My Essay for Rhodes

© Jalnidh Kaur

Dear applicant for the Rhodes Scholarship
Everybody is unique. You would know by now that a Rhodes essay is a highly personal one, and so essays are widely different across different individuals. The essay is nothing superficial, but a true reflection of one's real self - your dreams, aspirations and plans for the future. 

I have been receiving loads of requests to share my essay, I have already shared it with a few aspirants of the current year. Deep inside, I have been introspecting whether I have been promoting cronyism by this kind of selective sharing with people who are requesting me for the same. In the interest of equal opportunity and as a hardcore proponent of knowledge sharing, I am sharing it publicly. Please find the essay below. 

Writing the essay last year was a truly wondrous experience. I thought it involved long travails into my self and I became much clearer and maturer after having written it. Often the only person people don't know much about, is their own selves. And the essay asks you do just that hard chore - knowing yourself and expressing yourself. I hope you too will succeed in the task and will enjoy the journey.

Good wishes with your application.
Regards
Jalnidh Kaur

It has been a strange summer. While the temperature shot up like never before, I was juggling between two diametrically opposite worlds. One, a luxuriously conditioned and hi tech workspace where things moved fast and the surroundings were spic and span, the other was a mess - dust, heat, garbage and stink; streams of sweat would rush down my spine while the sun would scorch my face.

The first was that of a regional stock exchange where the AC chilled me to the bone while the second was the very visible underbelly of my city. The first was more an act of courtesy to a boss; the second was an act of personal choice.

Paradoxes abound in our little world. As an undergrad student, I have always been awed at the contradiction between a conditioned and an unconditioned weather, between the classy basketball court at my school and the rickety one at a government school, between public sector and private sector, between affluence and penury, between North Delhi and South Delhi.  Of course perfect equality and justice are just ideal goals and chimeras, even Rawls would acknowledge the impracticality of the same. What philosophers, economists and policy makers strive to achieve is a less unjust society, all policies are attempts to remove clear injustices to an extent possible. 

Fascinated by one of the attempts to eliminate injustices in the domain of health, I chose to independently study the RasthriyaSwasthyaBimaYojana – RSBY (National Health Insurance Scheme) in my summer this year. The scheme provides a handsome health insurance cover to the population below poverty line to deliver social security. I interviewed these beneficiaries to study how their lives changed.

While, philosophical parleys with peers at college always tend to bend to one side, either extreme libertarian or extreme socialist; I have learnt through this study how private sector, government and the poor can all come together in a symbiotic manner and create mutual benefits.  Research has been a delightful discovery and the search for truth has instilled a new knowledge hunger in me – to find out bits of truth from the ground and supplement the mathematical rigor of economics with empirical evidence. Most importantly, I have learnt how technology and efficient delivery can create a workable incentive matrix and create social change.

Five years ago, I chose to opt for economics out of sheer enthusiasm of exploring it. I wanted to study a discipline which could understand the social complex of interrelationships objectively and evaluate it quantitatively. Over time, I have discovered the depths of the discipline and the implements it equips its follower with. Economics principles are like a toolchest. Through analytical frameworks and models, I feel equipped with more gear at the end of every lecture. The freedom it bestows on its student is just so enthralling – one could study anything from markets in education to health to nuclear physics. This limitless horizon has allowed me to explore my minor fields in depth along with my major. My philosophical inclinations along with a brush with Boulding’s views on going beyond the rudimentary and strait-jacket assumptions of the discipline have motivated me to integrate my everyday ruminations with the principles of economics.

Another interest which has over time closely integrated with my discipline is ‘education’. New constructions are in full swing in my locality. In the vacations following my board exams I started teaching kids of the construction workers who would romp aimlessly in streets every day. The bench under a shady tree in the park became our classroom. They loved shouting the English alphabet aloud as if trumpeting their first baby step towards literacy in the neighborhood. I told them what an 'echo' is – when you shout aloud, your voice hits the houses nearby and it returns. They shouted louder to hear their voices echoed by the newly built posh houses around, content to discover the power of their own vocal cords.

Over time this little initiative which we christened as ‘Éclair’ (Enlightenment), has blossomed into a country wide street school chain functioning in three states including Delhi. My school and college batch mates pitched in this voluntary initiative as guest faculty. Till date, we have been able to get ten kids 'enrolled' in regular schools– it is an achievement that rejoices me much more than any of my personal educational accomplishments. I have discovered my pedagogic inclinations through this initiative.

As I look ahead at the expanding horizon that economics has thrown open for me, I see myself doing an M. Phil in Economics from Oxford. This would equip me with more tools in my toolbox and allow me to understand the world of inequalities and injustices better. I have had a vibrant exposure to financial markets and live trading in a stock exchange during my internship and I have seen the world of poignant injustices. Capital markets offer huge dividends and bonuses, of a scale and size that people down the poverty lane, below the poverty line cannot even dream of. I aim to use my learning from the study of social sector schemes in developing countries and that about capital markets to arrive at logical solutions. An M.Phil in Economics will provide me an academic base and better foundational framework within which these inequalities could be examined. I shall be in a better position to assess various developmental strategies and propose better solutions, most importantly. A dedicated focus on academic research at Oxford will help me explore the world further and allow me to go beyond limited model-specific assumptions of the discipline.

Five years ago my essay on International Peace won me laurels at the University of Hawai’i and East West Center, USA. The essay ended with a note of conviction – Make history by design and not by accident. Today as I mull over these lines, I am of a firm conviction that disparities in our world could be bridged with value-based interventions and firm foundations in social science research.