Chat with NRN

At a time the world grunts under the strain of an economic slowdown brought on by the lack of “empowered umpires” in the capitalist world, comes a book that offers a prescription for the pain. And if the book is about India and written by the man awarded India’s second highest civilian award, conferred with France’s highest civilian honour and voted the 7th most admired CEO in the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit -- among a slew of other accolades -- you have a bestseller in your hands.
N R Narayan Murthy’s ode to hard work, integrity and the value system is cast in the crucible of his trials and tribulations as he built Infosys from scratch and made it one of the most respectable companies in the world.
“Our biggest challenge is,” he says, pointing at the girl on the cover of his book “A better India: A Better World”, “that every child should become confident like her. Not just in elitist schools but also in the remotest part of rural India.”
That might be a big challenge -- considering that even after 60 years of independence, India’s progress in higher education and in science and technology has not taken 350 million Indians out of illiteracy – but accepting challenges seems to be N R Narayana Murthy’s middle name. In 1995, with revenues of $5 million, Infosys was a paler shadow of itself today, and yet it walked out of a lucrative deal with General Electric because of its “unreasonable conditions”. That GE contributed to 25 per cent of their revenue and 8 per cent of their profits did weigh heavily on the minds of the Infosys team as it was sequestered into a room at Taj Residency, Bangalore, for negotiations but NRN was on way to building a “courageous and principled organization”. The rest, as they say, is history.
A compilation of 38 lectures delivered at institutes across the world, the book talks of the future of India and the world and also touches upon issues concerning leadership, inequality, corporate governance, values and globalization. Along the way, it offers useful insight into how a young man who graduated from the University of Mysore in 1967 went on to become the founder director of the company that has “revenues in excess of $3 billion… and has created more than 70,000 well-paying jobs, 2,000-plus dollar millionaires and 20,000-plus rupee millionaires (from NRN’s pre-commencement lecture at Stern School of Business, New York University on May 9, 2007).
Like that night in 1974 at the railway station in Nis, a border town between the then Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. NRN was hitchhiking from Paris to Mysore and he struck up a conversation with a girl in the compartment of Sofia Express about the travails of living behind the Iron Curtain. The only other occupant of the compartment, a young boy, informed the local police and NRN was dragged “along the platform into a 8X8 ft room with a cold stone floor and a small hole in a corner by way of toilet facilities”. After spending over 72 hours without food or water, he was packed off into a freight train to Istanbul because he was “from a friendly country called India”. That day marked a turning point in NRN – and India’s – history as he was “purged” of his “affinity” for the Left and decided that entrepreneurship and job-creation was the only way out of poverty.
And yes, NRN idolizes Mahatma Gandhi. “He is the greatest leader India ever had. He walked the talk; he practiced the precept; whatever was good for others was good for him too,” he says, sitting in the sprawling Infosys campus at Electronic City in Bangalore.
The dichotomy in Indian society is also at the heart of NRN’s book. A society that has one set of rules for the elite and the powerful and another set for the masses cannot succeed, he says. Mention Mulayam Singh Yadav’s manifesto promising a crackdown on computers and English, and you can almost hear him get agitated. “Somebody should ask him where he sent his son? This is just the kind of argument used in the 50s by unions and shown to be silly. If you want quality, if you want accelerated growth, there is no way you can achieve it without technology.”
At the launch of an online bookstore in Bangalore recently, NRN had said that he was “too old for politics”. So is that decision final? “Yes, yes,” he says, even before the question is asked. “I am trying to change the system in my own way… I have demonstrated that it is possible to run a business ethically. It is possible to bring in innovation and earn respect of our customers. We have raised the confidence of hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs. It is not necessary to bring about a change only by joining politics,” he says.
So what does the Infosys story mean to him after all these years? “If you are willing to work hard, if you have high aspirations, if you want to benchmark with the world’s best, it is possible to do it in India,” says the chief mentor of Infosys Technologies.
Murthy’s book delves into the current economic scenario as well. “A section of managers, not entrepreneurs, overcome by greed and vanity have brought things to such a state,” he says. Capitalism will survive, he says, because it is all about entrepreneurship, and honesty -- and these values still hold a lot of currency.
And what lesson does the economic downturn hold for the youth? “Humility,” he says. “Somehow youngsters thought they were entitled to high salaries, large increments, a certain lifestyle. The only entitlement you have is your intellect, your value system, and the ability to leverage them for creating better opportunities. Youngsters should understand that they are not omnipotent. We have to work hard and be innovative.”
For anybody on the threshold of starting his or her career, or anybody looking inward after the economic gloom, this book offers just the right kind of lessons – and a lot of inspiration.

