October 6, 2011

The former Indian President and India’s greatest scientist, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, penned down his dream for our nation, in the book ‘India 2020’. In the book, he predicts India as the No 1 global power in terms of economy and technology. But, what he does not include or forgets to mention, is the widening gap between the elite reich and the disgraced poor.

One of the India’s Nobel prize awarded economists, Dr Amartya Sen, stated that India has in it the world's top most billionaires, but at same time world's poorest of poor, who haven’t got the privilege to be listed in the ‘Forbes Top 500 List’. It is indeed a disturbing fact that about 95% of India’s wealth is owned by 5% of the people (The Forbes 500 Billionaires), and the rest 5% of the wealth is left over, to be scattered and crumbled among billions of empty hands.

The historic visits to India this year, by the legendary American investor, industrialist and philanthropist, Warren Buffet and Microsoft founder-chairman, the world's richest man, Bill Gates, may have opened the eyes and knocked the doors of a few drenched and unworthy billionaires existing in this country. Warren Buffet, widely regarded as one of the most successful investors in the world, often called the "legendary investor” and ‘Investment Guru”, in his half-a-century-old tenure, is a trend setter in the art of philanthropy. Bill Gates along with his wife Melinda Gates, have nurtured millions of young underprivileged world wide, through their ‘Gates Foundation”, a non-profit organization.

Both Gates and Buffett have helped persuade 59 super-wealthy American families to sign what they call the “giving pledge” to return at least 50 percent of their fortunes to society. Warren Buffet on his brief tenure strongly urged the Indian billionaires to give back a reasonable amount of pie to the society in which they dwell and progress. It is not a well known trait among the business magnates and the tycoons in our country, overwhelmingly popular for their showmanship rather than socialmanship, to think for their people vaguely dispersed in and around their business hubs.

Ironically, the idea of ‘giving back to the society’ is totally absent and unknown among the political figures and also the highly overrated and undeservingly hailed by Bollywood stars, who have purely earned respect, fame and admiration from the people who watch their dumb movies.
 Management Guru, Peter Drucker, taught that management was not an end in itself but a means to create organizations for building and supporting a civil society. India’s second-richest man, Mukesh Ambani - known better for building a 27-story home than for his social vision - started a foundation in 2009, and his Reliance Industries pledged to double the foundation’s initial $110 million endowment. Mukesh Ambani, as most leftist economist tag as ‘Business Lizard’, rather than ‘Wizard’, seems to justify his critics, particularly in terms of his contribution to the masses and the nation as a whole. Surely, Waren Buffet's abrupt strike at the Indian rich would not have gone down well, as if it was targeted directly at him. And, Mukesh Ambani is not the lone vicious leach here, there are quite a few media moghuls, who like to stand above people's shoulders.

This also triggered a huge debate in CNN IBN, wherein Infosys HR head Mohandas Pai was hooked and tussled by the host Rajdeep Sardesai and public intellect Sushil Seth. Pai, regretfully hit back saying that Buffet and Gates, and other American giants, had excessive wealth, to the extent that it couldn’t be possibly reinvested. And hence they do these philanthropic activities. Now, this wasn’t a fair reply from such an eminent figure in the Indian corporate world. Instead of being so unapologetic and utterly self-piteous of their inability to lend back and share, what the Ambanis, the Premjis, Wadias, the Birlas, the Mittals and the Biyanis should understand in these days of suicidal competition and breathtaking technology is the ‘joy of giving’. Now the phrase has no relation to any kind of ‘spiritual’ context, absolutely no. What it means is that ‘Business’ should reap its benefits in the future. Apart from building a strong credibility, it should capitalize an entity cementing its place in the hearts and minds of the common people.

The family-run succession powerhouses, that no less depict the style of an middle century Indian kingdoms, often bristle when it comes to the point of contribution. These family-run businesses are too possessed in their own crave for wealth maximization, and it is not possible to change their attitudes the other way around. If India is the poorest countries in the world, along with having the widest economic disparity, the blame or the credit must be loomed at the vulgar- crooked -selfish billionaire business families, who have amassed and plundered unaccountable and immeasurable sums of money over the years, with least concern to the society, ruining the bridge of economic equality, which still remains a dream.

These tycoons and magnates, in their crazy greed for an entry into the list of Forbes and Fortunes ratings and their mad irrational temptation to buy an IPL franchisee, should also take a leaf out of the deeds and characteristics of American Business wizards like Buffets, Gates, Andrew Carnegie, Richard Branson and Larry Ellison. It should be emphasized in B-Schools all over the country, that young guns should not loose foothold on earth while sweeping the skies. Most traditional businessmen in India have sole criteria of profit making and family feeding, which is itself a disgusting ritual in the eyes of a yearning nation, definitely not a healthy companion of democratic socialism. It is still not clear, even after seven decades past the Second World War whether capitalism or socialism would serve the needs of common man.

India seriously is seduced by the global market, liberalization and foreign investment, and therefore, it is not a sin to term India’s attitude as invariably leaning towards American capitalism, or some would say imperialism. Nevertheless, it does not in any case compensate or compromise for the noble obligation of giving back. Every economics student, in his first brush on the subject, learns that ‘A business or an entity exists in a society, among the people, and as so, it is through these means, that it builds into an empire, therefore, it is the duty of every business to give back to its people, not as a compulsion but as a moral obligation.'