SUSTAINING AMBIENCE FOR BUSINESS

As the world prepares for its first trillionaire a basic question arises – is all this affluence sustainable? A very valid question as the affluence and development has not percolated and misery and poverty still continue to be major challenges. With corporate greed and materialism that go with the capitalism already under stress scholars are predicting the impending collapse of capitalism under its own contradictions. Sometime in 2009, The Wall Street Journal carried an interesting article,”Will American children be better off than you?” and concluded that they will not, given the jobless statistical growth of the first decade of the 21st century, with stagnant wages, rising poverty, crippling household debt and 90 per cent of the income growth going to the top of 10 per cent . The protest at the Wall Street are definitely an indication of increasing hostility towards the cooperation between the government and big corporations. When world economies are at crossroads and corporate greed is at its peak, the global financial architecture requires revisiting certain new paths. There is need to think that the integral humanism as prophesied and practiced by our ancient seers aiming at reducing the gulf between private affluence and public poverty can provide the impetus for corporate responsibility towards public good. And this corporate responsibility has to be different from the much touted Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in vogue these days.

It is against this backdrop that we need to look at a model of sustainable business. As debates over 25 years of globalisation do not seem to come to any conclusion we need to search for a new paradigm.

Why corporation exist is a question that needs to be answered in a much wider perspective. The conventional view that the very purpose of corporate existence is to create value for the shareholders and maximising their profit may not be prudent. Ancient Indian wisdom of the Vedas emphasise that wealth has to be earned only through fair means and one should put in his best efforts to acquire wealth through ethical and moral practices only . One has to acquire wealth righteously.

In his famous treatise Artha Shastra, Kautilya regarded the state as an institutional necessity for human development. He outlined all the principles that the state should do for the happiness of the people. Kautilya’s Arth Shastra has described the following ideals for the king:

Prajasukhesukhamrajnah, prajanam ca hitehitam

Nattmapriyamhitmrajnah, Prajanamtupriyamhitam

Which means that the monarch should seek happiness of his citizens, his welfare is in their welfare and his good is not in what pleases him but what pleases the citizens. Ancient Indian literature never talked of renunciation of the wealth. But the emphasis was clearly on maximising profits only through righteous means (Dharma) and use it generously for social cause. There are verses in the Upanishads that suggests that wealth should be maximised so that we can take care of those dependent on us. (Annambahu Kurveta Tadvratam -Taittiriya Upanishad). It also says there is need to take care of our wealth as well as welfare of others. (Bhutyai Nappramaditavyam Kusalanna pramaditavyam – Tatittiriya Upanishad.) The wisdom in the Upanishad encourages us not only to possess wealth but also enjoy the same. Rig Veda Samhita says that the rich have to satisfy the poor.A sustainable business environment can only be created if businesses become conscience driven.

LORD OF THE LORDS

The whole of the last month of the Hindu calendar was dedicated to Lord Shiva, variously called as Bhola, Shankar, Mahesh or several other names depicting his independent, idiosyncratic ways. Shiva is supposed to the destructor among the triumvirate of the three lords comprising Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh. Lord Shiva is given the epithet of Mahadev, Lord of the Lords. In the auspicious month, Shravan, Lord Shiva is worshipped all over the country. In this month we find the devotees, the Shiva Bhakts, wearing saffron dresses moving on the roads and streets all over the country. These devotees called Kawanrias make seemingly impossible efforts to bathe the Shivalingas of the various temples within their reach as it is this offering of water on the Shivalinga that is supposed to please the lord.

Why this scramble to offer water to the Lord takes such an extreme form may appear inexplicable but it definitely seems to take the form of a mass hysteria. For anyone who doesn’t understand Hinduism such a scenario may defy logic but that is what is called faith in Hindu tradition. And lord Shiva has a huge crowd of followers because these followers identify themselves with the simple ways of the lord. You do not need precious gifts or items to please the lord. Even a pot of simple water can be offered and the Lord is pleased. It is this belief that makes people travel far and wide. The most interesting aspect is that people do not ask for any boon. They are satisfied just by offering the water to the lord. The most unbelievable sight is at Baidyanath Dham, in the Deoghar town of Jharkhand state where devotees travel hundreds of miles barefoot just to offer a pot of river water to the lord cutting across caste and class.

