In defence of Murthy & Subrahmanyan: Valuing entrepreneurs and job creators

It's easy to beat up on the corporations. But a society that does not give its entrepreneurs, wealth & jobs creators love and respect, is doomed to be frozen in a low-middle-income status

How many hours in a week a person should work has been the subject of much outrage lately. The choice of outrage over debate is very deliberate. So overwhelming has been the anger over the call for action — first by Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy (work 70 hours a week) and then by Larsen & Toubro (L&T) Chairman and Managing Director S N Subrahmanyan (90 hours a week) — that a debate has been impossible. Trust the reckless me to join the argument now, of course, on the “wrong” side.

 

A truly brave man like Infosys veteran Mohandas Pai did come out to fight on behalf of this microscopic, intrepid minority.  Serial entrepreneur and new-age investor Sanjeev Bikhchandani also wrote a long post on X, admiringly about Subrahmanyan, but also gently argued that a 90-hour work week wasn’t sustainable through an entire career. Mostly, however, the response was like Greta Thunberg on four double espressos: How dare you!

 

So overwhelming was this anger, the avalanche of social media memes, and so triggered, especially the new-gen opinion, that even one as thick-skinned as me was scared into choosing discretion over valour. After much rethinking now, I’d dump intellectual cowardice.

 

Both Mr Murthy and Mr S Subrahmanyan are entitled to exhort people to work longer hours to earn more for themselves, their companies and the country. Of course, they can’t force anybody. If you work in their companies and do not like what they are saying, you can explore LinkedIn.

 

Not all employees are equally brilliant or productive. Productivity will show in your annual appraisals, bonus, employee stock allocations. I understand that competition in a workplace isn’t sometimes seen as politically correct, but mercifully this is how it works in real life. It’s called merit.

 

And it will be easier if your mom and dad have built and set aside enough for you already. Just remember that the assets they built for you did not come by shooting the breeze at their workplace. They worked long, long hours to give you the privilege of this cool outrage.

 

Infosys and L&T are true Indian behemoths. Both are engineering businesses, one built on software and the other on hard, physical engineering. They are worth Rs 8 trillion and Rs 5 trillion, directly employing 317,000 and 4,07,000 people, respectively. Both are competing with the best in the world. Infosys is central to India’s digitisation. L&T is an old-school, male-driven heavy engineering company. It has also built your Navy four nuclear-armed submarines (SSBNs), heavy artillery, a tank, is digging a bunch of strategic tunnels, and a lot of the physical infrastructure dotting your skylines.

 

Leaders who built and manage these incredible global companies cannot be tyrants, slave-drivers, or idiots. Essentially what they are saying falls under the definition of rallying the troops, inspirational talk, like the usual coach-speak with the team before a match: Zor laga do, apni jaan laga do bachcho… aaj aar ya paar. This isn’t a call for kamikaze, to put your life on the line to win a game. There is a popular Punjabi word for this, hallasheri. Loosely translated, it means, rouse your tigers.

 

Nobody can be forced to work long hours. Yet, if you take a close look around, you’d find a lot of people doing it. Many, happily so. In the private sector, they will be rewarded better and those they leave behind can ridicule them as workaholics, or disrespectful of work-life balance. But like you, they make their choices. And work-life balance doesn’t have any constitutionally mandated definition.

 

In the government, you might get an even ruder shock to see the hours so many, especially at officer levels, work. Most IAS/IPS/IRS or other all-India services officers would definitely work 70-plus hours in a week. At more junior levels, your police SHO will be at work all seven days of the week.

 

In earlier stages of their careers, as district magistrates, SPs, trial court judges, tax assessment officers, government hospital doctors, they will actually average around that dreaded 90 hours in a week. You can find them at work on the weekends, and they will be roused often enough at night if something awful happens—which can range from a murder or a riot to an unexpected VVIP visit. Even in New Delhi and in the state capitals, senior civil servants and cops work longer days and weeks than most of us.

 

The most expensive doctors in our seven-star hospitals will keep Subrahmanyan-like timings. In the public hospital emergency wards, you find young doctors working consecutive shifts, often stealing just a couple of hours of sleep in a room on the side. Lots and lots of people do work frightfully hard and the reason I bring this example last is simple: I was worried some of you might hit me with, “so you also throw in the ‘but there are troops on the borders’ line.” The fact, however, is that there are troops and officers on the border and in operational areas who see no leisure, just constant duty and risk, waiting for just that two-month annual leave. That is, unless one of our neighbours decides to have it cancelled. Tens of millions of Indians work really long, and in most cases, deeply fulfilling hours.

 

In any case, this Murthy-Subrahmanyan kind of talk is not meant for their blue-collar workers. They have their shifts and fixed hours. It’s for the managers, engineers, the well-rewarded white-collar elite. But, even the poor, blue-collar Indians, by and large, are hardworking, love their families, and will sacrifice much for them. Check out the security guards in your workplaces and gated colonies/buildings. All work at least one and half shifts, if not two, invariably six days a week (that makes it 78 hours) and often all seven, which makes it 91. Is it a good thing? Who are you and I to decide? Out of misplaced goodness, if you asked one to work only one shift and five days a week for work-life balance, they will tell you, “Then sir/madam, what will I save and send home?” Talk to your Uber driver or Zomato delivery person next.

 

It is easy to beat up on the companies. But a society that does not give its entrepreneurs, wealth and job creators love and respect, is doomed to be frozen in a low-middle-income hole. That’s where India is now located, with a $2,800 per capita. If it has to reach 10,000 and, therefore, the middle-income status in the next 15-20 years (it will still be two-thirds of where China is today), a lot of Indians will need to work very long and productive hours. Like the Japanese and the Germans did post-World War-II, Koreans all along, the Chinese and the Vietnamese now. Of course, in the process, they will build wealth and a better life for themselves and their families. For every individual angered by the call to these long hours, you will find millions desperate for jobs, especially of this quality.

 

And finally, once mass anger—in this case mass elite anger—takes over an argument, facts are forgotten, twisted, half-deleted. This is a case of all of the three. Much of all anger, ridicule and memes are triggered by what’s attributed to Subrahmanyan: “For how long can you stare at your wife.” It does sound so awfully misogynist. Then check what he said in full: “For how long can you stare at your wife, or a wife stare at her husband.” Inappropriate still, maybe, especially because no Donald Trump has yet banished political correctness here, but misogynist? No. However, this is in the folklore now, and folklore is the history in the post-truth world.

Disclaimer: N R Narayana Murthy is an investor in ThePrint. By Special Arrangement with ThePrint