0:00 Thank you, Dean Gallager, and distinguished members of the of the faculty,
0:05 the uh people on the podium, and this wonderful audience, the class of 2026,
0:12 their friends and family.
0:14 Greetings to everyone.
0:15 It's a profound honor
0:16 and privilege to address you today at the 92nd commencement of the Fletcher School.
0:24 Uh I must say to today's graduates,
0:26 this occasion marks a significant milestone in your lives,
0:31 one that reflects both what you have achieved and what now lies ahead.
0:36 And of course, that is not a neatly scripted future,
0:39 but a series of unfolding questions to
0:42 which you will be expected to supply your own answers.
0:45 On such a day, therefore, one does not presume to instruct, but to reflect,
0:50 and to offer a few insights shaped by experience,
0:54 and I stand before you today in that spirit,
0:58 with the extra satisfaction of it being the 50th reunion year for my class,
1:04 as well, here at Fletcher.
1:12 >> >> To find myself back here 51 years after I first navigated these
1:16 corridors as a student is to be reminded how profoundly a place can imprint
1:21 itself upon a life.
1:23 Fletcher did not merely equip me with credentials.
1:27 It furnished me with a way of thinking about the world
1:30 and my place within it.
1:32 To stand before you now at the threshold of your own journeys is both
1:36 a joy and a deeply personal homecoming.
1:40 I first arrived at the Fletcher School
1:42 as a 19-year-old from India in 1975,
1:46 full of curiosity and not entirely sure what lay ahead.
1:50 Like many of you, I was stepping into a new world,
1:53 one that was at once exciting and at times a little daunting.
1:58 I was by far the youngest student at the school,
2:01 and the only one with no work experience,
2:04 other than a long list of extracurricular activities and published articles.
2:09 But, that made me all the more receptive to new learning.
2:12 Fletcher did what the best institutions do.
2:15 It altered the way I thought about the world,
2:18 and quite clearly instilled in me
2:19 that process in that process a sense
2:23 that learning must ultimately serve a larger public purpose.
2:29 I still remember the culture shock of coming from a country where a car
2:34 was a luxury for most adults to seeing the number of vehicles in the
2:38 students' parking lot,
2:40 of rushing out with an Egyptian classmate to gamble in the first snowfall either
2:45 of us had ever seen,
2:47 discovering, as a vegetarian,
2:49 that my only dining options at Fletcher were the boiled peas
2:53 and carrots that were served on the side of the real meals.
2:57 My first lesson here was to learn to adjust.
3:01 But, Kelly, I did become an amoeba.
3:05 In the years that followed, as Kelly told you, I completed not one,
3:08 but three degrees here, and she has graciously listed my milestones.
3:13 But, in many ways, as I say, beyond those milestones, those credentials,
3:18 what Fletcher gave me is because it in many ways is a rare institution,
3:23 one that combined both intellectual rigor with a genuine engagement with the world
3:28 as it is and
3:29 as it ought to be.
3:31 It's no exaggeration to say that whatever I've been able to accomplish since,
3:36 whether at the United Nations or in Indian politics,
3:39 has its roots in the education I received here.
3:43 Those lessons have stayed with me ever since in every role I've been fortunate
3:48 enough to undertake.
3:51 Now, this school was founded in 1933 as,
3:54 and I quote from the founding document,
3:57 an act of hope in a time of despair
4:00 and a boost to internationalism at a time of isolationism,
4:05 unquote.
4:07 Fletcher described its students as, and I quote again,
4:10 committed to maintaining the stability and prosperity of a complex, challenging,
4:16 and increasingly global society, unquote. 93 years later,
4:22 that mission statement still holds up pretty well.
4:27 Fletcher is a place where you study the world as it is,
4:30 while being trained to think about the world it's becoming.
4:33 Fletcher taught us to make sense of the world,
4:37 and it must be said today
4:38 that the world is offering rather more to make sense of than it once
4:41 did.
4:42 For we are living through a period of turbulence
4:45 and transition in the global order,
4:48 as Professor Chitty's already said.
4:50 What we are witnessing is not merely change, but an interregnum,
4:55 an uneasy passage between an old order
4:57 that is fading and a new one
5:00 that is yet to coherently take shape.
5:03 The rules-based system that many of us once took for granted is no longer
5:08 as stable or as universal
5:11 as it appeared.
5:12 Norms that once restrained power are increasingly treated as optional,
5:18 and the language of international law now sounds more like aspiration than obligation.
5:25 We inhabit an age in which principles are often proclaimed universally and applied selectively.
