Responsible Citizenship

The idea took shape in a programme with India’s largest bank. Envisioning with its leaders and customer-facing staff produced the ideal of “Citizen SBI: banker to the nation”, which was carried to 200,000 employees in 14 languages. Bankers came to see themselves not only in their role identities but as citizens and contributors to the nation.

From there the idea widened. Srinivas distinguishes enlightened citizenship, after Swami Ranganathananda, from political citizenship: a citizenship of character and contribution, not only of rights and allegiance. In programmes with the police and customs services it became the “power to serve”: the recognition that the authority a role carries exists for the citizen at the counter. And in his reading of Swami Vivekananda’s vision for India, a nation is rebuilt by its citizens, through the quality of their consciousness rather than the quantity of its resources.

• Power and responsibility Citizenship as the integration of the two, in every role.
• The power to serve The authority a role carries, understood as existing for the people it serves.
• From membership to ownership Belonging to an institution or a nation, versus taking ownership of what it does.
• Citizenship at work Seeing one’s job as a contribution to the nation, as in Citizen SBI.
• Enlightened and political citizenship Citizenship of character and contribution, versus citizenship of rights and allegiance alone.
• Quality of consciousness over quantity of resources What a nation’s people bring, as the real measure of its development.

As more of public life is mediated by systems and algorithms, the person at the counter matters more, not less: the officer, the banker, the teacher. Whether they use their power to serve decides whether institutions are trusted.

• 2008–09Citizenship: A Vision Document for State Bank of India (2008); Citizen SBI carried to the bank’s whole workforce; the challenge of citizenship training (2009).
• 2016Citizenship in the public sector.
• 2017The Rebuilding India articles in Listening to the Lion’s Roar.
• 2022–25Karmayogi programmes with government, including the police and customs services.

Citizen SBI reached 200,000 employees of State Bank of India. Illumine’s Karmayogi programmes with government, including the Delhi Police and the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, carry the same idea to citizen-facing staff. The Awakened Citizen Programme gives schoolchildren a vision of themselves as responsible citizens.