Western values are usually seen in India as not worthy of emulation. Narayana Murthy on values to emulate
for Indians.
Interesting
speech rather than uniquely perceptive.
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Narayana Murthy on Western Values
Ladies and gentlemen:
It is a pleasure to be here at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management.
Lal Bahadur Shastri was a man of strong values and he epitomized simple living.
He was a freedom fighter and Innovative administrator who contributed to nation
building in full measure. It is indeed a matter of pride for me to be chosen
for the Lal Bahadur Shastri Award for Public Administration and Management
Sciences. I thank the jury for this honor.
When I got the invitation to speak here, I decided to speak on an important
topic on which I have pondered for years -
the role of Western values in contemporary Indian society. Coming from a
company that is built on strong values, the topic is close to my heart.
Moreover, an organization is representative of society, and some of the lessons
that I have learnt are applicable in the national context. In fact, values
drive progress and define quality of life in society.
The word community joins two Latin words com ("together" or
"with") and onus ("one"). A community, then, is both one
and many. It is a unified multitude and not a mere group of people. As it is
said in the Vedas: Man can
live individually, but can survive only collectively.Hence, the challenge
is to form a progressive community by balancing the interests of the individual
and that of the society. To meet this, we need to develop a value system
where people accept modest sacrifices for the common good.
What is a value system? It is the protocol for behavior that enhances the
trust, confidence and commitment of members of the community. It goes beyond
the domain of legality - it is about decent and desirable behavior. Further, it
includes putting the community interests ahead of your own. Thus, our
collective survival and progress is predicated on sound values.
There are two pillars of the cultural value system - loyalty to family and
loyalty to community. One should not be in isolation to the other, because,
successful societies are those which combine both
harmoniously. It is in this context that I will discuss the role of Western
values in contemporary Indian society.
Some of you here might say that most of what I am going to discuss are actually
Indian values in old ages, and not Western values. I live in the present, not
in the bygone era. Therefore, I have seen these values practiced primarily in
the West and not in India. Hence, the title of the topic.
I am happy as long as we practice these values - whether we call it Western or
old Indian values. As an Indian, I am proud to be part of a culture, which has
deep-rooted family values. We have tremendous loyalty to the family. For
instance, parents make enormous sacrifices for their children. They support
them until they can stand on their own feet. On the other side, children
consider it their duty to take care of aged parents.
We believe: Mathru devo bhava - mother is God, and pithru devo bhava - father
is God. Further, brothers and sisters sacrifice for each other. In fact, the
eldest brother or sister is respected by all the other siblings. As for
marriage, it is held to be a sacred union – husband and wife are bonded, most
often, for life. In joint
families, the entire family works towards the welfare of the family. There is
so much love and affection in our family life.
This is the essence of Indian values and one of our key strengths. Our
families act as a critical support mechanism for us. In fact, the credit to
the success of Infosys goes, as much to the founders as to
their families, for supporting them through the tough times. Unfortunately,
our attitude towards family life is not reflected in our attitude towards
community behavior. From littering the streets to
corruption to breaking of contractual obligations, we are apathetic to the
common good. In the West - the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand -
individuals understand that they have to be responsible towards their community.
The primary difference between the West and us is that, there, people have a
much better societal orientation. They care more for the society than we
do. Further, they generally sacrifice more for the
society than us. Quality of life is enhanced because of this. This is where we
need to learn from the West. I will talk about some of the lessons that we,
Indians, can learn from the West.
In the West, there is respect for the public good. For instance, parks free of
litter, clean streets, public toilets free of graffiti – all these are
instances of care for the public good. On the contrary, in
India, we keep our houses clean and water our gardens everyday - but, when we
go to a park, we do not think twice before littering the place.
Corruption, as we see in India, is another example of putting the interest
of oneself, and at best that of one's family, above that of the society. Society is relatively corruption
free in the West. For
instance, it is very difficult to bribe a police officer into avoiding a
speeding ticket.
This is because of the individual's responsible behavior towards the community
as a whole On the contrary, in India, corruption, tax evasion, cheating and
bribery have eaten into our vitals. For
instance, contractors bribe officials, and construct low-quality roads and
bridges. The result is that society loses in the form of substandard defense
equipment and infrastructure, and low-quality
recruitment, just to name a few impediments. Unfortunately, this behavior is
condoned by almost everyone.