Initially, it was Deoghar popularly known as Babadham that was known for the famous Shravan fair that in popular ling is also called ‘Bol Bam’. Deoghar is one of the twelve top shrines of Lord Shiva in the country which are called the Jyotirlingas. The other eleven being the Somnath, Sri Shailyam, Mahakal, Omkareshwar, Bhima Shankar, Rameshwaram, Nageshwar, Kedar Nath, Tryambakeshwar, Kashivishwanath and Ghusheswar. These Jyotirlingas are the shrines that every Hindu longs to have darshana of. The popularity of Lord Shiva is for several reasons. First and foremost is his role as the destroyer of the universe or srishti. Every cycle of creation of this universe comes to an end and this destruction is the precursor to the new creation. Lord Shiva with his famous dance tandava and his third eye effects this destruction that pave way for fresh creation. The Lord is also known to have swallowed the poison that had come out of the churning of the ocean. This act of his was to save the universe from the deadly poison, consuming which lord Shiva’s throat turned deep blue and gave him the name Nilkantha. Lord Shiva is thus believed to be the God who saved the universe.

He is the common man’s God, simple and without pretensions who lives in the open on mount Kailash and is accompanied by common man, the down trodden and the ghosts. He rides an ox and does not wear costly robes. The Lord is supposed to be simple and innocent who can be pleased by anybody making sincere efforts. That is the Lord of the Lords.

THOUGHTS FOR I-DAY

Tomorrow we will be celebrating the Independence Day. Seven decades ago on this date the Tricolour was unfurled signalling the birth of a new nation. Hopes replaced despair and the dream of the founding fathers to breathe in free India was realised. But that was just a beginning as there were many such dreams that were to be fulfilled in the free nation.

Every Independence Day thus is a time for stock taking to find out how far we have come. Naturally, we need to look at the bench marks that were set. The pledge of Independence as taken by the people of India on the Purna Swaraj Day (January 26, 1930) may serve as a useful guideline. While the entire text of the Purna Swaraj Day pledge may not be possible to be reproduce, selected portions have been quoted below:

“We believe that it is inalienable right of the Indian people, as of any other people, to have freedom and to enjoy the fruits of their toil and have the necessities of life, so that they may have full opportunities of growth…India has been ruined economically. The revenue derived from our people is out of all proportions to our income. Our average income is seven pice per day, and of the heavy taxes we pay 20 per cent are raised from the land revenue derived from the peasantry and 3 per cent from the salt tax which falls most heavily on the poor.

“Culturally the system of education has torn us from our moorings and our training has made us bug the very chains that bind us.”

The revolutionary youth of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association stated their avowed goal as to work for a revolution which would end exploitation of man by man.

There we have many such objectives that prompted men and women, young and old, to join the freedom movement. But there is a need to now evaluate how far those objectives have been achieved and how much more remains to be done. For a country of overwhelmingly large young men and women, this is all the more important because they opened up their eyes in a different country altogether. They neither saw the struggle nor the exploitation during the British rule. Therefore, in order to connect them with the nation, it is very important to make them understand how this India was built and what were the dreams of the founding fathers.

How do we measure the strength of our democracy? Well, we may take a cue from the acceptance speech of Senator Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention in Denver as given in the New York Times website on August 28, 2008. It is quoted: “We measure the strength of our economy not by the number of billionaires we have or the profits of the ‘Fortune 500’ companies, but by whether someone with a good idea can take a sick and start a new business, or whether the waitress who lives on tips can take a day off and look after a risk kid without losing her job; an economy that honours the dignity of work.”

These words make a lot of sense today as we enter into yet another year of our independence. It is not a time to worry about how tenable things are in the country today. It is about doing things to realise the dreams of our founding fathers.

NATURE OF PRAYER

One of the greatest paradoxes of this world is that an overwhelmingly large number of people offer prayers to God. An equally large number, however, also doubt the efficacy of prayers most of the times. How to explain this is an issue that has been bothering both the knowledgeable as well as the ignorant.

Well, there are no easy answers in black and white as the whole idea of God is clouded in a haze of grey. Doubts, confusion, skepticism and even complete disbelief in a small number of cases. But coming back to the basic question — do prayers work? From philosophers to psychologists to even medical doctors have all given their views. The difficulty is that even those views are covered with fuzziness.

