Personal Statement

Note this personal statement is for my application to graduate school at the London School of Eocnomics. Updated November 10, 2003.

The small, bald-headed man walked weakly through the crowd of employees who had gathered to welcome him back. He still looked frail and sickly, but had returned nonetheless to attend to his work, which he clearly viewed as more important than his own health. Perhaps because his work dealt with the health of a whole country ? in fact, the whole world ? he felt that his own sacrifice was necessary.

Anil Agarwal, the late founder and director of the Centre for Science and Environment, began to speak about his trials and the efforts we were all engaged in with a high-pitched and unsteady voice, but not a voice without power. Despite, having recently emerged from chemotherapy treatment for blood cancer, Mr. Agarwal's internal strength had not been subdued, though his body may have been humbled. He exhorted us, the team of employees at CSE, to remember one of the founding fathers of India in our work. As he talked of Mahatma Gandhi's intense passion for realizing his goals and how we ourselves should have such desire to instil change, it was impossible not to compare one of history's greatest philosophers to the man in front of me.

Aside from the obvious physical similarity to Gandhi brought on by Mr. Agarwal's medical treatment - the bald head, thinness, and general weak appearance - he almost seemed to be a reincarnation of the leader of India's independence movement. Both men burned with intense passion, and even anger, at the injustices they saw around them. Both were dedicated to fighting for what they believed was right. Both inspired followers and impressed even those they criticized. Both wrestled with the entrenched powers in order to change the systemic problems facing their nation.

After having spent my younger years in the United States in an idealistic pursuit of the cliched goal of "changing the world," I had become disillusioned and fled to another continent, another life. For more than a year I wandered literally and mentally, forsaking my previous passions for improving the social landscape as I questioned my youthful convictions about the mechanisms for social change. Then, a few months before listening to Mr. Agarwal that day, I started work at CSE with a nebulous idea of benefiting others with the skills I learned in the United States.

As I was standing among the small crowd listening to Mr. Agarwal speak about Gandhi's anger and how he transformed that into work for social justice, I was powerfully moved. Mr. Agarwal spoke fervently and persuasively about the need for us to feel personally involved and responsible for the society we lived in, and thus to take action to improve it. Clearly his own struggle with a disease, for which environmental pollution is cited as a highly significant factor, strengthened his resolve to improve environmental and social conditions in India. His impassioned plea to those of us working at CSE inspired me, stirring my own deeply held desire to improve the human condition and setting me back on the course of wanting to work for social change. Those feelings had been whirling within me, but listening to that speech about Ghandi from a Ghandi-like figure brought those notions into focus. Of course the differences between Gandhi and Mr. Agarwal were great, yet both were inspirational influences on my life. The founding father of India is revered across the globe; however, Mr. Agarwal's work on behalf of the downtrodden and the environment was no less important.

Before going to India, I was actively interested in politics, economics, and society, but mostly from a first world point of view. In both my studies in business and economics and my extra-curricular activities involving environmental and social justice issues, including serving on the board of a national student environmental organisation, the focus had been on the United States. Additionally, in my first job after university, working as the development director for the same environmental group, I struggled mostly with issues of national policy related to the environment, wealth, economics, race and gender in the first world.

Certainly, I was aware of and interested in international issues, especially pertaining to the potential role of the United States in working to alleviate, or exacerbate, poverty worldwide, but experiencing a different national perspective on the issue was truly eye opening. For example, like many of my peers, I had been concerned about labour and environmental standards in lesser-developed countries, but I had little knowledge of or respect for the economic and social impact a so-called "sweatshop" or factory could have on an impoverished community.

Then the astounding contrasts of wealth between India and the United States affected my sentiments. In India and at CSE I learned to look more closely at the functioning of the world, its economic systems and the disparities between regions, country, and people. Being directly involved with and exposed to the perspectives of some of the developing world's leading critics and activists at CSE, further stirred within me thoughts and questions about the state of the world and its potential for improvement. At the very least it helped me see the world less in the dichotomy of black versus white, and more as a series of shades of grey.

This became even clearer when at I CSE I began reviewing and editing articles critiquing the negotiations on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which exposed me to a developing country viewpoint on international environmental negotiations. There were startling and conspicuous differences between those ideas and the orthodoxy of the environmental movement in the United States, forcing me to reconcile with the fact that there are many perspectives on these types of issues, and the conventional thinking of both the left and the right in the West is often at odds with what is best for people in other societies.

At the centre, while working with Mr. Agarwal and doing research into air pollution and global warming issues, I also became more familiar with the workings of civil society and the methods through which it can effect change on a national and even international scale. I also worked specifically with the institute's efforts to reduce vehicular pollution, which paid off with stricter automobile emissions standards and alternative-fuelled public transit noticeably reducing pollution levels in Delhi. That was a gratifying change, proving to me that well-informed advocacy is not always ignored, but instead can be a positive force even in adverse circumstances.

With these experiences and the influence of Mr. Agarwal's passions, I decided that I wanted to work in the development field to tangibly improve the lives of those effected by poverty, with a specific focus on multilateral institutions and their roles. I am particularly interested in global economic institutions and development aid programmes and their impact on development and poverty the third world.

After leaving India two years ago, I sought to broaden my international perspective by spending time in Europe and South Korea. Each new country and each new experience added one more insight into the complex transnational systems that influence so much of the world. In my current role as a business desk copy editor at the leading English-language daily newspaper in Korea I must read voraciously and sift through the tidal wave of information that comes across my desk. Because of this, not only am I now more informed about and interested in international economic issues but I am also better prepares to return to university.

In my search for a place to continue my studies, one of the most important factors was looking for a university with a broad, international perspective that could match my own varied experiences. The London School of Economics' taught Master's programmes seem a great fit with a truly international student body and faculty, and the course in Development Management covers exactly the issues and subjects that most interest me.

Given the upheavals seen in the world in the last decade, ranging from the end of the bipolar global power struggle to the recent rise of unilateralism by the remaining superpower, sustainability, equity, poverty and democracy are critical issues for the 21st century. In the raging globalisation debate, dogmatism seems to be leading on all sides, but solutions to global problems demand clear-headed research and analysis not just ideological thinking. By applying solid social science theory and research I hope to influence the debates over globalisation and development so as to improve the global economic and social environments.

In India I saw the effectiveness of sound advocacy and scientific-based policy analysis at CSE. Mr. Agarwal's passion infected others and brought concrete changes to India's governance and society, just as Gandhi had done 50 years before. Yet, massive inequities still exist and the poverty I saw first hand all over that country and elsewhere still gnaws at society, denying most of the world's population the basic infrastructure required for health, sanitation, education and democratic government. With the proper background in economic and development methodologies imparted by LSE, I hope that one day my own passion for change can inspire others and bring tangible improvements to people around the world.

Comments or suggestions? Email me at peter@chowla.org!