Business Sutra: A Very Indian Approach to Management (7 page)

Tangibility plays a key role in Chinese thought. Central to it is the idea of China, the geographical entity. It is the Middle Kingdom, the navel of civilization, connecting heaven and earth, bringing the order of the celestials to humanity. "The general trend under the celestial sphere," the Chinese say, "is that there is bound to be unification after prolonged division and division after prolonged unification." Tales about the struggle of kings and warlords to unify China form the main theme of epics and ballads. Over two thousand years ago, the first emperor to unite the land burned books and killed scholars for the sake of stability; this has happened repeatedly in history ever since.

Nothing discomforts the Chinese more than chaos, confusion, and disorderliness, what is generally termed 'luan'. To maintain a calm exterior even in the face of the most severe crisis is indicative of moral courage and inner strength. Any breakdown, social or emotional, is indicative of luan; to break down is to lose face. To lose face is to dishonour the ancestors, most revered in a Chinese household. Disharmony is disease in the Taoist scheme of things. Even when there is health and order, Confucius advises people to think about and feel for forces that could threaten the state of comfort in the future.

Order for the Chinese waxes towards the centre of power where the emperor resides. In the social hierarchy, the 'white' aristocrat was envied as he lived in orderly cities, closer to the king, away from the blazing sun of the countryside, which is home to the 'black' (tanned) peasant. In the periphery, there is chaos, hence the need to build the Great Wall and consolidate military forces to keep the barbarians in check by force and domination.

Order in China has always been enforced with ruthlessness, albeit with grace and subtlety, focusing on 'pressure points' for maximum result. The following tale from Sun Tzu's seminal military treatise
The Art of War,
popular in management circles today, reveals this. Sun Tzu believed in winning wars without fighting, and this demanded not overt acts of heroism but outwitting the opponent with patience, sensitivity and discipline. He claimed he could turn anyone into a soldier. To humour him, the king took him to his harem and asked him to make soldiers of his concubines. Sun Tzu took up the challenge and asked the women to stand in a straight line. The concubines giggled in response and did nothing. Sun Tzu repeated his order, this time with a warning that those who failed to do so would be executed. The women giggled again. The third time, he made the command and the women giggled, Sun Tzu ordered the execution of the king's favourite concubine. Everyone was horrified by this. But what followed was far more remarkable: when the order was repeated again, the women did as told. The king was grudgingly impressed and he appointed Sun Tzu as his general.

When asked his views about the world, Saud who had worked in various branches of a multinational company made the following comment, "In China, roads are built before cities. In India, cities are built before roads. In China, people submit to the wisdom of the state. In India, people do not believe the state has their interests at heart. I find China more organized but am unnerved by its ambitions and lack of transparency. I find Indians exasperating as they have an opinion for everything but decide on nothing. In China, the state controls everything, while in India there is much more freedom of expression."

Indian Beliefs

Over two thousand years ago, Alexander, the young Macedonian, after having conquered the Persian Empire, reached the banks of the river Indus. There he found a person whom he later identified as a gymnosophist: a naked thinker, sitting on a rock staring into space. Alexander asked him what he was doing. The gymnosophist replied, "Experiencing nothingness. What about you?" Alexander said he was conquering the world. Both laughed. Each one thought the other was a fool.

But while the gymnosophist would have allowed Alexander to stay the fool and discover wisdom eventually, at his own pace, on his own terms, Alexander would have wanted the gymnosophist to change, not waste his life without a goal, for the gymnosophist believed that we live infinite lives while Alexander believed we live only one.

Belief in rebirth is what defines the Indian way, and distinguishes it from both the Western and the Chinese way. Faith in rebirth has huge implications.

• Rebirth means the denominator of your life is not one but infinity. When you live only once the value of life is the sum total of achievements, but when you live infinite lives, no matter what we achieve, its value is zero. The point then is not to control life but to understand it, not achieve but introspect.
  
