Myth and illusory formulas

Devdutt Pattanaik's approach to management is based on a foundation of unreason

In Business Sutra: A Very Indian Approach to Management, Devdutt Pattanaik has constructed a massive and intricate edifice by drawing extensively on mythology, mainly based in ancient India, but also in other parts of the world. He has interpreted these ancient stories in his own way, and his own illustrations make the book attractive. These stories are an inseparable mix of reason, unreason and often cruel prejudice in an overall context that preaches that nothing is good or bad and that nothing matters in the eternal cycle of birth, death and rebirth. Most readers will dismiss this proposition as unjustified glorification of ancient Indian thinking and beliefs, one that denigrates reasoning and belittles desirability of purposeful action. Others may prefer to suspend their disbelief and sit back and enjoy the unquestionably fascinating stories.

Rather unreasonably, Mr Pattanaik's definition of "belief" excludes tested knowledge. He writes, "Everyone believes their subjective truth to be the objective truth, and clings to it firmly, as it determines their self-image and their self-worth." In his view, "Every belief is irrational and hence a myth". Based on these premises, Mr Pattanaik banishes rationality from Business Sutra - and avoids the need to provide facts and arguments in support of what he is saying.

Mr Pattanaik's description of his life in medical college, service and his formal and informal further studies shows his discomfort with the constraints of the real world and his deep love for mythology. He writes "The more I explored mythology, the more I felt like Aladdin in a cave of unexplored treasures."

Mr Pattanaik's core "Business Sutra" (formula for business) is: "As is belief, so is behaviour, so is business" - a vague and perhaps even meaningless statement in the nature of many statements in ancient Indian scriptures and mythology that can be interpreted in many different ways. A diagram with an arrow pointing away from the word "Belief" to the word "Behaviour" and another arrow from the word "Behaviour" to the word "Business" is repeated at various points in the book. One cannot but assume that this means belief determines behaviour and behaviour determines business. But is that really so?

Eric Berne's theories of behavioural science elaborated in his bestseller Games People Play - which have been taken up by many other researchers - suggest that our behaviour in any particular situation facing us is determined by a complex interplay of the three ego states: "The Parent" (taught view of life), "The Adult" (reasoned view of life) and "The Child" (felt view of life) and a probability calculation of the likely outcomes of one's behaviour basing on past experience. The suggestion that behaviour determines business is even more questionable, as are the majority of Mr Pattanaik's statements in this book.

A large number of unconnected anecdotes about different business situations are scattered all over the book - some of these are unexpectedly wise and reasonable in a book full of much unreason.

Through limitless use of mythology and by giving a free run to imagination piled upon imagination - without any attempt to question or validate - Mr Pattanaik encourages an irrational approach in which the welfare of ourselves and of those around us in this real world becomes irrelevant. This kind of lack of reasoning and abdication of responsibility in India in past centuries and millennia has led to the existence of many tyrannies, including that of the caste system in India. Valiant and untiring efforts of reformers such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy and innumerable others for over two centuries have managed only to minimise, not eliminate, the scourge of this unreason and its consequences from life in India. Does Mr Pattanaik, enchanted by the beauty of mythology, really want his readers to go back to the world of unreason that prevailed in India in those days? In such a world, nothing matters - because everything is illusory (maya) - and the passive acceptance of wrongs is entirely acceptable because these may be righted in a later birth. Can there be a better recipe for total lethargy and aimlessness in our lives? Will being hooked to Mr Pattanaik's nectar not lead to the end of all purposeful effort and enterprise - which are among the greatest joys of human life?

In the subtitle, A Very Indian Approach to Management, and throughout the book, there is an implicit claim that all Indians are firm believers in mythology and that those in the so-called West are rational and scientific-minded. This may have been somewhat true in the darkest days of Indian civilisation, but is mercifully no longer so. Many Indians today are as strong in reasoning, scientific concepts and logic as the best from the rest of the world. These young and young-at-heart Indians of today consider the best ideas, discoveries and inventions of all mankind as their own heritage and will not accept Mr Pattanaik's proposition that reasoning is a monopoly of the West. They are committed to making India, in the immortal words of Rabindranath Tagore, a place "Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit" - in contrast to the core thrust of Business Sutra.

BUSINESS SUTRA: A VERY INDIAN APPROACH TO MANAGEMENT
Devdutt Pattanaik
Aleph Book Company
437 pages; Rs 695