Apathy in solving community matters has held us back from making progress,
which is otherwise within our reach. We see serious problems around us but do
not try to solve them. We behave as if the problems do not exist or is somebody
else's. On the other hand, in the West, people solve societal problems
proactively. There are several examples of our apathetic attitude. For
instance, all of us are aware of the problem of drought in India.
More than 40 years ago, Dr. K. L. Rao - an irrigation expert, suggested
creation of a water grid connecting all the rivers in North and South India, to
solve this problem. Unfortunately, nothing has
been done about this. The story of power shortage in Bangalore is another
instance. In 1983, it was decided to build a thermal power plant to meet
Bangalore's power requirements. Unfortunately, we have still not started it.
Further, the Milan subway in Bombay is in a deplorable state for the last 40
years, and no action has been taken.
To quote another example, considering the constant travel required in the
software industry; five years ago, I had suggested a 240-page passport. This
would eliminate frequent visits to the passport office. In fact, we are ready
to pay for it. However, I am yet to hear from the Ministry of External Affairs
on this.
We, Indians, would do well to remember Thomas Hunter's words: Idleness travels
very slowly, and poverty soon overtakes it. What could be the reason for all
this? We were ruled by
foreigners for over thousand years. Thus, we have always believed that public
issues belonged to some foreign ruler and that we have no role in solving them.
Moreover, we have lost the will to proactively solve our own problems.
Thus, we have got used to just executing someone else's orders. Borrowing Aristotle's
words: We are what we repeatedly do. Thus, having done this over the years, the
decision-makers in our society are not trained for solving problems. Our
decision-makers look to somebody else to take decisions. Unfortunately, there
is nobody to look up to, and this is the tragedy.
Our intellectual arrogance has also not helped our society. I have
traveled extensively, and in my experience, have not come across another
society where people are as contemptuous of better societies as we are, with as
little progress as we have achieved. Remember that arrogance breeds hypocrisy.
No other society gloats so much about the past as we do, with as little current
accomplishment.
Friends, this is not a new phenomenon, but at least a thousand years old.
For instance, Al Barouni, the famous Arabic logician and traveller of the 10th
century, who spent about 30 years in India from 997 AD to around 1027 AD,
referred to this trait of Indians. According to him,during his visit, most
Indian pundits considered it below their dignity even to hold arguments with
him. In fact, on a few occasions when a pundit was willing to listen to him,
and found his arguments to be very sound, he invariably asked Barouni: which
Indian pundit taught these smart things!
The most important attribute of a progressive society is respect for others
who have accomplished more than they themselves have, and learn from them.
Contrary to this, our leaders make us believe that other societies do not know
anything! At the same time, everyday, in the newspapers, you will find numerous
claims from our leaders that ours is the greatest nation. These people would do
well to remember Thomas Carlyle's words: The
greatest of faults is to be conscious of none.
If we have to progress, we have to change this attitude, listen to people who
have performed better than us, learn from them and perform better than them.
Infosys is a good example of such an attitude. We continue to rationalize our
failures. No other society has mastered
this part as well as we have. Obviously, this is an excuse to justify our
incompetence, corruption, and apathy. This attitude has to change. As Sir
Josiah Stamp has said: It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot
dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.
Another interesting attribute, which we Indians can learn from the West, is
their accountability. Irrespective of your position, in the West, you are held
accountable for what you do. However, in India, the more 'important' you are,
the less answerable you are. For instance, a senior politician once declared
that he 'forgot' to file his tax returns for 10 consecutive years - and he got
away with it. To quote another instance, there are over 100 loss making public
sector units (central) in India. Nevertheless, I have not seen action taken for
bad performance against top managers in these organizations.
Dignity of labor is an integral part of the Western value system. In the West,
each person is proud about his or her labor that raises honest sweat. On the
other hand, in India, we tend to overlook the
significance of those who are not in professional jobs. We have a mind set that reveres
only supposedly intellectual work.
For instance, I have seen many engineers, fresh from college, who only want to
do cutting-edge work and not work that is of relevance to business and the
country. However, be it an organization or society, there are different people
performing different roles. For success, all these people are required to
discharge their duties. This includes everyone from the CEO to the person who
serves tea - every role is important. Hence, we need a mind set that reveres
everyone who puts in
honest work.
