Indian politician as a leader

In India ‘identity politics’ is the brand of politics most practised. Collecting people following a particular religion or its branch or belonging to one particular caste or sub-caste and championing their cause to the neglect of everything else is the easiest and, therefore, the most preferred route to political leadership. This leader knows that his (in some cases it is ‘her’ but mostly it is ‘his’) job is secure so long as he delivers the promised goodies to his followers or at least keeps them in a heightened state of expectancy that the goodies are just round the corner and could be delivered to them any day. Alternatively, he has to keep them engaged and united behind him fighting some real or imagined affront to their group or community.

Such politicians do not undertake the trouble of defining their vision but this does not handicap them in any way because for them the continued allegiance of their followers in itself is the objective worth pursuing and gives them their value. They are entirely driven by their supporters and so can not lead them in the real sense of the term. Is it any wonder then that once in power all they can think of is making money, loads and loads of it, by whatever means? Money is the biggest magnet or adhesive and keeps their flock not only together but also increasing in number, and, thereby, in importance. And that in a democracy is a truly desirable goal.

Choosing between India and China

Last evening I attended in New Delhi a discussion on ‘India and the West : The Future Geopolitical Landscape’. There, a member of an international think-tank, who had been a part of the George W. Bush White House team, said that whereas China was far ahead of India in hard infrastructure like airports, all-season motorable roads, network of railway, modern ports, bridges, and power plants, India’s lead lay in soft infrastructure like democratic form of government, freedom of the individual and of the press, independent judiciary and a well-established system of jurisprudence. He further said and I quote with my strong agreement and approval, “In ten years’ time, given the 8 to 9% annual growth, India can build for itself a great hard infrastructure. But China, even with the best will in the world, will take many more decades to develop a soft infrastructure comparable to India’s. And a nation’s prosperity is built on both hard and soft infrastructures.”

I can almost hear my Indian readers' howls of protest, after all haven’t we all at different times condemned our so-called soft infrastructure for all our ills? But we should try to see it from the perspective of an impartial foreigner, who knows both the countries rather well. But I don't want to give the impression that I would like to leave this soft infrastructure as it is. No, I shall have it amended, improved, strengthened, made more effective and real. I shall also have this country giving itself a very strong and dependable hard infrastructure. And why not? Because I am sworn to work for my country’s well-being and prosperity.

Are judges above the law?

Howsoever corrupt or incompetent, the Supreme and High Court judges can't be dismissed, they can only be impeached by Parliament. And the process is so difficult that no judge has ever been impeached in independent India's 62 years though we have had more than our share of corrupt and incompetent judges. Talking only of the former chief justices of the Supreme Court - (1) One, who got less than a month in the top position, transferred all cases against the Jain Shuddha Vanaspati, accused of mixing imported tallow with hydrogenated vegetable oil, to his own court and granted acquittal in almost all cases. (2) There was this person who imposed a fine of only US$470 million on Union Carbide and freed the company of all civil and criminal liabilities in the Bhopal gas genocide, the 25th anniversary of which is falling this night. In the USA, the fine would have been no less than US$10 billion, ruining Union Carbide completely. As a reward, our man was appointed a judge on the International Court of Justice at the Hague, Netherlands. (3) Another had two of his children living with him in his official residence and practising as lawyers at the Supreme Court. Need I say that both of them had roaring practice? Making hay while the sun (father, in this case) shines? (4) Yet another was hell bent on ordering sealing of commercial establishments in non-conforming areas of Delhi, thousands of shops etc. were thus sealed. It was just a happy coincidence that his two sons were in the construction business and were building malls and other shopping complexes in Delhi to which many of the shopkeepers, who had their shops sealed, had to relocate. A point to note - his sons gave out their father's official residence as their business address.

There is, therefore, a very strong case for setting up a National Judicial Commission to appoint judges to the Supreme Court and High Courts and discipline and dismiss them, if need be. It could be a five member Commission with the prime minister, leader of the Opposition, chief justice of India, chief vigilance commissioner and an eminent jurist on it.

The government alone can’t defeat terrorism!

