Alumni Feature | Mathur Sathya, Master’s in Public Policy ‘21

Mathur graduated from National Institute of Technology, Trichy with B.Tech in Computer Science and Technology in the year 2014. Having been placed in CA Technologies as a Software Engineer in campus placement, Mathur continued to work there for 2.5 years and switched to Highradius Corporation where he worked as a Consultant for 2.5 years. During his professional career, Mathur kept up with his hobby of writing and film appreciation, even directed a music video. It was during research for a movie script, he started understanding the inequalities prevailing in the society. Keen on learning further, Mathur read books on politics, philosophy and economics which planted the conviction to work for social change in him. It was when he decided firmly to quit his job and take masters in one of these fields, he was exposed to Public Policy discipline through an Ad by Young Leader’s for Active Citizenship on social media. Drawn by the interdisciplinary nature of the field, he applied for the fellowship and got it. During the course of two months, he worked for a Member of Parliament and helped the office draft a policy brief on “Preservation of Tribal and Indigenous languages in India”. From this experience he was convinced this is the right field for him and joined the MPP course in June’19. Gravitating towards land rights of marginalised, Mathur did his fieldwork with Integrated Rural Development Society in Villupuram Tamil Nadu, in which he researched land policies of TN and conducted interviews and focus group discussions to uncover the pitfalls of policies and deprivation of Schedule Castes in the region. This experience earned him an internship at ActionAid to work on a project related to livelihood creation for women lead households in slum rehabilitation settlements of Perumbakkam, Chennai. With the learning from these internships about the marginalisation of Scheduled Castes and the safeguards for the social group provided by the state, he is currently doing his dissertation on fiscal policy at the state level for their empowerment. His research focus is on the use of e-governance to make the services and resources more accessible to the community, ensuring utilisation of budget allocations towards schemes designed for them. Mathur uses social media and other entertainment platforms for social justice advocacy. He has a show named Patravai (Ignite) in the Neelam YouTube channel to educate the public on issues of Social Justice. He performed a Stand-up Comedy on National Education Policy 2020 dated 21st August 2020 during the virtual Art Festival of Kalai Va Nee, Chennai.