Popularly known as the Clothing Man, Anshu Gupta is the recipient of the 2015 Ramon
Magsaysay Award, called the Nobel Prize of Asia. He started his development journey after
quitting a corporate career in 1999 to initiate Goonj, the world’s first agency working on the issue
of clothing as a development issue. Anshu was bothered by the fact that despite being one of
the three basic human needs, cloth was nowhere mentioned on the development agenda. This
attention to neglected basic needs set him on 25+ years of transforming India's culture of giving
up our unused cloth and other under-utilized materials for development work. Under his
leadership, Goonj has taken the alarming growth of urban waste and instrumentalized it to trigger
large-scale rural communities-led development work, creatively and flexibly matching and
seamlessly weaving urban surplus into the changing priorities and realities of rural marginalized
communities.
Under his leadership, Goonj built the genesis of a parallel trash-based economy based on barter
between efforts of rural communities and urban surplus material as two new currencies. The
Goonj model has emerged as a worldwide case study around deploying waste material
circularity to mobilize large-scale civic engagement-led material poverty alleviation, community
dignity and agency-led rural development, and rural wisdom-led climate change mitigation work.
Goonj has also emerged as the first responders for any natural disasters across India by
engaging pan-India civic participation in disaster response, focusing on consistent awareness
building to connect the dots between disasters and development.
What started as a disruptive idea with Anshu and Meenakshi’s (his wife and co-founder) personal
67 clothes from their home, has 25 years later, turned into a systemic work across different parts
of 31 states and union territories of India, every year deploying thousands of tons of under-utilized
household material to mobilize and impact thousands of village communities on a wide range of
issues like water, agriculture, sanitation, menstrual hygiene, education, livelihood and disaster
response and mitigation.
He is a frequent speaker at various Global and national Forums including Ted and the World
Economic Forum and engages deeply as an advisor and board member on many grassroots and
national level social enterprises and non-profits. In 2017, Anshu served as a fellow for the Japan-
India Distinguished Visitor Program, an initiative launched to strengthen the relationship
between the people of both countries, and in the year 2010 Forbes listed him as one of India’s
most powerful rural entrepreneurs. Anshu is also an Ashoka and Schwab Fellow while under his
leadership Goonj has received national and international recognition for innovation,
entrepreneurship, governance, and public service including the World Bank's Development
Marketplace Award, Changemakers Innovation Award, Jamnalal Bajaj Award for Fair Business
Practices and the Mother Teresa Memorial Awards for Social Justice.
Anshu recently started on a new journey of ‘Gram Swabhimaan’ (literally meaning village self-
respect), emerging from his long-standing intrigue with the world’s mainstream narration about
certain people and communities. His aim in this new journey is to make these people realize
their worth and dignity and make a promise to shun labels like Bechara (helpless), Besahara
(destitute), and Gareeb(poor) to describe oneself.
A foodie, photographer, and journalist by heart, Anshu often pens prose and poetry on the issues
that bother him about the world around him. His latest ventures include ‘Adda with Anshu’, a
chat show where he talks to people from different walks of life about their connection with social
issues. His poetry piece ‘Safar’ (on the pain of people walking on the roads in Covid Lockdown)
was recently turned into a 6 language-translated animation film that has won international
acclaim. His popular poetry collection ‘Sochta Ho’ chronicles his reflections on making the
invisible visible and challenges the reader to examine their lens on the dignity of the poorest
and their contribution to the world. His collection of photos from his first responder work in
different disasters has emerged as the first of its kind multi-city awareness-building photo
exhibition "Witnessing Disasters in India"
Anshu holds a double master's in Journalism and Advertising and PR from the Indian Institute Of
Mass Communication and a Master's in Economics.
Videos:
Magsaysay acceptance speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sRolsq1TRA&t=5s
Redefining Philanthropy Anshu Gupta National Geographic|:https://youtu.be/qOowwnlPcAE
Berkeley Haas Social Entrepreneur of the Year Anshu Gupta: Creating a Parallel Economy
with Reused Materials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxzWjT6rDNM
Interview with Neelesh Misra: TheSlowInterviewwithNeeleshMisra
Articles and Interviews:
The Man Who Transformed The Culture of Giving:https://goodmenproject.com/featured-
content/the-man-who- transformed-the-culture-of-giving-shnm/
·Circular social innovation in India
:https://ssir.org/articles/entry/circular_social_innovation_in_india
Mindsetovermatter: Forbes India:https://www.forbesindia.com/blog/the-good-
company/mindset-over-matter-indian-nonprofits-that-know-how-to-grow/
Ordinary people, extraordinary power:http://bit.ly/2DrQW0F
Why covid 19 relief should include the needs of ‘missed out
communities:https://idronline.org/article/diversity-inclusion/why-covid-19-relief-should-include-
the-needs- of-vulnerable-communities/
Social Media Handles:
· LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/anshuguptagoonj
· Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/anshugupta.goonj
· Wikipedia:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anshu_Gupta
· Instagram:https://instagram.com/anshugoonj?utm_medium=copy_link
· Twitter:https://mobile.twitter.com/anshugoonj
