Shepherdstown: Lessons from a Winter in West Virginia

Shepherdstown: Lessons from a Winter in West Virginia

In January 2011, I travelled to the United States for a two-week Executive Development Seminar at the Eastern Management Development Centre (EMDC), Shepherdstown, West Virginia. The programme was sponsored by the Department of Personnel & Training, Government of India, and brought together about thirty participants—twenty-five from different levels of the US government and five of us from the Indian Administrative Service.

The journey took me to a part of America I might otherwise never have visited. Shepherdstown is a small, historic town on the Potomac River, in West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle, close to the Maryland border. It is surrounded by rolling countryside and the wooded landscape of the Potomac Valley. In January, however, the landscape had a very different character from Gujarat. The mornings were cold and often grey, the trees largely bare, and the winter air had a sharpness that I was not accustomed to. Coming from Ahmedabad, where winter is usually gentle, I found the American winter itself a small cultural experience.

Shepherdstown's quietness was striking. It was difficult to imagine that this peaceful town and the surrounding countryside had once been part of one of the most violent chapters in American history. The Potomac River here was not merely a geographical feature; during the American Civil War it was a strategic military crossing. In September 1862, immediately after the Battle of Antietam, Confederate forces under Robert E. Lee withdrew across the river and a major engagement followed at Shepherdstown. The National Park Service records the battle as the final action of the Maryland Campaign, with about 654 casualties.

Standing in such a landscape made history feel different. In India, we often encounter history through monuments, textbooks and archaeological remains. Here, the fields, river crossings and quiet roads themselves seemed to carry memories of war. The same landscape that now appeared peaceful had once been occupied by soldiers, artillery and retreating armies.

Our seminar, meanwhile, was concerned with a completely different kind of battle—the daily battle of government to lead change, reconcile competing interests and deliver results.

The course was designed to strengthen the executive capabilities of senior government officers. We studied leadership, strategic planning, emotional intelligence, executive communication, the federal budget, the Presidency, Congress, political mapping, coalition building and managing change. Classroom lectures were combined with case studies, videos, group exercises, field visits and informal interaction with American officers.

For an Indian civil servant, the American system was fascinating because of its very different institutional architecture. We discussed the President's powers, the Senate and House of Representatives, congressional committees, federal executives, budget authorization and appropriation processes, and the constant interaction between elected representatives and the executive machinery. We also discussed the influence of elections, interest groups, media and public opinion on policy.

One lesson that stayed with me was that administration cannot be understood only through organizational charts. Behind every policy are people, constituencies, institutions, interests and competing expectations. A civil servant may have a technically sound proposal, but implementation often depends upon understanding the political and social environment around it.

A particularly useful exercise was mapping the political environment. We were asked to identify the strategic players, stakeholders, interest groups, legislative committees and other institutions that could influence a particular policy. It made me reflect on our own administration in India. We sometimes think of a government decision as a file moving from one office to another. In reality, every important decision has a larger ecosystem around it.

The sessions on leading change introduced us to John Kotter's eight-step approach to organizational change. Vision, mission, objectives and SWOT analysis were not treated as abstract management terminology but as practical tools for moving an organization from its existing position to a desired future. This connected well with my own experience in the Gujarat administration, where many reforms depended not merely on issuing orders but on persuading people to change established practices.

The sessions on emotional intelligence were equally revealing. The Emotional Quotient Inventory encouraged us to look inward—to understand our own emotional and social functioning, our strengths and weaknesses, our ability to manage stress and our adaptability. For an administrator, this is important because government work is ultimately human work. Files may be objective, but the people who handle them are not.

Another interesting exercise was the DiSC behavioural model, which helped us understand different behavioural patterns—Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness. It made me reflect on the diversity of personalities encountered in public administration. An effective leader cannot deal with everyone in exactly the same way. Understanding one's own behaviour is perhaps the first step towards understanding others.

The most enjoyable learning often came through exercises rather than lectures. In one group exercise, some members were given the role of designers and communicators while others had to assemble a model car. There were limitations on time, money and communication. The people doing the assembly did not have direct access to all the information. The exercise quickly demonstrated what happens when departments or specialists work in isolation.

We learnt a simple but important principle: collaboration is not merely putting several people in one room; it is ensuring that the right information reaches the right person at the right time.

Another simulation placed us in the role of members of Congress. We had to consider the interests of constituencies, negotiate with colleagues, decide how public funds might be used and build consensus while keeping re-election in mind. It was a revealing exercise because it showed the pressures under which elected representatives operate. The bureaucrat and the politician may have different incentives, but both are essential components of democratic governance.

One of the most memorable parts of the programme was a visit connected with the American Civil War, particularly the Antietam battlefield in neighbouring Maryland. Antietam was fought on 17 September 1862 and is remembered as the bloodiest single day in American history. The Confederate withdrawal after Antietam led directly to the fighting around Shepherdstown.

Walking through that landscape during the cold winter months created an unusual juxtaposition. We were studying leadership in a changing environment while standing on ground where, nearly 150 years earlier, commanders had made decisions involving thousands of lives. The nature of leadership changes with time, but the fundamental questions remain surprisingly similar: What is the objective? What are the risks? Who are the stakeholders? How do we communicate? When should we change course?

The sessions on executive communication were also particularly useful. We were required to formulate a clear message, understand the audience, position a presentation appropriately and respond to difficult questions under pressure. As administrators, we often have extensive information at our disposal. But information is not communication. A leader must know what needs to be said, to whom, when and in what form.

Looking back, my two weeks in Shepherdstown were therefore more than an overseas training programme. They gave me an opportunity to look at administration from another institutional and cultural setting. The United States and India have very different constitutional structures, political systems and administrative traditions, but the fundamental challenges of governance are remarkably similar: managing change, balancing competing interests, communicating with people, building coalitions and converting policy into results.

