The new version of collective intelligence stems from the disillusionment with the current top-down approach that drives the agenda of the masses

There can be nothing sadder and more worthy of our concern today than the deadly attack on the 41 CRPF personnel who died in the Pulwama district of Jammu & Kashmir this month. The lives  are lost, the sorrow of their families left behind is infinite, their dreams remain unfulfilled. It reminded me of my most feared nightmare as a child, when my father — also in the armed forces at that time — would be away  in service to the security of our country for days and even weeks. We did not have phones then and there was no way to know of his safety until the day he would return. For every CRPF personnel who died in the suicide attack, there is now a child or a parent who must live this nightmare and bear this unsurmountable loss forever.

I also wonder how long will we be concerned about it. International Women’s Day is around the corner and so we will soon be aflush with discussions about how women need to get a better deal, before we forget about that too altogether.

And then this is the election year. Over centuries, governance systems — whether tribes, kingdoms, or nations — were established so that we the people can freely roam, speak, act, in a way that allowed other members in our collectivity to do the same as well. But instead, in a Frankensteinian turn of events, today leaders excessively speak about their election manifestos or criticisms of the opposition and our media is caught in a whirlwind with a bottomless pit of analysis. Indeed as soon as the responsibility for the Pulwama attack was claimed by the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed, the issue has already spiralled in to becoming highly politicised. How long before the fatherless children of the martyred CRPF officers are sidelined to give way to the consequences of this tragedy on the elections or on India-Pakistan relations?

In my recent book, Indian Instincts, I wrote that rationality and freedom are two sides of the same coin. I explained that we can only be rational when we think with a free mind, and when we are rational, freedom can win. One does not really exist without the other. A rational mind does not work under compulsion. Once it perceives the situation, it cannot be subservient to anyone else’s orders or controls. It cannot be cajoled, manipulated or forced. I pointed out that unless our children are educated to be rational, independent-minded individuals who respect one another, some of us will continue to mindlessly hate and kill in the name of history, religion, politics, while the rest of us will jump from empathising from one broadcasted event to the next. Law or social or religious norms cannot stop this. Only education can.

And this must be the kind of education that opens up the mind with questions rather than closes it with answers learnt by rote; the education that teaches us to respect each other as human beings, and not pull one another down even when scrambling for the same resources; the education that asks us to think for ourselves and speak our opinion, not pander to those of others.

Besides the lack of such an education, what else has made us, as a society, so inconsistent with how we feel? It might be possible that the models we have inherited, the institutions — such as Government, media, trade unions — that claim to represent us, are inadequate. Their overwhelming rhetoric might have led us into believing that these are the best (or perhaps only?) ways to maintain order in our society today. But this might not be true. For example, today there is a near unanimous acceptance globally — almost with a moral imperative and missionary zeal — that all countries must be a democracy. But it was only in the latter half of the 20th Century that the idea of democracy was established as a form of Government. In year 1941, there were only 11 democracies in the world. In the past and in the future, it might be possible then to have other models of political governance. Perhaps it is the frustration with lack of equal distribution of resources that gives new life to old resentments such that extremists reap the rewards? Perhaps communities are not being adequately heard and respected? Perhaps we can find new ways to organise ourselves?

Democracies, corporate governance structures, media were originally designed to draw decisions about leadership (by vote), business, information, from the wisdom of a collection of people. In sociobiology and political science too we find the term ‘collective intelligence’ — not so called, but dating back to more than 200 years ago. It is described as a shared or group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration, collective efforts, and competition of many individuals that appears in consensus decision making.

Although ‘collective intelligence’ is hardly a new concept but the MIT Centre for Collective Intelligence has famously retrieved this discipline in contemporary times. In practice it is found in modern voting systems, academic peer reviews, crowdsourcing applications, social media and other means that draw conclusions from the intelligence of the masses. In fact recently, I was asked to join the board of advisors of a new university in Morocco that propagates the philosophy of collective intelligence. The university aims to advance the knowledge necessary for a collectively intelligent society.

I think the renewed (nascent) interest in this discipline is different from how it was conceptualised centuries ago. The new version of ‘collective intelligence’ stems from the disillusionment with the current top-down approach that drives the agenda of the masses. It counters political, social, economic, media institutions that are organised in hierarchical structures having the power, capital, information to drive mass euphoria. According to the contemporary avatar of ‘collective intelligence’, these institutions are indeed created by a collection of people, but are led by a handful.

It is, therefore, testing new organisation structures that are led by collectivity too. This would be an organisation structure that does not taper off into one leader at the top. It is felt that such an order of people would pause to reflect on the issues that matter to them, and ideally seek to solve them. This would be a structure that would not easily forget the plight of the children of our martyrs. Let us see where this quest takes us.

Miniya is CEO of Sustain Labs, and author of the bestselling book, Indian Instincts: Essays on Freedom and Equality in India