How wonderful SHE can be

At a recent Litfest, I felt the audience was quite suspicious of business and management people. There were enough sceptics who doubted their ethics and goodness. One retired defence officer asked me whether the time had come for the CSR (corporate social responsibility) contribution of companies to be increased above 2 per cent. I wondered how I could speak about the “economic and moral imperative” for India to build more and more sustainable, humane, enlightened companies (SHE). We live in times of turmoil, suspicion, and a degree of disdain for those who are not people like us. In fact, it is a global phenomenon, not an Indian one. There are four reasons.

First, society is swimming in a cesspool of negativity. Lay folks, unconnected with corporate matters, watch films (on OTT channels) like Painkiller (the opioid scam in America), Skandal (the Wirecard scam in Germany), and Scam 2002 (the Abdul Karim Telgi scam in India). This article is not about scams or films. The examples merely illustrate my point about negativity. Secondly, our governance ecosystem displays a greater penchant to devise more laws, but not of implementation with credibility. This is despite the incessant and unwarranted bleating by officials about improving the ease of doing business. Nani Palkhivala had observed that violations by a minority of businessmen imposed a great burden on the majority. Thirdly, big fish seem to magically escape the regulatory net, as illustrated by our inability to resolve long-standing accusations of market rigging, round-tripping, and violations of customs laws by a humongous-sized fish. Regulation and speedy justice are not our forte in India, be it in drugs, the environment, or securities markets. Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland’s observation seems apt for India: “It is possible to commit the worst crimes and never pay.” Fourthly, the public has had to resign itself to the nexus between politics and business with hefty penalties devolving upon consumers and civil society.

To live with sanity, the citizen adopts a three-point formula: (a) recall the positive stories from the large majority, (b) learn to live with unanswered and vexatious questions, and (c) view issues more holistically than one would naturally. Here is an example.

Azim Premji transformed himself from being a businessman into a philanthropist. I have observed him over 50 years since he ran a vanaspati company, Western India Vegetable Products Ltd. (Disclosure: His firm was my employer’s competitor — Sunflower versus Dalda vanaspati.) I have admiringly watched Azim build the Wipro group into a high-performing one (granted, not the highest-performing) into a formidable and ethical business group. Azim has placed Rs 1 crore into the Azim Premji Foundation for every mile that separates the moon from the earth, viz approximately Rs 2.5 trillion ($30 billion). This philanthropic endowment is guided by four imperatives: First, to do work on the ground on education and other matters of human development and justice, with a team of 1,500 people who work in 250 locations, spread across seven states and one Union Territory. In addition, the foundation has 600 partner not-for-profit organisations that receive grants to advance the work of the foundation across the whole country. The manpower is comparable to several fast-moving consumer goods companies; second, to set up and run a network of universities to improve the capacity in existing institutions for social work and enrichment. There are two fully functioning universities, in Bangalore and Bhopal, and two in different stages of implementation, in Ranchi and the Northeast. The universities teach and do research to enhance the skills in the social sector in areas such as employment, climate change, and better panchayats; third, to leverage the deep and extensive presence on the ground to expand into vital areas such as health, nutrition, and rural livelihoods. The Azim Premji Foundation runs a master’s programme on public health at its Bhopal University; fourth, to make available an emergency response to national issues as Covid-19. The foundation supported the vaccination programme across 3,800 public health centres, serving about 110 million people in some of the most disadvantaged geographies.

Due to paucity of space, I have highlighted only salient points. Even to do this, I had to seek data from the foundation and secure its consent to write about the work of a philanthropist who would rather avoid publicity.

I think Azim is India’s Charles Feeney. Has the reader heard of Charles Feeney, who died just this month at 92? The New York Times headlined the news: “The Man Who Made a Fortune and Then Gave It Away — and Lived a Modest Life.” Azim has always owned Tata and Mahindra cars; he briefly owned a second-hand Mercedes for a few weeks, and then resold it out of embarrassment; he insists on his company officers spending money frugally. The consequently increased company profits enhance the foundation’s philanthropic resources, not his wealth. Some people think he is a miser. It seems more appropriate to think that he is frugal, but for a selfless reason.

And finally, to buttress that the SHE concept is relevant, please note the foundation’s vision is much like SHE: To contribute towards a more just, humane, and sustainable society.

The writer is an author and a business commentator. www.themindworks.me; rgopal@themindworks.me