And perhaps that is why I remember Shepherdstown more vividly than many larger American cities I visited. It was a small town, quiet under the winter sky, beside a river that had witnessed war. In that setting, I was studying modern management techniques for government.

History was beneath our feet, and the future of administration was being discussed in the classroom. The combination made those two weeks particularly memorable.

 

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My Second Journey to Japan

My Second Journey to Japan (2016)

My first visit to Japan was in 2002, when I travelled there under a JICA programme on gender equality in fishing-community development. I was then relatively early in my career and looked at Japan largely as a visitor and a participant in a training programme. Tokyo, Yokohama, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Japanese railway system left a deep impression on me. I had called that experience “Love in Tokyo.” Fourteen years later, in May 2016, I returned to Japan. By then I had travelled to many countries and had spent more than three decades in public administration. I was therefore seeing Japan with a different pair of eyes. I was still a tourist, but I was also an administrator, and almost everything I saw raised a question about how societies organise themselves. I looked not only at monuments and landscapes but also at trains, roads, schools, markets, waste, tourism, agriculture, food, public behaviour and the small habits through which a society reveals its values.

Our second journey began in Osaka. The city, situated around Osaka Bay and the mouth of the Yodo River, is one of Japan's great commercial centres and is popularly known as the “Kitchen of Japan.” The name seemed particularly appropriate because food is woven into the character of the city. Restaurants, food streets, markets, traditional Japanese preparations and international cuisine were everywhere. Yet my first encounter with Osaka was not about food but about transport. The workshop organisers had not arranged our airport pickup, and we had to find our own way to the hotel with luggage and very little Japanese. At the airport transport enquiry counter, we sought help, and I was impressed to see local university students volunteering to assist tourists and elderly people. English was not always sufficient for communication, but their willingness to help was genuine. After some confusion, one young student took responsibility for us and helped us negotiate the succession of trains and changes required to reach our hotel near Osaka Bay. With luggage, unfamiliar stations and a language barrier, what should have been a simple journey became an adventure of nearly two hours. I actually enjoyed it. Travel becomes memorable when everything does not go according to plan. Later, the hotel apologised for the failure of communication. The incident also reminded me of a lesson from administration: when two institutions fail to communicate, the citizen should not be made to suffer for it.

Osaka made a particularly strong impression on me because of its cleanliness. I learnt that the city had not always been as clean as it appeared to a visitor in 2016. Over several decades, public education, civic behaviour and consistent effort had gradually changed the habits of the people. The experience of the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 had also provided a strong national motivation to improve public cleanliness and presentation. What interested me was that cleanliness had not been left entirely to municipal workers. It had become part of education and public behaviour. I later saw a beautiful example of this at Osaka Castle, where a primary-school teacher reminded a group of six- or seven-year-old children that they should not leave until they had picked up their own waste. The children, wearing yellow caps, quietly followed her instruction. That small scene stayed with me. We often ask why our cities are dirty and whether we need more sweepers, more vehicles and more money. Japan made me think that the deeper question is what we teach children about public space. A city cannot be kept clean if citizens continually dirty it. The cleaner's work is necessary, but the cleaner cannot be the first line of defence against careless public behaviour. The first line must be education and civic responsibility.

This observation became even more meaningful when, during my visit to Naha Airport in Okinawa, I saw a woman cleaning the men's toilet. She wore gloves and carefully cleaned each part of the urinal by hand, spending several minutes on each. There was no visible embarrassment or feeling that the work was beneath her. She was simply doing her job properly. I thought about India, where sanitation work has historically been associated with particular social groups and where Gandhi repeatedly tried to give dignity to cleanliness and manual work. We often maintain good personal hygiene but are less careful about community hygiene. We may keep our own house clean while throwing waste outside it, expecting somebody else to take care of the consequences. In many Indian cities I had seen sweeping that merely moved dust from one side of the road to another, encroachments occupying public space and public places being neglected because everyone assumed that somebody else would clean them. Japan strengthened my belief that cleanliness is ultimately a matter of behaviour and work culture. We can employ cleaners, outsource services and improve technology, but unless people learn not to dirty public spaces, the problem will continue. If I had to identify one place from which a clean India could realistically begin, I would choose the anganwadi and the primary school, because habits learnt at that age can remain for a lifetime.

One evening in Osaka, a Japanese acquaintance, Tsukuda-san, took us to the Umeda area. The transformation from the traditional image of Japan was striking. Around Hankyu Umeda and the railway station, offices, shopping centres, restaurants and commercial buildings rose one above another. Thousands of people were moving through the station, yet there was remarkably little dependence on private cars. The railway was not merely a means of transportation; it was the organising spine of the city. People travelled to work, shopped, ate and returned home through an interconnected public transport system. For an Indian administrator, the lesson was immediate. As our cities grow, we cannot expect every additional citizen to travel by private vehicle. Roads alone cannot solve congestion. Mass public transport has to become the backbone of urban development. I was less interested in whether the railway was government-owned or had subsequently been reorganised and privatised than in the fact that the system continued to serve the citizen efficiently. Ownership is important, but performance and accountability are ultimately what the citizen experiences.

That evening we had dinner at a restaurant on the thirty-second floor, overlooking the city. The menu was entirely in Japanese, so Tsukuda-san helped us order. There were vegetables, seafood salad with seaweed, clams cooked in rice wine, tuna and avocado rolled in tofu skin, tofu preparations, grilled fish and boiled green vegetables. There was also non-alcoholic beer and grape juice. I selected mostly vegetarian items, along with garlic bread and tea. The meal was beautifully presented and served in several courses. Sitting high above the illuminated city, I began thinking beyond food. Japan's traditional diet is closely connected with rice, fish, vegetables, soy products and seasonal produce, but urbanisation and globalisation are changing the eating habits of the younger generation. Convenience foods, packaged meals, toast, meat, salads and international cuisines have become increasingly common. The same transformation is visible in India. Economic development changes not only income and housing; it changes what people eat, how they travel, how they shop and, ultimately, how much waste they produce.

