Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies: Helping to Build a New Society
Remarks by Dixit A Joshi
28 June 2010
My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen – good evening.
I’m delighted that so many of you could join us here tonight to support the Centre for Hindu Studies.
When Shaunaka asked me to say a few words this evening, I thought about what perspective I could offer you as a banker. In fact I must admit I was a little concerned about whether a banker was the best choice of speaker – we’re not always known for our popularity…
But I truly believe that the Centre has made a formidable contribution to Hindu studies, and their relevance to the modern world, over the last 13 years. And with our support will continue to enrich understanding of the Hindu traditions for many years to come.
And so I want to talk to you briefly this evening about the value I see in the work of the Centre, and the contribution it makes to our society.
Why it matters
I believe we now stand at a crossroads. The failings of the market, and of the banks in particular, over the last two years have been written about at length. The choices before us reflect what has been called the “new austerity”. But I do not believe that we must endure a poverty of aspiration, nor reduce the depth or quality of our thinking.
Perhaps now more than ever, it is a time for different perspectives and different voices to be heard in the debate about the future of our society. We face big questions: about deficit reduction; the role of the state; the best way to regulate, to tax and to spend.
And these are questions that cannot be answered by recourse to the same thinking that created the financial crisis.
As a society, we must seek out and encourage alternative voices, from traditions rooted elsewhere than in Anglo-Saxon capitalism. Not because those traditions are necessarily wrong, although they certainly have their failings, but because we must enrich the quality of our thinking and debate with the teachings of cultures and traditions that have proven they can withstand the pressures of time; traditions that draw their inspiration not from the efficiency of the machine but from the balance of the system.
In my own industry, there was no bank, and no banker, that did not make mistakes, and I include myself in that. In short, the machine failed. What is important now is that we learn from what has happened and move forward together, as a society, to build not a new machine but a more balanced system.
The answers to the questions we face must be judged by the extent to which they achieve balance. Between the state and the individual, borrowers and lenders, savers and investors, between the rich and the poor.
But modern life is noisy and fast. We have unprecedented access to information but little time to acquire knowledge. The internet can tell me five hundred ways to do something but it cannot give me the wisdom to know which is right.
I am a Hindu. It is the tradition into which I was born and represents the principles by which I live my life. But that is not to suggest for a moment that I have even begun to scratch the surface of what that tradition has to offer.
And so I believe there is a space, indeed an urgent need, in our society for a strong Hindu voice: academic in approach, broad in composition and inclusive in tone.
The work of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies provides such a voice.
A deeper understanding
Firstly, I believe the Centre gives us a deeper understanding of the Hindu tradition.
Our traditions are complex and bear closer inspection. The Centre provides a focus for that work and an important touch point for Hindu scholars around the world.
I know from my professional life that the best way to understand complexity is through rigorous and detailed analysis. And we rely on some of the best minds in the business to bring clarity to the seemingly impenetrable fog of data at our disposal.
My business trades many hundreds of millions of pounds of shares a day, with thousands of orders sent to exchanges around the world. And yet, I can know with absolute precision what the business is doing at any given moment – because our people are dedicated to a rigorous analysis of what we do and have created not just the ability to assimilate facts but to turn those facts into knowledge.
The market operates on the principle of free flowing information, publicly available to all. What makes the difference is your ability to turn that information into insight. And from insight to action.
The Hindu traditions go back thousands of years, and are a rich tapestry of knowledge and experience. To a layman it can be incredibly complex and a knowledge that is not always accessible, even to those who actively seek it.
The Centre provides a focus for the academic study of Hinduism, and as well as bringing together an incredible range of information about the Hindu traditions, its students from all over the world provide us with an understanding of the relationship between those texts. Of seeking out not just what has passed but why it matters.
And, perhaps more importantly, the Centre shares its knowledge and understanding of Hinduism through its lectures and journals.
YouTube may be famous for sneezing pandas and dancing cats but it is also being used by the Centre to share those lectures with the world. Making accessible to millions a deeper understanding of the Hindu tradition.
A connection
Secondly, the Centre provides a connection between Hindu thinking and the challenges we face as a global society.
It has always been of great interest to me that the challenges we face today have so often been faced before. The recent economic turmoil has many parallels throughout the years and what is perhaps more important now than ever is our ability to learn from the past.