Clear and present danger in Karnataka

Elections 2009 put a lid on the embers of communal clashes in coastal Karnataka. The church attacks in Mangalore and Udupi-Chikmagalur districts in September 2008, the infamous assault on girls at a pub in Mangalore in January 2009 and the spurt in moral policing thereafter put Mangalore on the global map. Now, the state’s administrators fear that once elections are over, the embers of communal strife may burst into flames – not just in Mangalore, but in several pockets of Karnataka.
Their fear stems mainly from the increasing disillusionment and aggression among the youth. A senior police officer who has been tracking developments in the state says that youngsters are also insulating themselves from the community elders’ and leaders’ diktat. Muslim youth do not want to take things lying down anymore and Hindu youngsters feel that it’s about time the community got rid of the “tolerant” tag. Take the case of Dakshina Kannada, for instance. The communal divide runs so deep that there are frequent clashes between the two communities at the district sub-jail. So much so, Muslims convicted of cattle-lifting have to be quarantined in the jail. Incidents of workers of Bajrang Dal or Karnataka Forum for Dignity – which fights for the minorities – attacking youngsters for talking to those from the other community have become almost a daily feature.
Senior intelligence sources say that the situation in Uttara Kannada, Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts is equally volatile, if not more so. They are closely monitoring the situation because of a threat perception emanating out of Bhatkal. This communally sensitive port town in Uttara Kannada district has seen many riots in the past and has produced the dreaded terror siblings, Riyaz and Iqbal Bhatkal. Riyaz Bhatkal, a Lashkar-e-Taiba operative who was tasked with setting up Indian Mujahideen by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, is alleged to be behind the string of serial blasts in the country last year. After Riyaz and Iqbal’s name started doing the rounds in terror investigations, there have been whispers of ISI setting up base here.
Now, police officers fear that communal trouble could be fomented ahead of the elections to further polarize the electorate. Seventeen constituencies in Karnataka go to the polls on April 23 and the remaining 11 on April 30. To use a cliché, police will heave a sigh of relief if Karnataka gets to the next month without any unsavoury incident.
Recently, at a seminar organized in a Mangalore college on communal tension in the district, a CD on the church attacks was used to drive home the point. Police officers say that this is just the kind of thing that could prove to be the spark for another round of clashes.
Like it did earlier this month in Kyathamaranahalli near Mysore. Riots broke out after two youngsters, who were said to be under the influence of drugs, were handed over to the police for eve-teasing. Within hours, a mob went on the rampage and set fire to at least 12 vehicles and four houses. Over 250 houses and shops in the area were vandalized.
The other development keeping officers on their toes is the threat of an imminent Naxal strike in Shimoga and Chikmagalur districts.
What happens in Karnataka in the next month or so will depend on how the two main parties in the state fare in Elections 2009, feel intelligence officers. While the Congress started out on a weak wicket and was touted to win anywhere between 5-6 seats, it has consolidated its position during the slog overs and looks set to walk away with 8-9. JD(S) has been relegated to an also-ran position and will thank its stars if it bags 3-4 seats. Earlier predictions said it could finish at the second position with maybe 8 seats. The joke in Bangalore was that if JD(S) could indeed manage 8 seats, H D Deve Gowda would once again become prime minister. The BJP could get 18-19 seats even though earlier calculations pegged 15 seats in its kitty. If the BJP does manage to finish with 18-19 seats, the dynamics in the state will see a sea change. To understand how, it’s necessary to go back in time a little.
When New Life prayer halls were attacked in Mangalore, Udupi and Bangalore in September 2008, the Bajrang Dal had alleged that the immediate provocation was the publication of a book titled Satya Darshini which ridiculed the Hindu belief system. Secularists said that the installation of a sympathetic government in Karnataka had given the right-wing outfits a free run of the state. On its part, the government claimed that its rival political party had engineered the attacks to bring a bad name to the first BJP government south of Vindhyas. Whatever be the reason for the attacks then, the state’s administrators are seeing a similar trend today even though nobody will say so officially.
Senior police officers say Uttara Kannada, Dakshina Kannada, Chikmagalur, Shimoga, Belgaum and Mysore are sitting on a powder keg. In fact, the threat seems to be so real that the new DG&IG of Karnataka Police, Ajai Kumar Singh – who is known for his integrity and efficiency -- has been touring all the vulnerable districts over the past 15 days or so.
At the heart of the clash of communities in Karnataka, lies economic disparity. In its heyday, Gulf money afforded Muslim youth in coastal Karnataka the latest in fashion accessories. Now, with active help from the Sangh Parivar, Hindu youth want to have an upper hand. The economic downturn and the dearth of jobs have only made matters worse. As all communities increasingly fight to assert themselves, the result is for all to see: In Christian-run institutions, Hindu teachers are becoming objects of suspicion. In Hindu-run establishments, care is taken to ensure that Muslims do not become student leaders. Muslim students in some schools and colleges have started insisting on a two-hour lunch break on Fridays in order to attend prayers at the local mosque; some outfits are forcing girls to wear burqas. Recently in Surathkal, near Mangalore, girls wearing burqas to college were cornered and harassed, allegedly by Hindu activists. The college principal passed an order saying the veil should be removed in class but student leaders wanted them to do so before entering the campus. Tension ensued and a meeting organized to discuss the issue was stormed, allegedly by auto drivers.
Another dimension that has been added to the vulnerable districts is Pramod Mutalik. After the Sri Ram Sene rose to national infamy (or fame, depending on which way you look at it) by attacking girls at a pub in Mangalore, it has been trying to hijack the Hindutva agenda from the BJP. Just like the Sri Ram Sene, numerous other outfits active in Karnataka are now looking for just the right kind of spark to fan communal flames in the state.