Gandhi-King Scholarly Exchange Initiative

In January 2024 I was part of the Gandhi-King Scholarly Exchange Initiative, an exchange programme run by the U.S. Department of State that brings together young people from India and the United States. Through the work of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., it studies peace, conflict resolution and leadership.

About the programme

The initiative was established under U.S. law in 2020 and launched by the State Department as a scholarly exchange between the two countries. Each cohort brings together about 20 students from India and the United States. Their academic residency is hosted in Alabama, at Alabama A&M University and the University of Alabama, and the cohort also spends time studying together in India. It is built on the idea that the two movements, Indian independence and American civil rights, have more to teach each other than either can teach alone.

U.S. Department of State announcement →

What I took from it

Both Gandhi and King worked on the same problem I work on: closing the distance between what a system promises and what it delivers to the people at the margins. The exchange gave me time to think about that with peers from very different backgrounds. It also reinforced something I believe about my own work. Data and technology only change institutions when they are joined to patience, persuasion and trust built with the communities affected.