• Rebirth means that birth is not the beginning and death is not the end. The events of past lives impact the present while the events of the present life will impact the future. A child is born with karmic baggage, and not in innocence with a clean slate. Every experience, good or bad, is a reaction to past conduct either of this or a previous life. It means we alone are responsible for all that has happened to us, is happening to us and will happen to us; blaming others is not an option, nor is complacency.
  
• Rebirth demands we accept the existence of infinitely diverse, even paradoxical, contexts existing simultaneously as well as sequentially. Everyone sees the world differently. Everyone's perspectives are bound to change over time. It means allowing for intellectual, emotional and material variety, for depending on karmic baggage, different people will have different fortunes, opportunities, capacities and capabilities.
  

Belief in multiple lives establishes a worldview that is comfortable with the absence of binary logic, where there are no fixed goals, continuously changing plans, dependence on relationships, celebration of trust and loyalty, uneasiness with rules, actions dependent on crisis, preference for short-term results over long-term vision, and a reliance on resourcefulness that gives rise to contextual, non-replicable improvizations: the jugaad. This is the Indian way.

A European food company that had made high-end cuisine accessible to the common man entered India, determined to provide the same service and product to customers in a new market. But then they realized most Indians do not eat beef and pork. And what was a common man's budget in Europe was a rich man's budget in India, especially since the restaurants could be housed only in the more affluent quarters of major Indian cities. What was food for the commoner in Europe became food for the elite in India.

Western ideas, be they Greek or biblical, had their origin in cities such as Athens, Babylon, Jerusalem and later, Paris, Berlin and London. Chinese ideas reveal a preference for cities such as the Forbidden City of the Dragon Emperor that offers the promise of greater order. Indian thought springs from villages on the fertile riverbanks of the Indian subcontinent where change takes time, like lentils boiling over a slow fire fuelled by cowdung cakes.

India is relatively isolated from the rest of the world thanks to the mountains in the north and the sea in the south. These barriers have been penetrated primarily by trade routes and occasionally by invaders. More people came in than went out. The spices and textiles of India were sought all over the world; what Indians sought was only gold, earning the reputation of being the gold-eating gold sparrow, or sone ki chidiya.

With prosperity came the cities of the Indus valley, of the Mauryas, Guptas, Bahmanis and the Mughals. But these rose and fell, either due to climatic changes (Indus valley cities) or following invasions by the Greeks, Huns and Mongols. The villages offered refuge to escaping philosophers and artists. There, the wisdom of India was nurtured, assimilating ideas and technologies that kept coming in from time to time, ideas such as centralization, imperialism, writing, coinage, stone sculptures, monotheism, prophecy and science. These mingled and merged with prevailing ideas. The accommodating rebirth framework ensured everything was included, nothing excluded. What was not good in this life, or in this context, was allowed to exist as it could be good for another life, or another context.

Indian thought yearns not for an efficient way like Western thought, or a more orderly way like Chinese thought, but an accommodative and inclusive way. This is best explained as follows:

• The biblical way celebrates rule-following leaders. The Greek way celebrates rule-breaking heroes. India celebrates both: the rule-following Ram and the rule-breaking Krishna of Hinduism; the rule-following chakravarti and the rule-breaking Vasudev of Jainism.
  
• The Confucian way celebrates social responsibility while the Taoist way prefers individualistic harmony. India celebrates both: the royal Vishnu and the ascetic Shiva of Hinduism; the compassionate Bodhisattva and the introspective Buddha of Buddhism.
  
• In Western thought, nature is danger: Greek tales speak of wild nymphs and satyrs who create pandemonium and need to be tamed, while biblical tales repeatedly refer to women and serpents who embody sexuality and temptation and need to be overpowered. In Chinese thought, nature is power, the regenerating phoenix or yin that needs to be channelized by, or harmonized with, the Emperor, who is the dragon or yang. In India, nature is both: danger and power. Embodied as the Goddess, she is wild as Kali and demure as Gauri. For Ram, she is Sita. For Krishna, she is Radha. For Vishnu she is Lakshmi, for Shiva she is Shakti. This idea of the Goddess in Hinduism is very different from the Goddess of modern Western literature that reimagines divinity along feminist lines.