More than the USA, more than the UK or the other countries in the west, it is India which is a victim of international terrorism and the home-grown variety of it. The central and various state governments are alive to the challenge posed by terrorism to the idea of India and they are now getting their act together in combating it. But whereas the governments, even with the best will in the world, can not be present every where and at all times, the people of India are. They only have to take upon themselves to be the eyes and the ears of the government in reporting to it any unclaimed baggage and vehicles, unusual movements of individuals and groups, and also anything way out of the ordinary. An alert citizenry is the best defence against terrorism and each one of us, not terrorists ourselves, have to play our role here effectively. We also have to prevent any particular group of the society or any particular religious community from being branded as perpetrators of terrorism.

Any one can feel left out, discriminated against, even oppressed, and they could be right or wrong in it, but it is the job of others to open a line of communication to them and remove all misunderstandings after discussion. The idea is not to pamper the dis-affected but to talk to them, understand their unmet aspirations, and together with them decide upon a course to redress their legitimate grievances.

How would I solve the problem of Naxalism?

I would take the following steps one by one :

i) Through an ordinance, declare all sales of agricultural land in the past ten years by the Scheduled tribals to non-tribals void and restore the land to the tribal owners. The state would compensate the non-tribal buyers by giving them the price they had paid with interest compounded, say, at 7% p.a. Also ban such sales in future.

ii) Amend the Forest Produce laws, with retrospective effect, to legalise the tribals’ picking up of minor forest products and withdraw all legal cases instituted against them in the past in this matter, just as the Jharkhand government has done recently.

iii) After these goodwill gestures, offer three to six months’ cease-fire to the Maoists and on their agreeing, invite them for unconditional and comprehensive talks.

iv) Make very clear to them that the state is willing to address itself to all their legitimate concerns and demands with honesty, transparency, and alacrity.

v) During the cease-fire, build rural roads, establish primary health centres and primary schools in the areas controlled by the Maoists and entrust their safety and security to them. Do this all in the full glare of the media, print and electronic.

vi) Make it clear to the Maoists that while the government would be more than willing to concede their legitimate demands, a revival of violence by them would be met with full force at the state’s command.

vii) In the unfortunate event of replying to the Maoists’ violence, take all precautions to avoid, at least minimise, collateral damage to the non-combatants and the crops and other property. As far as it is possible, let the media accompany the state forces on their operations against the Maoists to pre-empt any accusations of the human rights’ violation.

viii) Do everything possible to invite the Maoists and their supporters to take part in the democratic process, to stand for election and on succeeding, form democratic and Constitutional governments.

I am grateful to India's political leaders, let's see why

It is difficult to be grateful to the kind of political leadership we in India are having, particularly when we spend a significant part of our waking hours to criticising it for nearly all the problems and miseries faced by us. But just because it is difficult it should not deter me from at least making an attempt to find out a few things to be grateful for.

The first thing I am grateful to the political leaders for is ensuring that we Indians have the freedom of speech; we are free to question, criticise and even condemn any one to our heart's content. It may not have a desirable effect on the object of our attention but at the end of the exercise we do feel happy.

Then I am grateful for the freedom to choose our representatives every five years or sometimes even sooner. I know that democracy does not just mean the right to exercise our franchise but the very idea that we can unseat a government that did not deliver empowers us, it is altogether a different matter that the replacement may prove to be worse.

Next comes responsiveness, though many a time delayed and defective, to the public concerns. Left to themselves the political leadership may like to ignore the public but it is not doing that is a cause of a minor celebration.

Recover India’s stolen wealth from safe havens abroad

There are reasonable estimates that the funds Indian citizens have illegally stashed away in safe havens abroad, mostly in the Swiss banks, amount to a staggering US$1.41 trillion (about Rs.69 lac crore), which is one and a half times the country’s present gross domestic product. This is our money for which Indians have toiled for years but now it is out of our reach and is available only to the most corrupt, crooks and criminals, making those traitors to the nation and their generations to come obscenely super-rich. To some who would hold that the above figure is too high and unrealistic, I would only say that has a hitherto-unknown Pune-based swindler not been found last year to have more than US$8 billion (about Rs.39000 crore) in a single Swiss bank account? And he most certainly is not the biggest fish in India’s huge pond of corruption and criminality. The other group of beneficiaries, of course, of these funds of crime are the ‘venerable’ Swiss banks. These banks take a Cosa Nostra’s omerta-like oath of silence whenever there is a demand for disclosing the ownership or size of the funds involved.

