Pranay Kotasthane and I co-authored an open on why COMPASSION, not empathy, must guide Public Policy.

Here’s the link to the op-ed.

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Dr. Jagdish Chandra Asthana Could Have Been a Good Policy Analyst

A cliche you’ll hear often is that policymaking should be empathetic. And like many such pronouncements, it is a wrong one. A good policy analysis needs compassion, not empathy

In Munnabhai MBBS (2003), the medical college dean, Dr. Jagdish Chandra Asthana (played by Boman Irani), cautions against feeling empathetic towards patients. Empathy, he reasons, can impair the doctor’s ability to provide the best treatment for the patient. In the world of public policy, the doctor is correct. If we’re keen to develop better policies, we must avoid empathy and replace it with compassion as a guide. Here’s why.

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