5:32 The certainties that underpinned international relations for decades are giving way to a more
5:38 fluid and at times more unpredictable landscape.
5:43 In this changing environment, where international relations are less often guided by shared norms,
5:49 we are witnessing a renewed emphasis on power
5:53 and competition in pursuit of strategic advantage.
5:57 Increasingly, domains that were once seen
6:00 as neutral are being drawn into the logic of reality of rivalry.
6:05 With economic choices and technological capabilities alike acquiring strategic weight and political consequence.
6:14 States are acting with greater assertiveness,
6:17 sometimes taking risks that would once have seemed unthinkable,
6:21 and employing every instrument at their disposal, economic, technological, and political, to secure advantage.
6:29 It is in many ways a return to a more transactional
6:33 and perhaps more brutal form of global politics.
6:37 At the same time,
6:38 the forces of globalization have drawn us closer together than ever before.
6:43 Our economies, our technologies, even our societies are deeply interconnected.
6:49 This interdependence has brought immense opportunity, but it's also introduced new vulnerabilities.
6:56 What was once seen as mutual dependence is now often viewed as strategic exposure,
7:01 prompting nations to rethink supply chains, partnerships, and long-held economic assumptions.
7:09 We are both more interconnected and more divided than ever.
7:14 The old idea of doux commerce,
7:17 that trade would promote good relations between countries
7:20 because of mutual economic benefits
7:22 and mutual dependency,
7:24 has given way to near-shoring, tariffs, and the weaponizing of dependencies.
7:31 The belief that the accountant's ledger could finally replace the soldier's bayonet has given
7:38 way to one where the handshake has been replaced by the chokehold.
7:44 This is a world
7:44 as I argue in the latest issue of the Fletcher Forum of interdependence without
7:49 trust.
7:51 Overlying all of this is a convergence of crises that define our present moment.
7:57 What we are witnessing is not a series of discrete crises,
8:01 but a pattern where disruption in one corner of the world reverberates in another.
8:06 Where global shocks increasingly overlap, testing the resilience of our institutions and our societies.
8:15 We inhabit a world of what my late Bosko Yiannanopoulos once described
8:19 as problems without passports.
8:21 Pandemics, climate change, cyber threats, financial contagion, challenges that no nation, however powerful,
8:28 can resolve alone.
8:30 Their impact is profound
8:32 and their scale serves
8:34 as a reminder that we still need to find ways to cooperate in the
8:39 interests of our common humanity.
8:43 And yet the mechanisms of collective action are themselves under strain.
8:47 Multilateralism, which once offered a means of addressing shared challenges,
8:52 now struggles to command the same confidence or cohesion.
8:57 Institutions and norms created in another era are being questioned not only for their
9:03 effectiveness,
9:04 but for their legitimacy, even as the need for cooperation has never been greater.
9:10 Nations are more often than ever before turning inward
9:14 or choosing more selective forms of engagement.
9:18 The result is a more fragmented system of global governance where cooperation is harder
9:25 to sustain.
9:27 Some people rashly speak of tossing aside the UN system
9:33 and all that underpins it.
9:35 I'm reminded of a story I did tell yesterday to a smaller audience of
9:41 a former Soviet ambassador to the UN
9:43 when confronted with the same proposition the UN isn't working,
9:46 let's shut it down said he was reminded of a story of Adam
9:50 and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
9:53 When Adam found that Eve was becoming somewhat indifferent to him.
9:58 And Adam said to Eve Eve is there someone else?
10:03 Now you think about
10:04 that for a minute
10:05 because that is the question we have to ask about the UN system
10:08 and multilateralism.
10:10 Is there anything else?
10:12 Is there an alternative?
10:15 Yes, in response to this uncertainty we are seeing in many countries a growing
10:19 emphasis on self-reliance and strategic autonomy.
10:24 Countries are seeking to strengthen their domestic capacities to reduce dependencies
10:29 and to assert greater control over critical sectors.
10:33 This reflects a quiet
10:35 but significant shift in thinking where resilience is beginning to matter
10:39 as much as efficiency
10:41 and where the ability to withstand disruption is seeing
10:45 as a form is seen
10:46 as a form of power in its own right.
10:49 This instinct is understandable
10:51 but it also reflects a world in
10:53 which trust is more fragile
10:55 and the future seems less assured.
10:58 This class of 26 is the world you're graduating into one not easily defined
11:04 by clear alliances or simple narratives.