But then it depends on how a demand is made on them to shed the cloak of secrecy. The Union Bank of Switzerland, the established leader among Swiss banks, has been recently reported to have, under pressure from the U.S. government, closed about 19000 accounts held with it by U.S. citizens without the required disclosure to the U.S. income tax authorities. UBS would now mail cheques to the account holders representing their account balances. The account holders could then either deposit the cheques into their accounts, creating an obvious accounting trail, or simply destroy the cheques and forfeit the amounts for good. Either way, they would be big losers.

As we all know the ruling cliques in India, for obvious reasons, would never create any pressure or even make a demand on the Swiss banks to reveal the details of all deposit accounts held with them by Indian passport holders, also of those in which Indian citizens have any beneficial interests. Pressure, in fact, first has to be applied on the so-called rulers of India to put pressure, in turn, on the Swiss banks and their home government. The Indian government must be made to use all legitimate means at its command and all international forums to create such a loud hue and cry on the subject that the Swiss government is compelled to get its banks to comply. India is supposedly having a strategic alliance with the United States, let the Indian government prevail over the U.S. to cooperate with it in its efforts to recover and retrieve India’s own funds, something of paramount strategic importance to the Indian state. Switzerland is a client state of the U.S. and has to listen to the latter most attentively.

For the last sixty one years whoever could, has looted India and the governments of the day have been a silent spectator, if not a ready accomplice. The crooked among politicians, businessmen, government officials in all branches of Indian state and professionals, mining and smuggling mafiosi, kidnappers and contract killers, false gurus and religious charlatans and many other denizens of the underworld have milked the country dry; they have also put substantial part of their loot out of the harm’s way, by squirreling it away mostly in Swiss banks but also in other safe havens like Cayman Island, Austria, Luxembourg, Jersey (U.K.), Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai. The time has now come for not only to putting a stop to this but also to reversing this by recovering the country’s stolen funds by prising open secret deposit accounts with Swiss and other international banks. And all of us, who are not corrupt and who are not afraid to do the right thing in the interest of the country, have to understand and appreciate this and raise our collective voice so that even our ‘deaf’ government is forced to listen to it.

Finally, to carry out this great adventure and reach its desired objective the country would need a team of persons who have commitment, intelligence, guts and, above all, unimpeachable integrity, just like the famous “Untouchables”, who relentlessly pursued and finally nailed Al Capone, the biggest and the cruellest mafia don in the U.S. history. Everyone in India has to look inside and decide for ourselves whether we have in us what it tales to be such an “Untouchable”. Long live this “Untouchability”, because it carries in it the only hope India can have.

Inspire others to aspire!

Yes, inspiring others to aspire is what the leaders should be doing and they should be doing it rather well because that is what elevates not only the followers but also the leaders themselves. Before a leader becomes one physically he or she has got to be a thought leader, he or she has to lead others' thoughts in the right direction, on the right path. And if the leader can get the others in the group to align their aspirations with the group's objective, leadership is like a walk in the park on an autumn afternoon made colourful by the sun's golden rays and the gold and red of the fallen leaves.

And sometimes you just have to follow!

There could be situations where some of a leader's fellow travellers, normally called followers, would be able to figure the way out better than the formal leader. The leader then just has to follow gracefully rather than standing on his or her prestige.

Like that, not only the team would have the best leadership suited to the particular circumstances but some members of the team would also get a chance to try their hand at actually leading. This is the best leadership training a leader can impart to the others.

I am a work in progress!

Some months ago, an Indian journalist, who had just interviewed the then Pakistani president, Parvez Musharraf, derisively described him as a work in progress. I have a contrary view on this because I consider ‘work in progress’ a compliment. A finished or complete product can not be further improved, as if the life for it has come to a stand still. There is no progress for it and, therefore, no hope.

Everyone alive is a work in progress and the progress should ideally stop only when life stops, not before that. But a vast majority of human beings learn, grow or progress no more when they reach a certain age or acquire a certain academic, social or financial status. They are the living deads. Fortunately, I am not one to be counted among them, since I know that I have to grow and develop in a huge variety of dimensions to attain my potential and that task is not going to be over until my death. So, I am and will remain all my life a work in progress, and that quite happily.