The discussion also turned towards Japanese agriculture. As young people move towards cities and modern occupations, farming faces a labour challenge. Mechanisation, consolidation of agricultural land and new forms of agricultural enterprise become increasingly important. I could not help thinking of India's future. We still have a very large agricultural population, but there is no guarantee that the next generation will remain on farms in the same numbers. The question will therefore not merely be how to keep young people in agriculture; it will also be how to make agriculture more productive when fewer people are willing to work on the farm. Japan offered an early glimpse of a problem that India may increasingly face.

From Osaka I travelled to Kyoto, the ancient imperial capital. The journey through the green landscape and mountains was itself a pleasure. Kyoto felt completely different from Osaka. Osaka was energetic and commercial; Kyoto was reflective and historical. At Sanjusangen-do, the long wooden hall and the extraordinary collection of Kannon figures made a deep impression on me. I was especially interested in the presence of figures associated with Buddhist traditions that had travelled across Asia and whose names and iconography have connections with ancient Indian religious traditions. As an Indian standing in a Japanese temple, I experienced a curious sense of cultural familiarity. Civilisations influence one another quietly. Ideas travel through monks, teachers, merchants, travellers and scriptures, often long after political boundaries have changed.

We then visited Kiyomizu-dera. The approach to the temple was crowded with visitors and lined with shops selling handicrafts, sweets, tea and souvenirs. Green-tea sweets could be tasted before purchase, which seemed to me a very practical Japanese way of combining hospitality and commerce. The temple, standing on a wooded hillside, offered a magnificent view of Kyoto. Its traditional wooden construction and surrounding greenery created an atmosphere in which history seemed alive rather than preserved behind glass. At Otowa-no-taki, visitors drank water from three streams while making wishes. Nearby, two stones associated with love were separated by some distance, and tradition said that a person who could walk from one to the other with closed eyes would have his or her wish for love fulfilled. I smiled at the idea. Love is truly blind, even in Kyoto. We spent several hours walking through the city, tasting sweets and looking at traditional shops before returning to Osaka. After a full day of Japanese food, I cooked khichadi. However sophisticated the country or cuisine, there are moments when the taste of home has its own authority.

Japan's religious and cultural life also fascinated me. Shinto and Buddhism coexist in ways that do not fit neatly into the Western idea of belonging exclusively to one religion. Shinto is deeply connected with nature, ritual and the sacred presence associated with natural places and objects, while Buddhism has a particularly strong role in funerary traditions. Many Japanese people participate in different religious customs at different stages of life. This coexistence reminded me of India, where religious practices often overlap in everyday life rather than remaining confined to separate compartments. I was also struck by the way tradition and technology coexist. A young Japanese person may be absorbed in a mobile phone while living within a culture that still respects centuries-old rituals. The mobile phone itself seemed almost like a modern oracle. If someone did not know an answer, the phone was consulted immediately. We once depended on elders for knowledge; the younger generation increasingly asks the internet.

A foreign visitor can make a small beginning in Japan by learning a few Japanese words: konnichiwa for hello, arigato gozaimasu for thank you, sumimasen for excuse me, migi for right and hidari for left. Even a few words make one feel less foreign. I also noticed the cultural significance attached to certain numbers. Four is traditionally avoided because its pronunciation can be associated with death, while nine has an association with suffering; seven and eight are regarded more favourably. Such beliefs reminded me that technological sophistication does not necessarily eliminate traditional beliefs. Modernity and tradition live side by side.

I also noticed the changing social life of Japan. The older generation seemed more attached to traditional customs, while the younger generation appeared increasingly individualistic and global in outlook. Young people were conscious of fashion, technology and friends, and the culture of eating and drinking after work was visible in the cities. One evening at Otemachi station I saw two intoxicated people holding each other's shoulders and struggling down the steps while railway staff helped them. For a moment the scene reminded me of an old Hindi film comedy. It was a useful reminder that even a disciplined society is made up of ordinary human beings with ordinary weaknesses. Japan had efficient systems, but it had not abolished human nature.

Another subject that occupied my mind was waste. Japan's modern lifestyle is a highly packaged lifestyle—bottles, cans, plastics, packets and containers accompany everyday consumption. At the same time, Japan has developed detailed systems for waste segregation, collection, incineration and recycling. Households separate different categories of waste, collection follows schedules, and large or special items require separate arrangements. The system is impressive, but it made me think about the economic and ecological chain behind a simple bottle. Raw materials are extracted, processed, packaged, transported, stored, displayed, purchased, carried home, discarded, collected and finally recycled or destroyed. A small consumer product therefore generates a surprisingly large chain of economic activity.

This led me to what I called the “Bottled Economy.” Consumption creates employment and economic activity, but consumption also creates waste. The world's population continues to grow, and billions of people understandably want better homes, better food, better transport and a better quality of life. Yet natural resources are finite. How long can we continue inflating the balloon of consumption? Can we improve the quality of life of billions without destroying the ecological system that sustains them? Japan, with its extraordinary capacity to organise waste, nevertheless showed me that even the best waste-management system is ultimately dealing with a problem created much earlier—in the way we produce and consume.

Tokyo, when I returned to it, was both familiar and new. The Metro initially appeared complicated, but the colour-coded lines, numbered stations, maps and clear signs made it possible for a foreigner to navigate the city. The real achievement, however, was not merely the railway technology. It was the behaviour of millions of passengers who knew where to stand, how to queue, when to change lines and how to move through crowded stations without creating unnecessary disorder. During rush hour the trains could become extraordinarily crowded, yet the system continued to function. The lesson was larger than transportation. A complex system becomes manageable when millions of participants understand their small roles and perform them consistently. Administration is often the same. Efficiency rarely comes from one spectacular innovation; it comes from thousands of small things being done correctly every day.

