How and why did the idea of transforming classrooms into student-led spaces first take root?
To counter apathy in a country often dismissive of the humanities, I worked with the English department to redesign our school’s pedagogy around student-led learning. We began leading classes ourselves, rotating lesson planning through small initiatives. What started in our section is now practiced across three sister schools.
Teachers became facilitators, and students found renewed enthusiasm for a long-dismissed subject. It fulfilled two dreams: equitable classrooms and a collective shift in attitude toward what I loved most—English.
Tell us about the pedagogical model
To expand the initiative, we reframed the curriculum around lived experience instead of abstract analysis, making it adaptable across contexts. Through IYPI-led workshops, we trained students from sister schools to challenge intellectual elitism and make the subject more accessible.
Students responded with deeper engagement—raising class averages and applying their learning beyond the classroom. They organized fundraisers for war-affected Middle Eastern communities, led peer discussions on locker-room culture and misogyny for 1,400+ children, and saw literature as a tool for social change. For teachers, the shift redefined their role—from knowledge transmitters to dialogue facilitators with real cultural impact.
What were the challenges during implementation?
Encouraging teachers to become facilitators and peers to co-create knowledge was not seamless. Some classmates initially felt uneasy, fearing a shift in power dynamics rather than true collaboration. Concerns about peer dominance gave way, over time and through rotating roles, to a shared understanding: this was about democratic learning, not replacing one hierarchy with another. Once students saw that agency belonged to all of us, skepticism turned to enthusiasm.
Outside the classroom, parents resisted at first, viewing student-led teaching as reduced rigor or teacher disengagement. But as they saw students more engaged and accountable, perceptions changed. What seemed like less structure was actually more intentional learning, with teachers guiding instead of dictating.
In both cases, fear of the unfamiliar fueled resistance. Overcoming it required time, dialogue, and proof through results. By the time the model expanded, both peers and parents saw it not as a threat to rigor—but as a way to deepen it.
You received offers from top universities including Stanford. What do you think made your application stand out?
What set my application apart was my view of college as a step toward a larger goal: transforming humanities education in India and beyond. Universities seek change-makers whose purpose goes beyond an offer letter and who will actively contribute to their community.
How did your leadership experiences shape your college application and reflect your broader purpose?
My leadership at Indus wasn’t about titles—it was about reimagining education in a postcolonial context. I led a shift toward student agency, turning classrooms into dialogic spaces with rotating lesson planners and facilitator-teachers. This model expanded to 30+ schools, proving that shared responsibility can drive systemic change.
With Ikkis: The Podcast, I extended this ethos to storytelling—using India’s linguistic plurality as a lens to explore how English fractures across regions. Through conversations with critics, historians, and marginalized voices, I linked postcolonial theory to lived experience.
At the International Youth Philosophy Initiative, I bridged thought and action—hosting seminars that reframed aesthetics as activism. Across all initiatives, the goal was the same: to center human dignity, dismantle intellectual elitism, and use media and education as tools for collective meaning-making.
That’s what made my application stand out: not just leading projects, but leading with purpose—showing how the humanities, when democratized, can move from theory to praxis and reshape entire communities.
How did Indus and its faculty support your interdisciplinary work in media, philosophy, and education reform?
At Indus, I was able to explore media, philosophy, and education reform because the school valued depth and trusted students to lead. Ms. Gitanjali Hazarika shaped the ethos of Ikkis: The Podcast by encouraging me to see language as a living, political force. In reimagining classrooms through student agency, Ms. Swet Anubha and Ms. Pallavi Brijesh helped turn ideas into action.
What stood out most was the faculty’s genuine thoughtfulness. When I organized TEDx, Ms. Anubha, Captain Bali, and Principal Chhabra attended the fully student-led event—not out of formality, but as a quiet affirmation that student voices mattered. That spirit of trust made it natural to move between media, philosophy, and reform. Indus didn’t just allow interdisciplinary—it nurtured it.
What advice would you offer to younger students hoping to create a meaningful impact within their schools?
Do not do anything for the sake of getting into a university. Manufactured extracurriculars and constructed passion can be seen from afar.