I am staging a comeback and am pining for a Lee Kwan Yew

The last time I made a post on this blog was on the 24^th April; so I’m back almost after five months. What had become a daily habit then is now an effort. But I know I have to pull myself up to do at least one posting every fortnight otherwise this would lose the character of a blog.

In India we are witnessing the worst acts of terrorism with a shocking regularity; major cities have been attacked with impunity. The perpetrators of these ghastly acts have escaped arrest except for a few successfully hounded down by the police for their involvement in the Ahmedabad bombings. As citizens, I and others are feeling insecure in our own country because those entrusted with the task of securing it have not proved competent enough. The country’s political leadership is looking stymied by the hydra-headed problem and making it more intractable is its fear that any tough measures to counter terrorism would antagonise a particular religious group and that in turn would seriously compromise its prospects in the coming state and national polls.

Why should these so-called leaders be afraid of taking bold steps to protect the life and property of the citizenry? I think they know that that is the primary responsibility of any government worth the name. Why don’t they understand that they can be firm and be fair at the same time? No one would question, much less disapprove of, a Lee Kwan Yew order to clamp down on a few human rights in order to protect human life in general – because the people of Singapore had the ultimate faith in his integrity and fairness. Let our “leaders” learn their first lessons in leadership from the great man; it’s our good fortune that he is alive and available.

Seven spiritual laws of success

Last evening I attended a discourse by Swami Bodhananda, a highly accomplished and widely respected teacher of Vedanta and meditation, at one of his admirer’s house. In the discourse, Swamiji propounded his seven spiritual laws of success, which I try to summarise here:

1. Law of Infinite potential: Everyone has got infinite potential and the sooner we all realise this the better it will be for us. The limitations that we have on our capabilities have not been imposed by God but by our wrong self-beliefs. So, if we decide to break free then perhaps even the sky is not the limit.

2. Law of Maya: Every thing changes all the time; change is the only constant. As they say, we do not step into the same river twice. In fact, we, ourselves, are also changing constantly; hundreds of our body cells are dying and others in similar number are born every second. Past solutions may not work for the present problems. We, therefore, have to look for a solution, not in our memory but in our spirit.

3. Law of Dharma: Dharma, by its very definition, holds, it sustains. Just as the dharma of fire is to burn, the dharma of human beings is to fulfil their needs by utilising their talents. So, acting in dharma one must know their needs and how to satisfy them using their talents. But one must not utilise their talents harming and injuring similar efforts by others.

4. Law of Karma: We reap what we sow, and there are no exceptions.
We, therefore, have to assume fullest responsibility of what we have
become and of whatsoever happens to us. The knowledge of this law empowers the hitherto weaklings struggling for survival to become beings of power controlling their own destiny.

5. Law of Yajna: First give and then take. In this exchange is rooted the well-being of mankind. If we just go on giving without taking anything in return, we are actually impoverishing the receiver. On the other hand, by affording a chance to others to give to us we empower them. But always give first and then deserve to receive.

6. Law of Yoga: Engage, but in a detached manner. For doing anything with some degree of success it is essential to be engaged in it; but by also having detachment we acquire better perspective and balance.

7. Law of Leela: Leela is God’s playfulness. And this law says that if we have the Upaya (Sanskrit term for method or know-how), our effort is effortless and becomes a leela. Lord Krishna had the upaya and was, therefore, could subdue the giant serpent Kalia and dance on its thousand hoods.

If blaming your predecessor could help

It has almost become a routine for a new party in power in a developing country to claim that the treasury is empty because of imprudent and wasteful expenditure by the previous regime, just as it is for their peoples not to believe it. In any case people have already punished the previous government by not re-electing it and they view such efforts of the new government to win the public’s sympathy with lot of suspicion. They think that by blaming every thing on the predecessors perhaps the new government is preparing ground to explain its future failures. They want the successor regime to take charge of the situation and get going to improve it in a planned and systematic manner. They require time-bound results and not lame excuses or blame games.

This applies equally well to a new business leader. He or she is selected by the board of directors to produce results and not to dwell on the past, even if it is the immediate past. Also, blaming the predecessor, who is no longer with the organisation and is not in a position to defend himself or herself, can not be taken as a particular act of bravery.

Can a manager afford not being a leader?