We also walked through Ginza, one of Tokyo's most prestigious commercial districts. The world's leading brands displayed their finest products, and the price tags often encouraged me to admire rather than purchase them. But what interested me more was the process of urban redevelopment. Older low-rise structures were gradually being replaced by modern buildings. I wondered why our Indian markets could not also be systematically renewed while preserving their character. Urban redevelopment should not mean simply constructing taller buildings. It should mean better roads, drainage, pedestrian movement, parking, fire safety, accessibility and commercial infrastructure while retaining whatever heritage deserves to survive. A market is not merely a collection of shops; it is a living urban institution.

The Tokyo railway experience also reminded me of the Shinkansen. I had travelled on Japan's famous high-speed railway during my earlier visit, and it remained a symbol of Japanese systems thinking. The impressive feature was not simply speed. It was the network of tracks, signalling, maintenance, scheduling, station management, reservation systems and trained personnel that made the speed possible. The train is only the visible part of the achievement. The larger lesson for administration is that spectacular outcomes are usually built upon invisible routines.

One small aspect of everyday Japanese life that amused me was the care given to cats. I often saw elderly women accompanied by well-fed cats, treated almost like members of the family. Some of the cats were so comfortably nourished that their leisurely walk seemed to suggest that they had no intention of missing a meal. These small observations may have little administrative significance, but they are what make travel human. We remember the temple, but we also remember the cat.

And then came the journey to Renkoji.

There was a personal reason why this visit mattered to me. During my first trip to Japan in 2002, I had wanted to visit Renkoji Temple in Tokyo and pay homage to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, one of India's great freedom fighters. The desire had remained with me for fourteen years. On this visit, after an unexpected delay at the airport, we left our luggage at the hotel reception and hurried to the Nishikasai Metro station. We travelled by the Tozai Line to Otemachi, changed to the Marunouchi Line and reached Higashi-Koenji, from where we walked through a quiet residential area.

An elderly Japanese man on a bicycle stopped when he saw us. Through our limited communication and an interpreter, we understood that he knew that Indians came to the temple to see the remains of a great man from India. He did not know much more about Netaji. His simplicity touched me. To Indians, Netaji is a towering figure of the freedom struggle; to this ordinary Japanese man, he was simply a great Indian whose remains were preserved in the temple.

We entered the temple precinct with deep respect. A statue of Netaji stood near the entrance. Nearby were plaques recording visits by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr Rajendra Prasad, Smt Indira Gandhi and Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee. I stood before them with a sense of history. But the temple itself was closed. We tried to contact the priest and requested that it be opened, but our request was declined. We were told that the urns were normally opened for viewing only once a year. Through the glass and grilled door, however, I managed to glimpse the shrine-like interior. I could see the white urns traditionally believed to contain Netaji's ashes, along with photographs and other objects arranged respectfully.

I folded my hands and saluted from outside.

My fourteen-year-old desire had been fulfilled only halfway.

Perhaps that is why the experience has remained so vivid. Some journeys end when we reach the destination; some remain alive because something is left incomplete. I had finally reached Renkoji, but I had not been able to stand directly before the ashes. I promised myself that if another opportunity came, I would try once again.

From Renkoji we went to Asakusa and Senso-ji. The contrast was fascinating. A short while earlier I had been standing before a shrine connected in my mind with India's freedom struggle; now I was amidst one of Tokyo's most famous Buddhist landmarks, surrounded by pilgrims, tourists, shops and the colourful Nakamise street. The temple's history of destruction during the Second World War and subsequent rebuilding seemed symbolic of Japan itself. Earthquakes, fires, war and rapid modernisation have repeatedly disrupted the country, yet Japan has demonstrated a remarkable capacity to rebuild while retaining memory.

Looking back at my second visit, I realise that I had returned to Japan for one personal purpose but received many lessons in return. Osaka taught me about public transport, food, urbanisation and civic education. Kyoto taught me about heritage and the movement of ideas across civilisations. Okinawa taught me the dignity of work. Tokyo taught me about mass transportation, urban redevelopment and the discipline required to make complex systems function. Waste management made me think about the ecological cost of prosperity. Japanese food and agriculture made me think about the changing relationship between tradition, labour and modern life. The temples reminded me that technological progress need not erase cultural memory.

Yet I did not return believing that India should become Japan. Every society has its own history, temperament, strengths and weaknesses. We should learn selectively. I often express this philosophy in a phrase that comes naturally to me: “Mitha mitha gap gap, kadava kadava thoo.” Take the good; leave the rest. We can learn from Japan's cleanliness without copying its lifestyle, from its public transport without copying every aspect of its society, from its tourism management without turning our heritage into replicas, and from its work culture, punctuality, waste management, disaster preparedness and civic education while retaining our own strengths—our diversity, warmth, family bonds, entrepreneurship, flexibility and ability to live with complexity.

My first visit to Japan had been “Love in Tokyo.” The second was different. I returned fourteen years later with a more experienced eye, and Japan became a lesson in how ordinary behaviour, institutional discipline and long-term public policy can together shape a society. I had gone as a traveller, but I came back also as an observer of administration and human behaviour.

And yet, despite everything I saw—the bullet trains, temples, skyscrapers, markets, food, cleanliness and extraordinary organisation—my strongest memory of the journey remains a closed door at Renkoji.

I had gone there to complete an old desire.

I had only partly succeeded.

Perhaps that is fitting. Life itself is rarely a collection of completed journeys. Some desires remain unfinished and continue to accompany us. They become part of our inner landscape.