11:07 It's a world of blurred alignments where nations pursue pragmatic partnerships rather than fixed
11:12 loyalties and where it sometimes seems
11:16 that the only rule is
11:17 that there are no rules.
11:20 This world demands an ability to navigate ambiguity to hold competing ideas in tension
11:26 and to make decisions in the absence of complete certainty.
11:30 Adaptability, awareness, and a willingness to engage with complexity will not be merely useful
11:37 qualities,
11:38 they will be essential ones.
11:41 There's also a subtler shift underway, one that is less visible,
11:45 but no less consequential.
11:47 The conquest The The contest today is not only over territory or trade,
11:52 but over ideas, narratives, and the authority to define them.
11:57 Information travels faster than ever, but so too does disinformation and fake news.
12:05 It's said that if you're not on social media, you're uninformed.
12:09 If you are on social media, you're misinformed.
12:13 In such an environment, the ability to discern, to question,
12:17 and to hold onto your intellectual integrity becomes indispensable.
12:22 The challenge is not merely to know more, but to understand better.
12:26 To be able to relate claims to contexts,
12:29 to have a substantive knowledge to separate fact from fiction, propaganda from prejudice.
12:37 At the same time,
12:37 the lines between the domestic and the international have grown increasingly blurred.
12:43 Decisions taken within nations now carry immediate global consequences,
12:47 just as global developments shape domestic realities in profound ways.
12:53 The challenges we face do not respect borders,
12:56 yet the solutions we pursue are too often limited by them.
13:01 The issues you will confront, whether in public policy, in business,
13:05 or in civil society, will demand an ability to think across boundaries,
13:10 to connect the local with the global,
13:12 and to recognize that the true The two are in truth inseparable.
13:18 And yet, for all its uncertainty, this is also a moment of possibility.
13:23 Periods of transition, however unsettling,
13:26 create space for renewal and for new forms of leadership.
13:30 As a good professor said, don't waste a great crisis.
13:34 It calls for individuals who are willing not only to respond to change,
13:38 but to to shape it.
13:41 For if this era is defined by disruption,
13:43 it is equally defined by the opportunity to rebuild a more balanced
13:47 and more inclusive order.
13:50 When the Suez crisis erupted 70 years ago
13:53 and the UN Security Council was bitterly divided,
13:55 that must sound familiar to many of us today.
13:58 Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld invented peacekeeping using the neutral armies of the smaller
14:04 and middle powers.
14:06 It wasn't mentioned in the UN Charter, but it saved the day.
14:10 When the US first threatened to bomb Baghdad in 1998 over non-compliance with weapons
14:16 inspections,
14:17 Kofi Annan got onto a plane
14:19 and flew there to persuade Saddam Hussein to comply.
14:23 He did it in the 24 hours of notice.
14:25 I was with him on that trip.
14:27 In both cases, by giving the antagonists a ladder to climb down,
14:31 these unscripted interventions diffused crises.
14:36 Not everyone can be in the position of a Hammarskjöld or an Annan,
14:39 nor be inclined to risk their positions by attempting something unprecedented.
14:45 Many would have considered such efforts dilulu.
14:50 Still, in your own areas of work,
14:52 you can vow not to be custodians of paralysis, but agents of imaginative action.
14:59 Push the envelope.
15:01 Much of your finest work might never make the headlines,
15:05 but it will endure in solutions found
15:07 and quiet compromises away from the flash bulbs.
15:11 Wear in those cases your anonymity as a badge of honor,
15:15 but never stop trying.
15:18 The Fletcher School is today, in my view, more necessary than ever.
15:22 It's a place that insist on looking outward,
15:25 on engaging with difference rather than retreating from it,
15:29 on understanding that complexity is not an obstacle to be avoided,
15:33 but a reality to be navigated.
15:36 It brings together people from different countries, disciplines,
15:39 and perspectives and asks them not merely to learn,
15:43 but also to learn from one another.
15:47 That is no small thing.
15:50 In a world easily tempted by simple answers and narrower horizons,
15:55 an education that teaches you to think globally, to listen carefully,
16:00 and to act with a sense of responsibility beyond yourself is not just valuable,
16:05 it's indispensable.
16:07 And that to my mind is why Fletcher matters.
16:12 As you leave these portals, you stand at a threshold.
16:15 Behind you lie years of structured learning.
16:19 Before you stretches the far less predictable terrain of lived experience.
16:25 There will be moments of triumph and moments of uncertainty.
16:29 And in navigating both,
16:30 you will draw not only upon the knowledge you've acquired here,
16:34 but upon the values you choose to uphold.
