Brand-Building & Infrastructure Redux

Brand-Building and Infrastructure Redux

Tata Hall will be the name of a new academic and residential building to come up at Harvard Business School, following on from a $50 million bequest from the Tata Group.

This is the largest ever contribution received by the Harvard Business School from an international donor. The School currently also happens to boast of a Dean Nitin Nohria who is of Indian origin.

This endowment from the Tata Group follows on from $10 million gifted by the Mahindra Group earlier. And coming during one of the worst financial crises the US has faced, these payments are bound to earn both business groups and their country of origin, a great deal of goodwill. Remarkably, both Tata and Mahindra come from the private sector in an emerging economy grappling with its binary demands of poverty and progress.

It is fortuitous indeed therefore, that such a slot was still left open; what with the Saudis, Kuwaitis and other  very well-heeled Arabs looking for diplomatically leverageable investments and causes to endow in America. And that is just as well for us Indians and the two chairmen of Tata and Mahindra who happen to have studied there in times past.

These grants underline that neither business groups are, any longer, merely Indian, with more and more of a global footprint as the time goes on. The Tata Group already generates more than 60% of its business outside India. And a good deal of it is from the high-end of the market, in fields as diverse as hotels, steel, automobiles and tea.

With this foray into the Harvard Business School establishment, it will now be far more difficult for the likes of the luxury Orient Express Hotels brand, to show reluctance regarding “fit”, the next time Tata seeks to buy more substantially into its properties. Of course, that infamous episode was before Tata acquired Corus and Jaguar/Landrover, but was nevertheless sometime after it bought Tetley. And Mahindra may not remain the lesser known new owner of Satyam for long.

Sadly, old post-colonial attitudes to India may have been revised somewhat in Britain, but America, in its pre-eminence, is definitely the more lucrative nut to crack. Doing so via the Ivy League is therefore a very good idea.

Visionary actions like this, by the Tata Chairman, just months before he is due to retire from the day-to-day helmsmanship, albeit to a powerful stewardship of the Tata Trusts, are therefore to be lauded, both for their correctness and boldness. Since the Tata Trusts own over 60% of the businesses overall, hopefully Ratan Tata’s voice will continue to be heard well beyond 2012. Meanwhile, this is a classic example of brand building that will prove, for generations to come, extremely cheap at the price.

But brand-building alone would not be cutting the mustard. The Tatas back their well -targeted philanthropy with massive skill and know-how, represented by the oft repeated “Salt to Software” array of products and services. They are not only at the forefront of our nation building efforts but are proud innovators, epitomised by the Nano motor-car being freely sold at under $3,000 a unit.

Another major Tata Sons shareholder, the Shapoorji Pallonji Group, coincidentally, built the new and improved Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi complete with the biggest membrane roof in the world. It was the glittering, state-of-the art venue of both the opening and closing ceremonies at the recently concluded 19th Commonwealth Games.  Other SP Group companies, such as AFCON, have been building a lot of Delhi’s new infrastructure as well.

But quite apart from matters pertaining to the CWG, it is poor infrastructure that defines our backward image and acts as a retardant to the desired double-digit growth. And our neglect of it over the years, in areas such as electricity, water, transport, roads, ports, and so on, has put us at a nagging competitive disadvantage.

Besides, if the CWG managed to redeem itself from the shameful morass it was bogged down in just days before the event began; the credit must go in equal measure to the athletes who bagged 101 medals in a wide range of sporting events, and the quality of the world-class infrastructure built by India for the occasion.

“Bread and Circuses” was the cynical Roman Empire formula for entertaining the Hoi Polloi designed to render them amenable. A present day equivalent is probably the development of infrastructure, as in all that went into the CWG.

The broader point is that infrastructure, created and revived, even at very high cost, is without doubt the very elixir of growth and aspiration. It also spurs performance in practically any given field of endeavour. It is the very aphrodisiac to progress. But it is not only the infrastructure, but also undeniably better training for our sportsmen and women that has resulted in overall success at this CWG. But this training too is a form of infrastructure, without which the physical facilities would have stayed under utilised.

The Indian performance, particularly in sports where we were unable to win medals in past competitions, makes one realise what is possible with the right inputs. And that as a country, our surprisingly merit-based selection of heroes and heroines from small towns and villages, by such an allegedly corrupt and venal sports administration, is also most heartening. It showed us that poor and middle class India is vitally alive and well. And that it is demonstrably patriotic and sincere. And that it is the unsullied spirit of such men and women that promises good things for our collective future- despite the sickening corruption, cynicism and jadedness displayed by some of our richer and more powerful compatriots.

As for the other physical infrastructure enhancements, Delhi/NCR will be savouring its benefits, that of the metro, the spanking new airport, the spruced up main railway station, the flyovers, over-bridges, underpasses, new hotels, a revived Connaught Place largely rescued from its tawdry and abused degradation, and sundry other improvements, for many years to come.

And we must recognise that infrastructure is our ticket to improved standards, competitiveness and further growth still, in matters well beyond sports. It is both ladder and virtuous circle. It is our release from the taint of backwardness and the only thing holding us back from the beckoning of a glorious and prolific destiny.