The first time Japan gave me Love in Tokyo.

The second time it gave me something more enduring—a deeper understanding of people, systems, development and myself.

And perhaps that is the greatest gift of travel: we go to see another country, but return seeing our own country with new eyes.

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Leicester: A Little Gujarat in Britain

Leicester: A Little Gujarat in Britain (September 2009)

In September 2009, I travelled to Leicester in the United Kingdom as Commissioner & Secretary, Cottage & Rural Industries, Gujarat, to attend the three-day ‘Village India & Experience Gujarat’ event at De Montfort Hall. I had travelled abroad earlier, but Leicester offered me a different kind of experience. I was going to Britain, yet in many ways I felt I was entering a little Gujarat.

Leicester had a population of around three lakh, with nearly 80,000 Gujaratis. The moment I encountered the Gujarati community there, I was reminded that migration does not necessarily mean leaving one's roots behind. People may change their country, profession and lifestyle, but food, language, music, festivals and memories often travel with them.

The organizers had created a small Indian village inside the British city. Traditional Gujarati bhungas, huts, village objects and even statues of cattle had been beautifully arranged. There were about a dozen such structures. At one place, Rajendra Bhatt from Gandhinagar sat dressed as Mahatma Gandhi, spinning the charkha. Visitors stopped, looked and photographed the scene. What interested me most was watching young Gujarati children asking their parents and grandparents questions about the things they were seeing. For them, the village was almost an unfamiliar world.

That scene stayed with me. A village recreated in Leicester was teaching children born in Britain something that textbooks alone could not teach them—their own cultural ancestry.

The presence of Gandhi made the experience even more meaningful. Leicester had recently unveiled a statue of Gandhi, one of only a few such public memorials in Britain at that time. I remember reflecting on the irony and beauty of it: Gandhi, who had spoken so passionately about India's villages and self-reliance, had travelled far beyond India and found a place in the heart of a British city.

The performance area presented another interesting picture. The younger generation enjoyed Bhangra and popular music, while older Gujaratis gathered around folk music, devotional songs and traditional performances. Parthiv Gohil, Hemant Chauhan, Ashit Desai, Hema Desai, Aishwarya Majumdar, Saumil Munshi and several other artists kept the atmosphere lively. Sairam Dave's dayro brought laughter, while folk performances of Bhavai, Ras and Bharatanatyam connected the audience with Indian traditions.

And then there was the food court. It was crowded almost continuously. The aroma of Gujarati and Asian food seemed to confirm what I had already understood: food is perhaps one of the strongest passports of culture.

As the officer responsible for cottage and rural industries, however, I naturally looked at the exhibition from another angle—the prospects for our artisans in an international market. The results were mixed. There was considerable curiosity about Gujarati handicrafts, but actual sales were not always encouraging. Patola, for example, was admired but its high price limited purchases. Sankheda furniture eventually found a buyer, while some stalls received useful enquiries about interior decoration and event management. One participating unit from Dahod even suffered a major loss when goods were stolen at night.

These experiences taught me a practical lesson. Taking a craft abroad is not the same as taking a product to a foreign market. An artisan needs much more than an exhibition stall—appropriate pricing, packaging, design, logistics, security and, above all, knowledge of the customer's expectations. Government can open the door, but the product must ultimately walk through it on its own strength.

There was also an unexpected administrative difficulty. Most of the artisans selected for the event could not travel because their visas did not arrive in time. Only one of the nine applicants was able to participate. It was a useful reminder that international programmes require meticulous preparation and contingency planning; even a good idea can falter because of something as mundane as paperwork and timing.

The event also became a platform for Gujarat's economic outreach. Hon'ble Minister Mrs. Anandiben Patel met British and Gujarati business representatives and spoke about Gujarat's infrastructure, investment opportunities and the state's changing economic landscape. Meetings with MPs and other British dignitaries added a diplomatic dimension to what had begun as a cultural festival.

About 15,000 people visited the event over three days. The first day's turnout was disappointing, but the subsequent response was much better. The organizers expressed their intention to make the event an annual feature.

What I remember most from Leicester, however, is not the number of visitors or the official meetings. It is the image of a Gujarati child standing before a village hut in the middle of Britain, asking his elders, “What is this? How did people live like this?”

Perhaps that was the real achievement of the event. It had brought a little piece of Gujarat to Britain—not merely through music, food and handicrafts, but through memory.

I came back with another thought as well. The Gujarati diaspora need not be merely the keeper of our culture; it can also become a bridge between Gujarat and the world. Culture can open the door, and through that door can come friendship, investment, markets and new opportunities for our artisans and rural communities.

 

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Eastern Europe: Around the World

Tallinn, Riga, Helsinki and St Petersburg - Mosco: A Journey from Medieval Streets to Digital Governance (August – September 2024)

In August 2014, I travelled to Estonia as part of an Indian delegation of senior officers attending the e-Governance Leadership Programme organised by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology. Estonia was the principal destination of our study tour, but the journey gave us the opportunity to experience four very different faces of Northern Europe—Tallinn, Helsinki, Riga and St Petersburg.

It turned out to be much more than a training programme. It became a journey through history, technology, culture, friendship, food, humour—and, in St Petersburg, even a lesson in the practical dangers of being an unsuspecting tourist.

The Baltic Sea and the First Glimpse of Tallinn

Our approach to Tallinn was itself memorable. We travelled by ferry from Helsinki across the Baltic Sea. The vast stretch of water, the cool wind, the moving deck and the skyline gradually disappearing behind us gave the journey a special charm. For a traveller accustomed to the crowded roads and railway platforms of India, a Baltic ferry offered a completely different experience—quiet, spacious and almost meditative.

Tallinn appeared gradually on the horizon, looking less like a modern capital and more like a city emerging from a medieval painting.