From the times of the management and leadership doyen, Peter Drucker, or perhaps even before that, differences between managers and leaders have been talked about and studied. Very many observations have been made, and are still being made, on how the two are different, some of them as follows :
- While managers are efficient, leaders are effective.
- Managers do the things right, whereas leaders do the right things.
- Managers take care of the bottom line, leaders build businesses.
- Managers ensure profits and the leaders continued profitability.
- Managers are for the short term, whereas the leaders for the long term.
- Managers climb the ladder and the leaders point out the right wall to place the ladder against.
- Leadership begins where management ends. And so on and on…

Managers, with the rarest exceptions, have with them teams of employees working to achieve their parts of the organisational objectives. And how can the managers get their teams to stay focused on the team objective and function at their most efficient level if not by leading them? Even if the manager has only one staffer with them, they have to act as a leader in relation to that staffer. To be successful, the manager has to be a leader, and a good leader at that.
I would, therefore, hold that the terms ‘manager’ and ‘leader’ are not mutually exclusive.

On the horns of a dilemma

I have recently read somewhere a case study on business ethics which described the predicament of a branch head who was told by her seniors about their strategic decision to close down that branch office in about three months’ time, absorb her and a couple of her deputies in the head office and retrench every one else. Since keeping the decision secret was of paramount importance for the company, she was specifically prohibited from letting anyone know of it. The staff at the branch, who were in touch with the employees’ union, heard a rumor about the impending closure of their outfit and asked their boss about the truth in the matter. If they were to receive the pink slips shortly they would immediately clamp down on their non-essential expenses and, more importantly, make efforts to look for alternative employment avenues. What should the branch manager have done? Her staff had served her well, the unit had been making profits consistently and the growth rate was also good. It was, however, the corporate office’s idea to give up the territory in favour of a competitor, who would do the same thing for it in another region of the country. On the other hand how could she violate the clear order not to share the secret?

I do not know what course of action she adopted but how would have I faced the situation had I been in her place (Case A)? Or suppose I was made privy to the decision but not told to keep quite about it (Case B). Or I too had only heard a rumor about the imminent closure (Case C).

Taking up Case C first, I would check up with the corporate office and if they denied any plan for closure, I would immediately advise the staff accordingly, restoring the peace. If, however, they confirmed the substance of the rumor, the situation would be as either in Case A or in Case B.

Now Case B, on the staff asking me about the rumored decision I would ask my superiors for permission to share the information with my staff. If I got it, I would confirm to the staff. If not, it would be Case A.

Finally Case A, my sympathies with the staff notwithstanding, I would not go against the order and would have to tell them that there was no truth in the rumor. But after that it would be difficult for me to continue in an organisation which was not transparently honest even with its own people. I would plan an early exit.

Corporate social responsibility - reality or myth?

About ten years ago I wanted to do research on the effectiveness of leadership development programmes, in-house as well as those conducted by business schools, at the business management department of a reputed university. But a professor there told me that the department was more interested in research in the then upcoming field of corporate social responsibility and suggested to me to go with it on that. When I asked her what was there in the field to excite her and her colleagues, she said that for the first time the industry was going beyond earning profits for the shareholders and was trying to be helpful to the society at large. She gave the example of a well-known corporate group which had started a school specifically for children coming from the lowest economic stratum. The group had constructed the school building and was bearing all the running expenses and was even providing books, uniforms and mid-day meals to the children – about a thousand of them – at absolutely no cost to them.

How I wished that she had not mentioned the efforts of that particular group because my organisation had business dealings with it and was one of the sufferers when the group went back on its commitments, aggregating more than 200 million US dollars, to the banking system. The banks had proof of massive diversion of money but the ever slow legal machinery proved to be a reliable ally of the group. The professor looked a little shaken by the disclosure but she had already gone too much distance on the road to consider the futility of the journey. Her love for corporate social responsibility stayed.

