Wanderlust or the spirit of “ghumakkadi” bit Shashank Mani, a Lok Sabha MP, as a teen and turned into a lifelong passion, with him founding the Jagriti Yatra, a multi-city train journey across “middle India” with over 500 youth on board, transcending regional barriers. He is also the founder of the Jagriti Enterprise Centre Purvanchal, at Barpar in Deoria, UP, which acts as an incubation centre for startup ideas.
Here, he talks about the 15-day Jagriti Yatra, the “world’s largest entrepreneurial train journey” covering 8000 km, running since 2008 and impacting over 7500+ youth so far. A non-profit initiative, it focuses on Tier 2 and Tier 3 districts, building India through enterprise. Talking about the non-profit initiative, he questions the ‘soft bigotry of low expectations’ that middle India suffers from and reiterates the region's innate ability to pull itself up from the bottom, challenging the “top down” approach. Listen in!
Shashank Mani, who belongs to Deoria, completed his BTech from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi and MBA (Hons) from IMD Lausanne. He comes from an international and consulting background and is the author of “India –A Journey through a Healing Civilisation” and the more recent “Middle Of Diamond India: National Renaissance through Participation and Enterprise”.
Timestamps:
01:45 Shashank Mani on the origin of Jagriti Yatra
05:20 What is middle India? The soft bigotry of “low expectations”
11:00 Middle India cannot be defined by GDP alone; the role of family, faith and community
16:35 The inception of the yatra and choosing to travel by train; the spirit of “ghumakkadi”
21:19 The “time lifeline” familiarisation activity on the train
23:44 The rituals of the Jagriti Yatra; communal meals, observing silence, etc
26:54 The route of the yatra
28:10 The cohorts, facilitators and role models
30:00 India and the spirit of enterprise; the example of Purvanchal
33:55 The application process for Jagriti Yatra; educational qualifications not a marker
37:30 What motivates him41:00 Who is the Yatra for?
42:20 The Udyam centre at Deoria
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