What We Must Learn From the
West
It’s high time we became more professional, and
respected society.
By N. R. Narayana Murthy
Chairman of the Board, Infosys Technologies
Limited, Bangalore, India
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.
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.
Respect for the public good
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.
Acknowledging the accomplishment of others
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 traveler 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 art 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.
Accountability
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
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 mindset 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
mindset 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.
Professionalism
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.
Intellectual independence
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.
Contractual Obligation
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:
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.
Thank you.
A talk delivered at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute
of Management on October 02, 2002 by N. R. Narayana
Murthy, Chairman of the Board, Infosys Technologies
Limited, Bangalore, India
For full text of speech (visit
http://www.indiainfoline.com/view/041002.html)
Responsibility is the price of greatness. We have to
extend our family values beyond the boundaries of our
home.