(1,049 words)

Mahaashtami, October 15^th, 2010

Gautam Mukherjee


Published as Leader Edit in The Pioneer on November 3rd, 2010 as "Home and abroad". Also published online at www.dailypioneer.com and The Pioneer ePaper. Archived under Columnists at www.dailypioneer.com

Flowing Water & The Very Indian Concept Of Upaya

The River- Roy Lichtenstein

Flowing Water & The Very Indian Concept of Upaya

If you sit by the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy floating by… Japanese Proverb

Image management professionals rely on, and media men know, the axiomatic truth that every headline, however elating or distressing, is the successor to yet another headline. There is a riverine quality about the flow of news, and patience, for that matter, that allows the aggrieved, anguished or outraged to hope for justice. Also, “with a little bit of luck”, as in Eliza Doolittle’s father’s roguish expectation in My Fair Lady; today’s imperative can well become tomorrow’s irrelevancy.

So, hang in there, you who may be squirming uncomfortably in the eye of the storm. Minimise the damage as best as you can, and be sure you will slip off that front page and TV screen, into that dark and comforting oblivion you long for, probably much sooner than you think. All things do pass, including glory and ignominy, to be replaced by further glory and ignominy, but not necessarily your own. This may be banal as an observation, but that doesn’t seem to affect its home-truth quotient.

Besides, there is that other matter of coincidental juxtaposition- of inevitable good news and bad following on, that also manages to cast its own moderating/eclipsing influence.

Thus, for example, you have the monumental corruption, incompetence and unhygienic squalor on display in the run up to the CWG, memorably bracketed within a OC meditation in excellent East is East fashion, under the full gaze of international TV, on “our standards and their standards,” with more than a grain or two of truth in it. But, after making suitable amends with a war-footing clean-up: of dirt, snakes, dogs and pestilential mosquitoes: and the posting of Langurs to deter Rhesus monkeys from venues; we find such typically colourful and exotic issues segueing seamlessly into the glamour and hoopla of the all-is-forgiven high-tech Opening Ceremony.

And juxtaposed with the natural pride we all feel in witnessing this razmatazzy extravaganza, complete with prince, president, players and pageant; and on to the actual competition and the glint of medals, is the other insistent news of the Sensex striking out towards all-time highs, even as the GDP growth rate competes ironically with the food inflation figures.

And then, if that wasn’t enough to grant the government: its politicians, functionaries and bureaucracy a reprieve from their  bad publicity; you have a most sagacious  three-judge bench verdict from the High Court of Uttar Pradesh on the highly symbolic Ayodhya imbroglio. A verdict, long decades in its coming; one representative of no less than the vitality and resilience of our social fabric as a country. And this verdict has been received, not with discontent and public protest, but in a spirit of statesmanship and communal harmony nationwide. There is profundity and pride in this outcome, given the fractious history of this matter, not easily matchable, now or in the future, by any other nation on earth, no matter how apparently integrated and homogenous.  

Surely then, any future nasty shocks notwithstanding, two rights or is it two and a half depending on one’s perspective, of  varying import and relative stature, eclipse the remaining half. A half that is undeniably rotten, as it may continue to seem to those, both here and abroad, who prefer to make freer with criticism than praise. But of course this assessment too depends on the scales one uses to measure the abstractions underlying such weighty news flow.

And willy-nilly, the people of India are thrust into a new position of maturity. We make a mess of the Commonwealth Games preparations and yet redeem our pride, yes, Monsoon Wedding fashion, as hazarded by our Sports Minister MS Gill.

Our standards, of much more than hygiene and maintenance, on the other hand, are, without a doubt, quite deplorable. And it may be years, mysterious as the causes may seem, before we are able to get a fix on this sub-standard mind-set. Meanwhile, we will have to endure international slurs and ridicule, and pay for our sloppiness and unreliability in lost business, cost overruns, missed deadlines, faulty execution, diminished diplomatic stature and credibility.

So, easy as it may be to blame OC Secretary General Lalit Bhanot for his embarrassing remarks on relativity and filth; he has not, some of us may recognise, said anything untrue. Our cavalier attitude to cleanliness can be demonstrated on any city street or village across our beloved country. We may know what clean is but that does not inspire us to make and keep clean, particularly in any civic sense.

Meanwhile, the FII’s have pumped in close to $ 6 billion in the month of September alone, with a strong likelihood of much more to come, in a belated acknowledgement, that India is one of the few places they stand to make money in the next couple of years. This even as our absolute numbers of people below the poverty line keeps growing in relentless fashion.

And if we do finally resolve the Ayodhya issue with the building of a longed for grand temple to Lord Rama at his exact birth-place, as well as that of a great mosque on the banks of the Saryu river; we would, as a nation, have definitely achieved a  proud milestone in the history of independent India.

If the import of the somewhat inscrutable Japanese proverb to do with revenge and rivers and floating corpses was meant to be about our communally conflicted recent past, it will have turned instead to a last laugh on our ill-wishers and detractors with less than absolute faith in our native cohesiveness and good sense.  

Besides, we have other ways and means. There is a very old, very wise, Indian concept of “upaya”, celebrated, amongst other places, in the brilliant and visionary treatise Lal Kitab which has Persian origins and was originally written in Urdu. Without going into the esoterics of its efficacy, it is clear that the central suggestion is that of remedy and relief affordable to apparently intractable issues of karma and destiny. In short, there is no problem that cannot be alleviated or even solved with some flowing water, the gathering of certain offerings to be made, and the performance of some prescribed rituals over the whole enterprise. It is, in the end, a most reassuring world-view.

(1,055 words)

October 3^rd, 2010

Gautam Mukherjee


Published as Leader on Edit Page of print edition of The Pioneer as "We are like this only" on Wednesday 6th October, 2010. Also online at www.dailypioneer.com and is mirrored in the pioneer epaper.