Tallinn is small by the standards of world capitals, but it has an unusual character. Its Old Town, with cobbled streets, stone walls, towers and European-style buildings, makes one feel that one has suddenly walked into the fifteenth century. The medieval atmosphere is not preserved merely in museums; it is alive in the streets, restaurants, churches and public squares.

The Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Among the places worth seeing are the Town Hall Square, the old fortress walls, St Nicholas Church, the Parliament and Government buildings, Toompea Hill, the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral and the Freedom Monument. The contrast between the old city and the modern digital state is striking. A medieval street can lead you to a completely paperless government office.

One of the things that amused us was the Estonian habit of greeting one another with a phrase that sounded to our Indian ears like “terveks” or “terviseks”. We were told that it was essentially a wish for good health. When asked how they were, many Estonians simply answered “normal”—neither particularly good nor bad. Perhaps it was an expression of their temperament: reserved, practical and understated.

A Medieval Dinner—and a Little Bit of India

One evening, our local guide, perhaps sensing our homesickness, arranged dinner at an Indian restaurant, Hotel Maharaja, on Pikk Street. Our techno-savvy colleague Mishraji immediately took charge of navigation through his mobile GPS. Unfortunately, technology did not make us smarter that evening. We turned left, right, left again and somehow managed to lose our way.

When we finally reached the restaurant, a large wooden elephant and an image of Lakshmi seemed to welcome us. We laughed at ourselves. After travelling thousands of kilometres from India, here we were eating chhole, chicken, paneer pakoda, crispy roti and gulab jamun. We wondered why Indians sometimes cross oceans only to search for the food they eat at home.

Tallinn offered another culinary time machine at Olde Hansa, a restaurant designed entirely around medieval life. Candlelight, wooden furniture, old paintings, traditionally dressed servers, earthen-looking vessels and medieval-style food created the feeling of dining five hundred years ago.

We were told that drinking beer was common in medieval Europe because drinking water was not always safe. The restaurant therefore served honey beer and other medieval drinks. The food included salmon, mushrooms, barley, vegetables, bread and apple pie. For a vegetarian Indian, the mushrooms, hot vegetables, barley and bread were more reassuring than the adventurous medieval beverages!

The experience taught me something about tourism: the best restaurants do not merely serve food; they serve history.

Estonia: A Small Country with a Big Digital Idea

The real purpose of our visit, however, was not medieval Tallinn but e-Estonia.

Estonia had regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. It was a small country of around 1.35 million people, with limited resources. Yet instead of attempting to reproduce the bureaucratic systems of larger countries, Estonia decided to build something different.

The phrase that stayed with me was:

“ICT for Identity.”

The Estonian approach was not simply to put existing government forms on computers. It was to redesign government around the citizen.

The national electronic ID card became the foundation. It was not merely an identity card but also a means of authentication and digital signature. Mobile-ID extended the same idea to mobile phones. The underlying philosophy was simple: one citizen, one trusted digital identity.

What impressed me even more was the idea that the citizen remained the owner of his or her personal data. Government agencies could access information when authorised, but such access left an audit trail. Privacy was not treated as an afterthought; it was built into the legal and technological framework.

For an Indian administrator, this was a powerful lesson. Digitisation without trust can become another form of bureaucracy. Digital governance must therefore combine convenience with accountability, interoperability with privacy, and speed with security.

X-Road: When Government Departments Talk to One Another

Another concept that fascinated me was X-Road, the secure system through which different government databases communicate with one another.

The importance of X-Road was not the technology alone. Its real significance was that departments were prevented from becoming isolated islands of information.

That reminded me of a familiar administrative problem in India. A citizen may possess the same information in ten different government offices, yet each office may ask him to submit it again.

Estonia was trying to reverse that relationship: the government should exchange information internally instead of making the citizen carry information from one office to another.

That was perhaps the most important administrative lesson I brought home.

The Cabinet Without Files

Our visit to the Estonian Cabinet Secretariat provided another striking example.

We were taken through the Prime Minister's Office and Cabinet room. There were hardly any files. Ministers sat around a modern table, and the Cabinet worked through an e-Cabinet system.

The system had been introduced years earlier and allowed ministers to see the agenda, read documents, make comments and record decisions electronically.

The result was not simply a paperless office. Cabinet meetings had become much shorter because ministers could study the material beforehand. We were told that some meetings lasted only a few minutes.

But one sentence from the Estonian official stayed with me:

It is not the software that has to change; it is the practice.

This was an important lesson for a civil servant. Technology cannot reform an organisation if people continue to follow outdated procedures electronically. True e-governance begins with administrative reform and process re-engineering; computers come afterwards.

The Police That Could See

The Estonian e-Police system gave another fascinating example.

A patrol vehicle was equipped with a mobile workstation connected to relevant databases. An officer checking a vehicle could obtain information about the driving licence, vehicle registration, insurance, population records and other relevant information almost instantly.

What earlier required a radio call and considerable waiting could now be completed within seconds.

The positioning system also showed the location of patrol vehicles, enabling the control room to send the nearest available vehicle to an incident.

I found this especially relevant to Indian policing. Technology was not being used merely to produce reports after an incident; it was being used to improve the actual response of the police officer in the field.

A School Where Parents Enter the Classroom Digitally

The Estonian e-School system was another pleasant surprise. Parents could see attendance, grades, homework and notices. Teachers could enter assignments and marks; students could see their academic information; and parents could report absences.

In India, parents traditionally wait for a report card or parent-teacher meeting to know how their child is performing. Estonia had brought the classroom into the parent's digital space.

It was a simple example of how technology could improve not only government administration but everyday relationships between institutions and citizens.

Free Wi-Fi as Social Infrastructure

Tallinn was also a city where Wi-Fi seemed to be everywhere—in public places, cafés, transport areas, libraries and even rural locations.

