Where silence works well

Narayana Murthy

NR Narayana Murthy is disappointed with India's transition to a 5-day week. He is also recommending that the government hire civil servants from business schools too rather than just through the UPSC exam. Sometime in the past he had advocated capping the ratio of the compensation for the highest paid job to the lowest paid job in a company.

It is time leaders of his stature stop dishing out quick remedies for complex and nuanced problems. It puts their reputation at risk and raises questions about past successes and laurels.

To begin with, Murthy needs to know that India has not transitioned to a 5-day week. A third of India's workforce is casual labour (on daily wages) and most of them work 12-14 hour days and for 6-7 days a week when they find work. And despite the long hours, their life is a struggle for the basic necessities of life. They live away from their families (who live in ancestral villages mostly in faraway states) in dingy accommodation with no regular meal breaks or access to any kind of social security benefits that most of us take for granted, and it takes just one illness in the family to wipe out their life savings. Nearly 80 percent of India's workforce is engaged either as casual labour or is self-employed where massive underemployment is the norm, with exploitation and infringement of labour laws a regular affair.

Does Murthy have any concrete suggestions that would ameliorate the working conditions, and terms of employment, for the majority of India's workforce?

It is common knowledge, probably now conveniently forgotten, that it was India's IT sector led by companies like Infosys that started the trend of a 5-day week. And with the opening up of the economy in the 1990s and the ensuing flood of western multinational companies into India, the 5-day week became the norm for the relatively privileged and well-compensated workforce, which for all the hype and attention, is less than 20 million.

Another well-known fact is that the entire business model of the IT service companies hinges on controlling year-on-year growth of entry level salaries on campus to well below the rate of inflation. The ratio of compensation for the highest to the lowest paid job is probably the highest in this sector and continues to grow. The cap for this ratio that he advocated at one point, like his recent suggestions, never factored ground reality, and hence could never be implemented.

Now coming to the recommendation that Murthy makes with a casual flourish, which is to recruit civil servants from business schools. The UPSC exam conducted in multiple regional languages is one of the fairest selection processes that provides equitable opportunities to young Indians from different socio-economic backgrounds to compete for some of the most prestigious jobs the nation has to offer. You don't need to be privileged to compete in this exam. On the contrary, the fees at most of the business schools are exorbitant, where the students drawn from relatively elite backgrounds, and the medium instruction is English. And to top it, a bright student from a Hindi medium college in Chapra or Ballia probably understands India's cultural nuances and its problems far better than a student from an elite business school who is mostly eyeing a six-figure salary at a management consulting firm.

If you have spent your entire professional life on the Indo-US corridor, selling services to American companies, it's quite understandable if you do not know India beyond this small sample of 20 million Indians. But what is not understandable is the compelling urge to hold forth at every forum and dish out casual advice on topics, instead of joining the many conscientious and compassionate industry leaders and social reformers who are quietly working to create equitable conditions for the nation's less privileged workforce. Or even merely putting your money where your mouth is and getting your own company to shift to a 6-day week.

In conclusion, when you come with a reputation, people are keen to listen to what you have to say. This privilege needs to be exercised wisely. Success in one domain does not automatically translate to insightful and well curated opinions on every other topic. Therefore, when you face questions in domains you don't understand deeply, a perfectly acceptable option is to respond by saying, "I don't understand this subject well enough to offer my comments or advice" and nobody would think any less of you. On the contrary they would probably respect you more for it.