The Baya Manifesto (Full)

Most of our interactions, work, learning, socializing happen through digital interfaces. We spend more time looking at representations of things than engaging with the things themselves. This isn't inherently bad, but we've lost balance. The knowledge that comes from physical making, from understanding materials through touch, from direct sensory experience; this gets less space in our lives.

This disconnection extends beyond the digital-physical divide to what researchers call the "extinction of experience"(Our growing separation from natural systems and living environments). In Guwahati, children grow up without knowing which birds nest in their neighborhood, which plants bloom when, or how monsoons affect local water bodies. We've replaced multisensory experiences in nature with two-dimensional screens, losing our innate connection to seasonal rhythms and ecological patterns. The concrete and glass of rapid urbanization have created barriers between us and the natural world that our ancestors navigated intuitively.

Similarly for economies, we roughly operate on economic models and not the reality. Truth stays the same, the map is not the territory and the model is not the economy. Ecologists and economists today, rather than forcing a simple model on complex reality, they are building a nuanced understanding of the economy starting with observations in the real world.

In our context, this means opportunities to understand local ecosystems, document traditional ecological knowledge from elders, develop climate-adapted solutions based on place-specific wisdom. How do we balance digital tools with embodied practice? What knowledge can only come from direct physical experience? How do we reconnect with local nature in urban settings like Guwahati - through rooftop gardens, community seed libraries, neighborhood bird counts, learning monsoon patterns from elders?

Most solutions today are designed to work(if they work) everywhere, which means they're optimized for nowhere in particular. Startups need to "scale." NGOs need "reach." Governments work at district or state level. The result: solutions that don't account for specific local context, ecology, or culture. Not because people don't care, but because the incentives all point toward replication, not depth. Hyperlocal information usually doesn't exist in documented form or is scattered across people's heads or is restricted. Information about ecosystems, traditional practices, neighborhood history, and place-specific solutions is disappearing. Government data exists at ward or district level. Google Maps knows streets but not community patterns. Systematically collecting and making this accessible at neighborhood scale would be super useful.

This is where appropriate technology matters. The best local solution may not be the most advanced one; it may be the one that survives monsoon, power cuts, budget constraints, local material availability, language differences, repair realities, and everyday habits. We want systems that can be understood and maintained by the people who depend on them.

How do we collect and structure hyperlocal data at neighborhood scale? What would make place-specific knowledge actually accessible and useful? What tools/solutions are useful at hyperlocal/off-grid setting? What does maintainability look like when the context is Guwahati, not a generic dashboard demo?

Knowledge exists but accessing it is harder than it should be. Academic research is often paywalled. Datasets don't have strong transparency. Skill-building requires expensive courses or credentials. Traditional and local knowledge often isn't documented at all - it lives with elders and practitioners who may not have the tools or time to preserve it. The information age hasn't solved the distribution problem.

We lean toward open knowledge, free software, and community-controlled archives because they make knowledge easier to inspect, reuse, repair, and preserve. But openness is not the same as extraction. Local and traditional knowledge should be documented with consent, attribution, context, and benefit back to the people who hold it. Commons should increase community agency, not turn lived knowledge into content for outsiders.

How do we preserve traditional and local knowledge before it's lost? What needs to be preserved? How do we make skill-building and research accessible without gatekeeping? How do we identify which skills are useful for a self sustaining neighborhood and we have enough of it? How do we share knowledge widely while respecting consent, ownership, and context?

It's easier to watch a woodworking video than to actually make something. Easier to scroll through plant photos than to grow one. Easier to read about local history than to document it. This isn't about people being lazy - creation genuinely requires more: tools, space, time, permission (from landlords, from family), skills, confidence. The path of least resistance is consumption. What conditions actually enable people to shift from consuming to creating? How do we lower the barriers to experimentation and making? How can we improve in DIY/Maker culture here, what conditions would help?

Coffee shops are for customers. Non-performative parks close at sunset(almost non-existent in Guwahati btw). Libraries have limited hours and resources. Genuinely public spaces where people can hang out, work on projects, or just exist without purchasing something are increasingly rare. This isn't because people don't want community - the infrastructure for casual, serendipitous connection is just harder to find. India has a special problem of lack of civic sense, how do we even tackle this? What does good community infrastructure look like in 2026? How do we create spaces for both focused work and casual connection without requiring transactions?

People want a strong community for support, but they are not willing to put in the effort and sacrifice required to be a part of it. Being annoyed is the price we pay for connection and community. We traded the messiness of community for the ease of solitude and lost something vital along the way.- francescapsycology

People ARE doing things - startups, side projects, community initiatives. But there's a gap between "doing something" and "doing something that actually helps." Testing ideas requires resources, space to fail, feedback loops, and connection to actual community needs. Without these, well-intentioned efforts often miss the mark or fizzle out. Not everything needs to be "productive" by conventional metrics. How do we connect experiments to actual community needs? What infrastructure helps people test ideas, fail safely, and iterate based on real feedback?

For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them - Aristotle, (Nicomachean Ethics)

People don't invest in their immediate neighborhood due to rental housing, transient populations, and weak civic culture. In Guwahati's context: High rental population means career mobility requires geographic mobility. Broken civic systems create participation cynicism from historical inefficiency. Class barriers make "community engagement" feel like privilege performance. People prioritize individual survival over collective improvement when facing immediate vs. long-term trade-offs. How do we partner with existing civic groups to understand what engagement strategies work locally? How do we document barriers specific to renters? What micro-engagement models focus on immediate personal benefit while connecting individual skill-building to neighborhood knowledge?

Many local problems have been solved in other contexts, but adaptation to local conditions is missing or inadequate. Climate/infrastructure gaps mean Danish solutions don't account for monsoons/heat/power cuts. Cultural translation is needed because participation models are designed for different social structures. Resource mismatches occur when solutions assume resources/systems Guwahati lacks. Information barriers exist because great solutions aren't accessible locally. How do we map existing organizations working on similar problems globally and locally? How do we focus on "last mile" adaptation to help proven solutions work in Guwahati context? How do we document what doesn't work to save others time and resources while becoming a bridge between international best practices and local implementation?