The idea fascinated me because free connectivity was being treated almost like public infrastructure. Businesses, citizens, telecom companies and government had all become stakeholders.

It reminded me that digital governance cannot be built merely by creating websites. A digital state first needs digitally connected citizens.

The Company That Could Be Born in Eighteen Minutes

One of our final sessions was on e-Government in Justice. Mr Ingmar Vali explained the online company-registration system.

A person could fill in the required information, make necessary changes to the Articles of Association, pay the prescribed fee and submit the application online—without visiting a notary or carrying a file from office to office.

We were told that a company could be created through the online system in about 18 minutes, with formal registration completed within a couple of hours.

For someone who had spent decades watching Indian entrepreneurs navigate forms, files, counters and signatures, this was almost magical.

But again, the real lesson was not speed alone. Estonia had first simplified the process and then digitised it.

That distinction is crucial.

Putting a complicated procedure online does not make it citizen-friendly. Simplifying the procedure and then putting it online does.

“Discover Your Inner Einstein”

At MECTORY, the innovation centre associated with Tallinn University of Technology, we encountered another side of Estonia. The centre encouraged students and international participants to experiment, innovate and discover their “inner Einstein”.

We learnt about an MSc programme in e-Governance Technologies and Services and saw how Estonia was investing not merely in software but in the people who would design the next generation of government.

This was important for me because I had always believed that administration is ultimately about people. Technology is only an instrument. Institutions become innovative when people are encouraged to question, experiment and learn.

Our Favourite Annela

Training programmes are remembered not only for lectures but for people.

For our group, one such person was Annela Kirrats, our training manager. Her cheerful presence, efficient coordination and warm interaction made the otherwise formal programme much more enjoyable.

On the final day she appeared in a bright lemon-yellow suit, with pearl earrings, a gold chain and black shoes. She had become something of a celebrity among the delegation. Vinay Thakur happily posed for a photograph with her, joking that it deserved a place in his drawing room.

At the farewell dinner, her presence naturally became part of the group's entertainment. Our colleague Sanjeev Jha appeared to be the man of the day, enjoying a generous share of Annela's attention.

The final dinner at Hotel Solaris, however, proved an amusing disappointment. Without Annela's cheerful presence, everything seemed bland. Vegetarians complained about sandwiches and potatoes; non-vegetarians found the chicken uninspiring. Beer, wine, chicken, salad and cake were sampled but failed to rescue the evening.

I wrote in my diary that the Last Supper in Tallinn was tasteless without Annela.

Riga: The Singing City

On 24 August, we undertook a fast-track journey from Tallinn to Riga, the capital of Latvia. The road journey itself was part of the experience. We left Tallinn at about 7:30 in the morning and reached Riga around 12:30 p.m., after a short halt at the international border.

The limited driving hours of our driver gave us only a few hours in the city, so we had to become tourists in a hurry.

I remember the line I wrote at the time:

“Dum dum diga diga—Riga nahi dekha to kuchh nahi dekha.”

Riga, situated on the Daugava River, felt like the Paris of Northern Europe. It is a city of architecture, music and public spaces. The Freedom Monument, Town Hall Square, churches, opera house, railway station, Central Market, parks, gardens and the bridges over the Daugava provide a remarkable mixture of history and modern European life.

Riga's history is also a history of successive powers—German, Polish, Swedish and Russian. Its buildings carry traces of these different periods.

We took a sightseeing bus, walked through the streets and tried to absorb as much as possible in the short time available. We missed a river cruise and several places that deserved more time, but even this hurried visit gave us a flavour of the city.

What impressed me most was the spirit of the people. Singing and dancing appeared to be part of Latvian cultural life. The city seemed to carry a deep memory of its struggle for freedom and identity.

Our driver Thomas added another dimension to the journey by narrating stories about the independence struggles of the Baltic countries. It made us realise that for these small nations, independence was not an abstract word. It was a lived memory.

St Petersburg: Beauty, History—and a Hard Lesson

From Tallinn I travelled onward to St Petersburg with my wife, Laxmi, who had not been with me in Tallinn but joined me for this part of the journey.

The journey by train took about six hours. At Narva, the Estonian border formalities were completed, followed by Russian immigration. The passport formalities were surprisingly smooth.

But St Petersburg presented a completely different challenge.

Most signs were in Russian and very few people we encountered could communicate comfortably in English. Suddenly, the confidence that comes naturally to a traveller in a familiar language disappeared.

After reaching the Vitebsky Railway Station, it was raining heavily. I had initially thought of walking to the hotel, but luggage and rain forced me to take a taxi. The driver asked for €20; after some good old Indian bargaining, he agreed to €10. At least one Indian administrative skill—negotiation—worked perfectly in Russia!

After leaving our luggage at the Ibis Hotel, we set out towards Nevsky Prospekt.

St Petersburg was magnificent. The River Neva, canals, bridges, grand palaces and monumental buildings reflected the ambition of Peter the Great. We took a boat ride through the canals and saw the Peter and Paul Fortress, the Winter Palace and the Hermitage complex, among other landmarks.

Nevsky Prospekt was alive with people. Street musicians and artists displayed their talent. In a few minutes, an artist could produce a pencil sketch of your face for a modest payment.

We walked for several kilometres, absorbing the architecture and atmosphere. The city had beauty on a monumental scale.

But our sightseeing soon became a lesson in another aspect of travel.

The Pickpocket on the Bus

Because of the language barrier, we were unable to understand the local public transport system properly. We boarded a local bus, trying to find our way.

Two pickpockets apparently noticed that we were foreigners and vulnerable. In the pressure and movement of the crowded bus, they managed to take my wallet.

I realised nothing immediately.

Only when we reached the palace and I put my hand into my pocket to buy the entrance tickets did I discover that the wallet was gone.