I am not at all against the idea of corporate social responsibility but my definition of the term is different from the one generally accepted. For me it is not twisting the arms of the government to wrangle long term tax concessions; it is paying market price for the land to set up an industrial unit and not securing the government’s help in acquiring cheap scarce farm land much more than what is required. It is manufacturing by the most resource and energy efficient method, fully treating the industrial effluents before releasing them in the water streams, and using state of the art machinery to minimise air pollution. It is paying market wages to the workers, not retrenching them at the first sign of an industrial slow down, and not embezzling their provident fund. It is meeting all contractual obligations to suppliers, buyers and bankers. It is not steam-rolling over the interests of small investors. It is following and respecting the law of the land. And yes, after that and only after that, building and running schools for poor children, or, for that matter, maintaining public parks near the factory building and organising polo matches.

Whose mission is this anyway?

It is very easy for a leader to be passionate about accomplishing the mission they have set for the team. The difficulty, however, lies in infecting the members of the team with the same passion. The leader can not just issue an order that henceforth every member shall be so passionate. The only way open for the leader is to make them see clearly what is there for each of them in the success of the mission and make them like it, rather desire it and crave it. Then, and only then, the entire team will join the leader in the enterprise and make an unqualified success of it.

It is a very tall order but not for the leaders who are thinker-visualizer-doers, who set examples for others by their conduct, who live the welfare of their people and who communicate from the honest depths of their hearts.

When your values are at variance with the organisation’s practices

More than a decade ago, as the branch manager of an important branch of my bank in the country’s capital I had refused some monetary reward to the staff for the simple reason that they had not earned that. The office bearers of the staff union met me and did their best to convince me about the validity of their claim but I had done my home work and was able to defend my position successfully. They conceded that the demand could be wrong but told me that at other similar-sized branches of the bank such payments had already been made. They wanted me just to follow the other branch managers and assured me that since the top management tacitly approved of the practice they would never question my action. My assertion that the decision not to make payment was a correct one and that it was for the other branch managers to follow my lead on this carried the day for me. I also told them that more than to the top management I was answerable to my own values and conscience.

But in today’s world of high ambition and success orientation would a similar adherence to personal values, even when they are in conflict with the accepted behavioural norms in the organisation, pay? Not really, and it did not pay me even then in terms of advancing my career prospects. There is a payment, however, in the form of an increase in self-esteem. One is able to stand erect with head held high and look the world in the eyes, is this in itself not reward enough? There is also a hope, howsoever fond, that the others too would follow their example and not compromise any more their personal values for narrow short term gains.

Planning for the leader's succession

An organisation exists to fulfil its mission set by the leader after consultation with others within and without the organisation. And when the mission is accomplished its place is taken up by another which then engages the focus and attention of every one. The organisation, therefore, can be taken as an entity much longer lasting than the normal working life of a human being. And for the organisation not to be rendered leaderless due to the retirement, sudden incapacitation or death of the leader, they must have a succession plan in place and this when they are still going strong and have at least a couple of years more at the helms in the normal course.

The leader should select two or three much younger members of the senior management team and expose them to higher and higher responsibilities in a planned way, guide them when and where necessary, and coach them into thinking as the top person. The leader would let them compete against one another, and when the situation so demands, also cooperate with the sole objective of delivering the organisation’s better performance. After enough inter-departmental experience and having further honed their strategising and people skills the heirs apparent would be in a position to fill the top slot when the vacancy arises. And then the organisation would carry on under a new leader and with fresh vigour.

In praise of integrity

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English gives out ‘moral uprightness, honesty, wholeness, soundness’ as the meaning of the word ‘integrity’. It is one of the dictionary’s shortest explanations of a word’s meaning; more was not needed perhaps because every one knows what this word means. People are very much familiar with the concept, they may not be practising integrity themselves but they can make out easily if the other person’s conduct is of integrity or not.

Integrity is the foundation on which the edifice of leadership is built and without it, naturally, leadership collapses. High credibility of a leader is the outcome of their integrity. High credibility, in turn, gives rise to better, sometime even unquestioned, acceptance of a leader’s decisions among the followers and motivates them no end. They would be more likely to believe that those decisions are for the benefit of the team and the enterprise, and that they would advance their true interests. Further, team building is not an effort for a leader having integrity because fairness in treating each member of the team, which is one of the pre-requisites of building an effective team, is a hand-maiden of the leader’s integrity.

Finally, any one having high level of personal integrity but average conceptual, technical and people skills can be a great leader but the reverse is not true. Some one without integrity can yet lead by pandering to the baser concerns of the followers but they won’t deserve even a footnote in the book of leadership.