This has not been the first financial crisis and it will not be the last. From the Tulip Bubble in 1637, through the South Sea and Mississippi bubbles in 1720, to the Wall Street crash in 1929: there is no accounting for the madness of crowds.
And each of these crises had at its root the same simple cause - assumptions about risk and value that were unfounded. And an inability amongst its protagonists to learn from the lessons of the past.
This time around, the arena was property – starting with the US sub-prime housing market. But it’s not so different from tulips.
People underestimated the risk of sub-prime mortgages and overestimated the value of the assets – just as they had done with Tulips in the seventeenth century and shares in the future of the new world in the eighteenth.
And what was true then remains true now: that risk exists, and the ability to manage it provides us with a way to balance the system. But for that to happen, balance has to be a specific objective. To simply perfect the mechanism only serves to speed up the crisis, to inflate the bubble faster.
Better that we understand all elements of the system, holistically, and be prepared to use that understanding to apply the brakes. To take a longer term view that considers more than just short term profit.
We do not put brakes on a car to make it go slower; they are there to enable us to go faster more safely. That is how we should view the wisdom of the past – as the brakes on our pursuit of the future, serving to get us there more safely.
I know that some of the research the Centre is engaged in focuses specifically on drawing out from the breadth and depth of Hindu tradition the lessons it offers us in topics such as globalisation and social equality.
I believe it is our ability to understand these teachings that will enable us as a society to apply the brakes before it is too late.
An identity
Thirdly, the Centre is helping to strengthen a sense of Hindu identity and a better understanding of what it means to be a Hindu today.
My family is originally from India. I myself was born in South Africa and also lived in New York before making my home in London. But throughout my life, Hinduism has always provided me with a clear framework within which to make decisions and understand the world around me.
I have three daughters and I want for them to have the same strong sense of Hindu identity that my parents instilled in me. I am incredibly grateful to the Centre because their work, helps us to preserve Hindu thought for future generations.
In simply collecting Hindu thought and knowledge in one place they would have made an incredible contribution. But more than that, the Centre also provides a structure and systematic delivery to that knowledge in its programs. And in doing so, helps clarify many of the issues of Hindu identity.
The test of time
For me, one of the great strengths of Hindu thought is its ability to withstand the test of time. It is a tradition not of short term goals but a holistic approach to understand the long term consequences of what we do.
And so I believe the Centre is helping to provide our society with the scholarly foundations that enable us to make sense of our world today and in the future.
One thing I have certainly learnt throughout the financial turmoil of the last two years is the importance of strong and well guided leadership.
And I believe that does not come by accident.
The Centre is enabling modern business leaders to access the depth of Hindu thought as a way for them to better understand the choices with which they are faced.
The Centre is, I believe, unique amongst Hindu centres in that there is no requirement to consider yourself a Hindu in order to benefit from the teaching of the Hindu tradition. It is not a Hindu centre, it is a centre for Hindu Studies.
I believe that, more and more, people look to faith-based areas for guidance in solving their problems. If we believe that the collected wisdom of Hindu thought has something to offer, and I do believe that, then the challenge for us all is to preserve that wisdom and make it available to as many people as possible.
Help build a new society
And that is where the Centre needs your help. That is your opportunity to help define the future of our society. Strong voices do not come from weak organizations. They are born of organisations that have a clear purpose and the support to see it through.
There can be no doubt that Shaunaka and the team have clearly carved out their place in society. Defined their purpose and their aims. And have already made an incredible difference in providing a platform for Hindu thought.
But, as a banker, I cannot help but see the opportunity for an investment here. In giving the Centre my support, it is clear to me that the return to society far outweighs that which I could achieve alone.
For every additional student that passes through its doors, for every additional clip viewed on YouTube, for every business leader coached; there will be another voice in the debate that draws on Hindu thought.
And for every text collected and preserved, for every new insight into our past, and for every new parallel drawn to the present; there will be a stronger foundation and greater relevance for our Hindu traditions.
We have an opportunity to ignite a spark in people’s minds. To help the Centre reach across our society and light the fires of knowledge in all that it touches. And to build the traditions of our past into the foundations of our future.
I believe that we have before us an opportunity to invest not just in the Centre for Hindu Studies but in the quality of thought and debate that will help to shape our future.
And, for me, that’s an investment opportunity too good to turn down.