Does this mean that prayers are a result of the smartness of human mind which tries to take a chance? Chance that what if God really exists and listens to prayers and dispenses as per his likes and dislikes. In the philosophy of religion, this viewpoint is a suggestion given by Pascal to those who have doubts about God. But Pascal never doubted God. He only gave a reason for the skeptics and agnostics.

The question of efficacy of prayers is thus a crucial one in the idea of God. What is a prayer? Well, there can be many views. A demand, an expression of gratitude, a quid pro quo and even a tête-à-tête with God on issues private and public, divine and mundane. It is all about personal inclination, personal belief. But there is one essential thing in prayer. It is addressed to a private God, the idea of which human beings have created through their cognitive ability.

Erroneously we try to take it to the public platform and confusion persists. God is an entity with whom those praying have a personal relationship and who seek all sorts of wishes to be fulfilled. Thus, the assertion about efficacy of prayer will depend on how well the wishes have been granted. Perhaps, this is one of the reasons why doubts about efficacy of prayers arise and by extension lead to doubts about the idea of God.

For most of us, God seems to be like an ever-intervening variable capable of affecting outcomes of life. This is not so. God is an article of faith and expecting God’s intervention after every prayer may be some kind of an illusory belief that can and does lead to psychological problems. Prayers at best are some kind of a soliloquy, a monologue expressing the affiliation of a human being to the creator. This doesn’t mean that prayers are ineffective or they cannot work.

Prayers do work, but on a different plank.

It all depends on personal faith. This faith influences the mind which influences perception. But expecting transactions to be affected by prayers is rather too farfetched. The God-man affair cannot be one of give and take.

Famous ascetic and saint, Devraha Baba of Varanasi, always told the people visiting him that if you get what you ask from God, it is good, but if you don’t get it, it is even better. The idea is that sometimes God may have different plans for you. This is the basic premise of positive psychology. But the essential element in all prayers is faith. It is faith that makes prayers work. So if prayers are not answered, don’t blame God.

TACKLING TERRORISM

Islamic terrorism is the name given to the acts of violence carried out by the ISIS. Many call this religious terrorism. Then there is another brand, the ultra-Left terrorism perpetrated in the name of class war. But all these acts in the present times and similar acts in the past, like in Punjab during the Eighties or in West Bengal during the Seventies, had one thing in common: They were acts of violence and killings based on unreason that affected normal life and created a sense of fear and insecurity in society.

They attract the young sections of society, largely the poor, whose frustrations look for a vent and the falsehoods spread in the garb of ideologies give them a cause. The myth of ideological façade has to be shattered. As ISIS spreads its wings and increases the frequency of its terrorist activities, there is need to separate religion from terrorism aggressively and extensively.

There are schools of thought that believe that certain religions are by their very spirit fanatic and advocate using violence against those who do not believe in their connotation of God and form of worship. But this is a rather primitive view. Even within religions, there have been internecine battles.

The acts of terrorism, which the ISIS is carrying out in the name of Islam, are blatant acts of violence that some groups are trying to perpetrate due to their mental disposition. This is a kind of pathology and these groups comprise psychopaths.

The present threat in the form of ISIS has to be seen against this backdrop and there is need to emphasise that they are simply criminals and terrorists who have nothing to do with religion.

Islamic scholars and the clergy must make it a point to expose the fraud that ISIS is perpetrating in the name of religion. As long as we associate religion with terrorism, the ranks of the terrorists will continue to be replenished with fresh entrants. It is the cause that gives legitimacy to the terrorist outfits that are able to attract gullible people willing to die for a cause.

There is a striking similarity between terrorists who claim to serve religion and by extension God, and the extremists from the ultra-Left who castigate religion in the severest of the terms. They both commit the same acts of killing innocent people.

The strategy to tackle terrorism has to be two-pronged. On one hand, it has to be the hard one that is being one degree more unreasonable than the terrorists, identifying and singling out rogue states and being tough. On the other, there is a need for an extensive campaign to counter their mischievous propaganda that gives a reason to the gullible to join their ranks and become ‘martyrs’ for a cause which is but a grave fraud.

Ancient texts and practices can offer good tips. Useful insights are given in the Ramayana, particularly in the Sundara Kanda as to what needs to be done. One such instance is that of taming the Ocean God who is acting unreasonable and stubborn. Interestingly similar ideas are also expressed in the famous book by Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu, The Art of War, which says: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”