16:38 If there's one lesson I've learned over the years,
16:40 it's that the world will rarely conform to your expectations.
16:44 It will surprise you, unsettle you, and at times disappoint you.
16:49 But it will also offer moments of possibility that you could not have anticipated.
16:55 The task before you is not to control that uncertainty,
16:58 but to engage with it thoughtfully and with purpose.
17:03 Knowledge alone is not enough.
17:06 The world is already full of intelligent people who can identify problems from a
17:10 safe distance.
17:11 What matters is the willingness to take responsibility for solving them.
17:16 In the years ahead, difficult choices will inevitably arise.
17:20 When they do, I hope you will choose not only what is convenient,
17:25 but what is right.
17:27 You will at times be wrong.
17:30 Occasionally, even spectacularly so.
17:32 You will misjudge people, misunderstand problems,
17:36 perhaps find yourself wondering whether you've taken an entirely wrong turn.
17:41 This is not failure.
17:43 It is the price of engagement.
17:45 The true failure lies in withdrawing, in retreating into cynicism, or worst of all,
17:52 into indifference.
17:54 >> >> You will also discover that progress is seldom linear.
17:57 There will be setbacks, frustrations,
17:59 and moments when the distance between aspiration and reality seems unbridgeable.
18:05 I'll say it again, keep trying.
18:08 Change more often than not is incremental, the result of sustained effort,
18:13 rather than sudden transformation.
18:15 What matters is not that you succeeded at every step,
18:18 but that you remain committed to the direction in which you're moving.
18:23 As you move forward, I would also urge you to define success as fulfillment.
18:30 The world will offer you ready-made metrics for success, titles, salaries, designations,
18:36 even medals.
18:38 But these are external validations
18:40 that can neither fully capture nor sustain a sense of full full fulfillment.
18:46 It is important to ask yourself what kind of impact you wish to have,
18:51 the problems you want to solve, the communities you want to engage with,
18:56 and the values you refuse to compromise.
19:00 A career built solely on accumulation may impress others.
19:04 A career built on purpose will sustain you.
19:10 Equally important is the cultivation of a parallel virtue, gratitude.
19:15 Not as a fleeting sentiment, but as a sustained ethic.
19:19 The journey that has brought you here has not been yours alone.
19:23 It has been enabled by the patience of parents, the dedication of teachers,
19:28 and the solidarity of peers.
19:31 To acknowledge this is important, but to embody it is far more consequential.
19:37 For gratitude, when translated into action, becomes responsibility.
19:42 The responsibility to extend opportunities when you can,
19:46 to mentor those who will still follow in your footsteps,
19:50 and to ensure that the doors
19:52 that opened for you are not quietly closed behind you.
19:58 In doing so, you move beyond the narrow confines of individual achievement,
20:02 and participate in the creation of something larger.
20:05 A continuum of support, aspiration, and shared progress.
20:10 The true measure of success then lies not only in what you accomplish,
20:14 but in what you enable others to achieve.
20:17 It's in this quiet but enduring transformation from personal advancement to collective uplift,
20:23 that your education will find its most meaningful expression.
20:28 So, go out into the world, not to control it because you cannot,
20:33 but to engage with it,
20:35 often in the company of those who do not entirely agree with you,
20:39 to help shape it, and when necessary, to challenge it.
20:44 And so, as you step forward into the next chapter of your lives,
20:47 allow me to leave you with one more simple but enduring thought.
20:51 The future is not something that happens to you, it's something you help create.
20:57 You will in the years ahead encounter choices that test your judgment, your courage,
21:02 and your character.
21:04 In those moments, resist the temptation to drift with circumstance.
21:08 Instead, choose deliberately, act conscientiously,
21:13 and remain anchored in the values you carry from here.
21:17 And if years from now someone were to ask what you did with your
21:21 time at Fletcher,
21:22 I hope your answer will not rest solely on what you achieved,
21:28 but on what you changed, what changed you, and what you refused to ignore.
21:35 If you ever find yourself entirely certain of something,
21:38 take that as a sign that you may not be thinking deeply enough.
21:42 So, stay curious, stay open, stay delulu.
21:48 I wish you courage in the face of uncertainty, clarity in moments of doubt,
21:53 and above all the wisdom to recognize
21:56 that the most meaningful journeys are those undertaken not for oneself alone,
22:02 but for the world we all share.
22:05 Congratulations, class of 2026.
22:08 All the very best to you.
22:09 Give yourselves a hand.
22:11 Thank you.
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