Business, Ethics & Politics

‘India is no more an ideal place for business’ expressed Mr. Narayana Murthy, Executive Chairman, Infosys Limited recently in an interview to a leading business daily. Mr Narayana Murthy enjoys a very special place in the hearts of Indians, especially the youth as his company has proved that wealth can be created by middle-class Indians legally without compromising with ethics.

I had personally interacted with Mr Narayana Murthy last month, when he was here at Nagpur for the groundbreaking ceremony of Infosys which is going to be set up in a massive campus of 142 acres at MIHAN, Nagpur. And I have admired his simplicity and transparency of conducting business.  We all know that Infosys started in 1981 by seven engineers including Mr Narayana Murthy with an initial investment of just US$250. From the beginning, the company was founded on the principle of building and implementing great ideas that drive progress for clients and enhance lives through enterprise solutions. The same Infosys has now a growing global presence with more than 158,000+ employees worldwide, across 71 offices and 93 development centres in the United States, India, China, Australia, Japan, Middle East, and Europe.

I still remember when I passed out Engineering about 12 years back, Infosys was the only company offering a salary of around nineteen thousand Rupees per month to a fresh engineering graduate. Nineteen thousand rupees then used to be the entry-level salary of a Class I government officer after the implementation of the 5^th pay commission. Whereas a fresher could earn the same salary just by successfully answering the Shakuntaladevi puzzles without compromising with ethics. This was the beginning of transparency in IT business, which gave glamour to the whole IT industry in the due course of time. IT industry witnessed the improvement in the salary structure of the employees along with their development. And even the core industries also revamped the look of their corporate offices to attract good talent and match the IT campuses. We may conclude that companies like Infosys were influential in revising the pay packages of Indian employees in a transparent manner, in the last decade.

Now the same wave of transparency is evident in politics as the General Elections are at the corner. It may not be apt to term any particular political outfit as Infosys of Politics, but the new kid on the block, Aam Aadmi Party (abbreviated as AAP) is trying to introduce the system of transparency in politics which the Communist/leftist parties attempted unsuccessfully. The way AAP contested assembly elections in Delhi and put an impressive show has made a common man take a note of the means followed by AAP to contest elections. 

Till date, there is no roadmap for a common man interested in making politics as a career. Although I have seen some colleges offering a course on Politics and governance, it is confined to a class. And politics is still seen as a dirty field dominated by either person equipped with money & muscle power or successors of political stalwarts. However, some political parties, including AAP boasts of some qualified candidates and activists with some of them having served at the top positions at corporate houses. The National convenor of AAP, Arvind Kejriwal himself is an IIT graduate with Indian Revenue Service background. It’s not that other political parties don’t have qualified candidates, there are some good and highly qualified candidates in every party but the numbers of criminals/accused outnumber these good and qualified ones. That is one of the reasons why today’s qualified youth identifies himself with a year old party rather than the established ones. None of the established party is able to give their exact expenditure on contesting elections. That is the reason all the political parties except AAP do not wish to come under the ambit of RTI. Some people may criticize AAP for raising funds by charging Rs. 20,000 for a dinner with Arvind Kejriwal. But that is what we do when we want some Filmstar/Celebrity to interact with us for a seminar/function, which is an ethical and transparent way of raising money.

Every businessman wants to work in an ethical way, but the shady deals with the politicians for their vested interests lead to the irregularities in business and government projects. AAP has pointed out this nexus between the politicians and businessmen along with the crony capitalism phenomenon. However, if Nandan Nilekani, the founder member of Infosys can retire with a wealth of 7700 Cr. Rupees in an ethical way, there will be no need for other employees to compromise on their values for creating wealth. Similarly, if AAP can operate with ethics and transparency for at least a decade, putting an impressive show in the polls including the upcoming general elections; this will pressurize other political parties to change their system and make it more transparent, thus bringing a positive change in Politics & Business. In my opinion, this is just the beginning; this country has a long way to go, in order to operate business and politics in an ethical and transparent way.

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