes (Email, SMS, Whatsapp) are anyways crowded – why fill them up even more? Do we really need to get these microns daily? If everyone starts doing them, won’t that defeat the purpose? How many sources of news, recos and tips do we really need? All good questions that I will address. But before that, we will take a trip down memory lane.

Tomorrow: Part 2