To lead India, first learn to teach it

Some months ago, I spent time with a group of young graduates who had each spent about two years teaching in low-income, under-resourced schools across India. They were engineers, economists, lawyers, journalists and literature graduates. None of them had really set out to become teachers; all they wanted was to experience India beyond the worlds they knew. What struck me was how clearly they understood the communities they had worked in, the children they had taught, the families they had met, and what needed attention and change. They were among the sharpest young minds I had come across. I have thought about what set them apart ever since. My answer is this: To teach is to lead. You lead with your preparation, your patience, and your willingness to show up. You help your students grow. You are the one holding the class together. You see a future in them that they cannot yet see for themselves. You are teaching values of punctuality, kindness, and honesty, and your students are learning as much from how you conduct yourself as from what you say. You are accountable not only for whether students study, but often for whether they are engaged, attend school regularly, and can believe they are capable of more. And you do this every day, with discipline and emotional investment. This is leadership in its most human and wholesome form. And it never leaves you. An experience like this, that demands your best, that requires you to constantly guide students on how they can focus and improve, and that thrives on the hope for a better future, accompanies you in your own personhood, extending to family, neighbourhood, and nationhood. This gets even more heightened inside an under-resourced classroom. Take a Grade VIII classroom in a low-income neighbourhood. The teacher discovers in the first week that several students are reading at Grade II level. These are sometimes first-generation learners navigating nutrition, healthcare, and family's financial wellbeing that are beyond their control but have a daily bearing on whether they can sit still and pay attention. Then there are the realities of caste, gender and religion, which influence who speaks in class, whose homework gets done, and who gets to dream. By secondary school, students are also managing screens, often with very little adult guidance. Imagine a young teacher walking into that classroom with a lesson plan. Within minutes, they realise several students cannot yet read the textbook fluently. So they put the lesson aside, use stories, and adapt in real time. Young graduates who teach in such classrooms come away knowing India in a way that is difficult to grasp otherwise. They understand aspiration, language barriers, and the sustained effort social mobility demands. They understand what families in a basti want for their children. They become more mindful of inherited assumptions and quicker to notice who is excluded from opportunity and why. This experience also breeds a particular kind of tenacity: Shalini was a technologist who left a decade-long corporate career to teach at a government school in Malvani, Mumbai. In the mothers of her students she found women who were resourceful but had no pathway to earn a livelihood of their own. That led her to start a social enterprise that trains such women in art and craft and helps them become financially independent. Another graduate who taught Grade II in a municipal school helped students achieve three years of academic progress in two, reorganised how the school functioned, and built corporate partnerships to support the mission. Today, they are a leader at a global consulting firm. The skills required to work across stakeholders, identify roadblocks, and take responsibility for results continue to define their career. Fellowships like Teach For India, Bhumi, Gandhi Fellowship and Educate Girls have built a growing cohort of young graduates who have closely observed India's realities on the ground and are now found across government, policy, technology, consulting and social enterprises as institution builders, thought leaders, and entrepreneurs. Perhaps India needs its own form of educational conscription. What might happen if every qualified graduate spent some time teaching? What might it look like if those less inclined to teach still found ways to engage with schools as mentors, partners or supporters? And what might change if even those in other full-time roles chose to spend a few hours each week in a classroom in their area? We would build individuals who are problem solvers, who are confident, and who are better prepared to lead wherever they go. More of India needs to be in its classrooms. Not only as students, but as teachers too, to know India, and, in time, to lead it. The writer is founding senior partner, Jetri, and serves on the boards of Indian School of Business, Ashoka University, Teach For India, among others. Views are personal