Indians become intimate even without being friendly. They ask favors of
strangers without any hesitation. For instance, the other day, while I was
traveling from Bangalore to Mantralaya, I met a fellow traveler on the train.
Hardly 5 minutes into the conversation, he requested me to speak to his MD
about removing him from the bottom 10% list in his company, earmarked for
disciplinary action. I was reminded of what Rudyard Kipling once said: A
westerner can be friendly without
being intimate while an easterner tends to be intimate without being friendly.
Yet another lesson to be learnt from the West, is about their professionalism
in dealings. The common good being more important than personal equations,
people do not let personal relations interfere with their professional
dealings. For instance, they don't hesitate to chastise a colleague, even if he
is a personal friend, for incompetent work.
In India, I have seen that we tend to view even work interactions from a
personal perspective. Further,
we are the most 'thin-skinned' society in the world - we see insults where none
is meant. This may be because we were not free for most of the last
thousand years. Further,
we seem to extend this lack of professionalism to our sense of punctuality. We
do not seem to respect the other person's time.
The Indian Standard Time somehow seems to be always running late. Moreover,
deadlines are typically not met. How many public projects are completed on
time? The disheartening aspect is that we have accepted this as the norm rather
than the exception. In the West, they
show professionalism by embracing meritocracy. Meritocracy by definition means
that we cannot let personal prejudices affect our evaluation of an individual's
performance. As we
increasingly start to
benchmark ourselves with global standards, we have to embrace meritocracy.
In the West, right from a very young age, parents teach their children to be
independent in thinking. Thus, they grow up to be strong, confident
individuals. In India, we still suffer from feudal thinking.
I have seen people, who are otherwise bright, refusing to show independence and
preferring to be told what to do by their boss. We need to overcome this
attitude if we have to succeed globally.
The Western value system teaches respect to contractual obligation. In the West, contractual obligations
are seldom dishonored. This is important - enforceability of legal rights and
contracts is the most important factor in the enhancement of credibility of our
people and nation.
In India, we consider our marriage vows as sacred. We are willing to sacrifice
in order to respect our marriage vows. However, we do not extend this to the
public domain. For instance, India had an
unfavorable contract with Enron. Instead of punishing the people responsible
for negotiating this, we reneged on the contract – this was much before we came
to know about the illegal activities at Enron.
To quote another instance, I had given recommendations to several students for
the national scholarship for higher studies in US universities. Most of them
did not return to India even though
contractually they were obliged to spend five years after their degree in
India.
In fact, according to a professor at a reputed US university, the maximum
default rate for student loans is among Indians - all of these students pass
out in flying colors and land lucrative jobs, yet they refuse to pay back their
loans. Thus, their action has made it difficult for the students after them,
from India, to obtain loans. We have to change this attitude.
Further, we Indians do not display intellectual honesty. For example, our
political leaders use mobile phones to tell journalists on the other side that
they do not believe in technology! If we want our
youngsters to progress, such hypocrisy must be stopped. We are all aware of our
rights as citizens. Nevertheless, we often fail to acknowledge the duty that
accompanies every right. To borrow Dwight Eisenhower's words: People that
values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. Our duty is towards the community
as a whole, as much as it is towards our families.
We have to remember that fundamental social problems grow out of a lack of
commitment to the common good. To quote Henry Beecher: Culture is that
which helps us to work for the betterment of all. Hence, friends, I do believe
that we can make our society even better by assimilating these Western values
into our own culture - we will be stronger for it.
Most of our behavior comes from greed, lack of self-confidence, lack of
confidence in the nation, and lack of respect for the society. To borrow
Gandhi's words: There is enough in this world for everyone's need, but not
enough for everyone's greed. Let us work towards a society where we would do
unto others what we would have others do unto us. Let us all be responsible
citizens who make our country a great place to live.
In the words of Churchill: Responsibility
is the price of greatness. We
have to extend our family values beyond the boundaries of our home.
Finally, let us work towards maximum welfare of the maximum people - Samasta
janaanaam sukhino bhavantu. Thus, let us - people of this generation, conduct
ourselves as great citizens rather than just good people so that we can serve
as good examples for our younger generation.