I had lost a substantial amount of money and, more seriously, a credit card.

The thief was remarkably quick. Within minutes, the card had already been used.

For someone accustomed to dealing with law and order as an administrator, being on the other side of the system was a humbling experience. I suddenly became an ordinary citizen—without local language, without local knowledge and without knowing where to turn.

Fortunately, I had a friend from the Indian Foreign Service whom we contacted. On his advice, we went to the police station and filed an FIR.

Nothing came of it.

The incident taught me a lesson that no training classroom could have taught: a traveller's greatest vulnerability is often not lack of money but lack of information.

A beautiful city can still contain clever thieves. A crowded public bus can become a perfect hunting ground for pickpockets. And when one does not understand the language, even asking for help becomes difficult.

Fortunately, there was a happy ending of sorts. The then Chairman of the State Bank of India was kind enough to help resolve the credit-card issue. Since the card's security mechanism had limited exposure, the disputed amount was ultimately waived.

I never again looked at a crowded foreign bus quite so casually.

Moscow: Lenin, Horse Carts and a Lesson in Cleanliness

From St Petersburg, Laxmi and I returned to Moscow by train. After the grandeur and waterways of St Petersburg, Moscow offered another kind of experience—larger, more imposing and deeply marked by the history of twentieth-century Russia. We spent some time exploring the city and visited the famous Red Square area. One of the most striking sights was Lenin’s Mausoleum, where the embalmed body of Vladimir Lenin has been preserved and displayed. Standing before the mausoleum, I was struck by the extraordinary way in which political history can continue to occupy physical space long after the person himself has disappeared. Whatever one’s view of Lenin or Soviet history, the place felt less like an ordinary tourist attraction and more like a living museum of an era that had shaped a large part of the modern world.

But what stayed with me from Moscow was not only Lenin or the monumental architecture. It was a much smaller and surprisingly practical sight—a horse-drawn carriage moving through the city. The horse had a special collection bag tied behind it so that its droppings would not fall onto the road. I found myself smiling at the simplicity of the arrangement. A problem had been anticipated, and a small behavioural and administrative solution had been created.

Immediately, my thoughts went back to the streets of Indian villages, where cattle, buffaloes, horses and other animals routinely move through public spaces and leave behind waste. We spend enormous amounts of money and energy on cleanliness campaigns, but sometimes miss something more fundamental: the culture and habit required to sustain cleanliness. A broom can clean a road, but it cannot prevent the same road from becoming dirty again. For that, behaviour has to change.

I wondered why we could not adopt equally simple arrangements where they are needed. If an animal is being taken through a public street, why not provide a practical way to collect its waste? It may sound trivial, but public administration is often about such seemingly trivial details. Cleanliness is not achieved only through sweeping, penalties or campaigns; it is nurtured through everyday habits, design and systems that make the right behaviour easy.

That little horse cart therefore gave me a bigger lesson than I had expected. Swachhata is not merely a programme; it has to become a culture. We can build toilets, provide garbage bins and launch cleanliness drives, but unless citizens, institutions and local systems learn to prevent litter and waste at the source, cleanliness will remain a recurring campaign rather than a sustained way of life.

From Moscow we finally flew back to Delhi. As the aircraft lifted away, I realised that this journey had taken me through very different worlds—Helsinki's quiet Baltic waters, Tallinn's medieval streets and remarkably modern digital governance, Riga's cultural resilience, St Petersburg's imperial grandeur and Moscow's powerful historical memory. I had travelled as a tourist and a civil servant, but I returned with observations that belonged to both roles. Technology, culture, administration and even something as humble as a horse's waste bag can teach the same lesson: good governance often begins by noticing small problems and finding simple, practical ways of preventing them.

What Five Cities Taught Me

Looking back, the journey from Helsinki to Tallinn, Riga, St Petersburg and finally Moscow was much more than a tourist circuit. Each city left behind a different impression, and together they became a journey through history, culture, technology and administration.

Helsinki gave us the serenity of the Baltic and the simple pleasure of travelling across the sea.

Tallinn showed us how a small nation could transform itself through digital governance, administrative reform and citizen-centric technology.

Riga reminded us of the cultural strength of a people who had preserved their identity through centuries of foreign rule.

St Petersburg displayed the grandeur of Russian history—and reminded me that even an experienced traveller can become vulnerable when language, unfamiliarity and crowds come together.

Moscow added another kind of lesson. Lenin's preserved body reminded me of the enduring power of history, while the humble horse cart gave me a very practical lesson in civic cleanliness: sometimes a small, sensible arrangement can prevent a large public problem. The horse's waste bag was a simple reminder that cleanliness is not achieved merely by cleaning; it is sustained by anticipating problems and creating habits and systems to prevent them.

For me, however, Estonia remained the central experience. Its greatest lesson was not that government should become electronic. It was that government should become simpler.

The Estonian experience demonstrated that technology succeeds when political leadership, administrative reform, private initiative, citizen participation, digital identity, interoperability and trust move together.

As a civil servant, I had spent much of my career dealing with files, procedures, registers and institutional boundaries. In Estonia, I saw a glimpse of what administration could become when the citizen no longer had to carry the burden of the government's internal divisions.

Moscow, in its own quiet way, reinforced the same principle. Whether it was a sophisticated digital system in Tallinn or a simple bag attached to a horse cart, good governance often begins with identifying a problem, understanding human behaviour and designing a practical solution.

The deeper lesson was therefore simple:

The purpose of technology and administration is not to make government look modern. It is to make the life of the citizen easier, cleaner and more dignified.

That lesson stayed with me long after the Baltic Sea disappeared from view—and perhaps that is what makes a journey worthwhile: you return home not merely with photographs of places, but with a few ideas that continue to travel with you.

 

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