William ‘Bill’ Drayton is a social entrepreneur. Born in 1943 in New York, Bill was named by the US News & World Report as one of America’s 25 Best leaders in 2005. He is the founder and currently Chair of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, a nonprofit organisation, dedicated to finding and fostering social entrepreneurs worldwide. His philosophy of social entrepreneurs is individuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems.
Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, in short “Ashoka”, is based in Arlington, USA. Bill was deeply impressed by the ideology of Kalinga Ashoka and loved to name his organisation after Ashoka. The organisation was founded in 1981 to identify and support leading social entrepreneurs through a Social Venture Capital approach to elevate the citizen sector to a competitive level equal to the business sector. Ashoka operates in over 70 countries and supports the work of over 2,000 social entrepreneurs elected as Ashoka Fellows.
After his education Bill became a manager and management consultant working for McKinsey and Company for almost ten years. During the Carter administration (1977–1981), he was an Assistant Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, where he launched emissions trading among other reforms. He has received many awards and acknowledgments for his achievements. He is better known as the “godfather of social entrepreneurship”. In 2008, Bill was named a “visionary” as one of Utne Reader magazine’s “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing the World.” The prize foundation described him as a “driving force behind the figure of social entrepreneurs, men and women who undertake
innovative initiatives for the common good”.
Ashoka the Great was an Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled almost all the Indian subcontinents from ca. 269 BCE to 232 BCE. Ashoka was born in 304 BCE and died in 232 BCE at the age of 72. His birthplace was Pataliputra, the modern Patna city, and his reign was headquartered in Magadha (now Bihar).
In about 260 BCE, Ashoka waged a bitterly destructive war against Kalinga (present Odisha) and conquered it. The battle cost lives of over 1,00,000 soldiers, and many civilians who rose up in defence; over 1,50,000 were deported.
When Ashoka was walking through the grounds of Kalinga after his conquest, rejoicing in his victory, he was moved by the number of bodies strewn there and the wails of the kith and kin of the dead. He was broken with profound sorrow and regret, became remorseful and filled with repentance. The people of Kalinga lost the battle but conquered the heart of Ashoka. The emperor saluted the heroic resistance of the people. The bloodthirsty emperor (Chandashoka) became a religious
ruler (Dharmashoka). Kalinga was a State that prided itself on its sovereignty and democracy. With its monarchical
parliamentary democracy, it was quite an exception in ancient Bharata (present India) where there existed the concept of Rajdharma, which means the duty of the rulers, which was intrinsically entwined with the concept of bravery and dharma.
Ashoka became a follower of the Buddha’s teachings and embraced Buddhism after witnessing the mass deaths of the Kalinga war, which he himself had waged out of a mad desire for conquest. Ashoka became a philanthropic administrator and regarded Buddhism as a doctrine that could serve as a cultural foundation for political unity. He became passionate and abolished the royal hunting of animals. He also had wells dug and trees planted along the roads for the benefit of the common people.
The Mauryan Empire under Ashoka has been described as “one of the very few instances in world history of a government treating its animals as citizens who are as deserving of its protection as the human residents.”
The Ashoka Chakra today is at the centre of the National Flag of the Republic of India (adopted on July 22, 1947). The Ashoka Chakra was built by Ashoka during his reign. Chakra is a Sanskrit word which also means “cycle” or “self-repeating process”. The process it signifies is the cycle of time, as in how the world changes with time.
The first-ever Ashoka Future Forum Meet for Ashoka Fellows from India is being held in Pune from June 27 to 29, 2013 at the Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park. The meet is supported by the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and the allied trusts. About 300 delegates are participating in the mega event.
(Dr SN Patro is an Ashoka Fellow and Working President, Orissa Environmental Society, Email: snpatro11@rediffmail .com; oesbbsr@gmail.com)