We citizens have to wake up

We have to reduce our dependence on external agencies and every Indian must do what he and she can, emphasised renowned philanthropist, investment banker, equity market guru and thought leader Vallabh Bhansali

EDITED EXCERPTS FROM THE TALK BY THOUGHT LEADER VALLABH BHANSALI.

WHEN VIJAYJI ASKED ME WHAT THE TOPIC WOULD BE AND I SAID ‘REBUILDING INDIA’ AND IT WASN’T REJECTED, SO I THOUGHT IT
WAS ACCEPTED.

Rebuilding refers to a point in the past; that past can be varied in its reference to our social, cultural and spiritual heritage. Twenty years ago, the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) reported a millennial study of the GDP of various countries. As is fairly well-known now, India and China were the leading economies of the world with 25-30 per cent of the world’s GDP. This was not for 10-20 years or 100- 200 years like US domination seems to be, but for 1700-1800 years and maybe longer in to the past but for which they don’t have authentic data and I don’t want to speculate.

If I were to rebuild India merely in such financial terms, what would that mean? The world GDP, by IMF estimates, is
US $90 trillion; this is computed and published data. If we were to take 25 per cent of US $90 trillion, we should
have been a US $22.5 trillion economy; but, with Rupee depreciation, we are a US $2 trillion economy. This is the
gap I am talking about. If that kind of perspective gives you some kind of pain or a dream or a plan, then, great,
rebuilding is possible.

Let’s speculate together — who will rebuild India? We are so used to leaving it to the government. After we became truly independent in 1991, under Narasimha Rao, there was one businessman who showed us what could be done with economic freedom. It was Narayana Murthy who defined that a fantastic institution can be created with freedom. So, it is all about freedom.

However, our dependence on the government is huge. Whenever something has to be done, we look at it and say, ‘the government does not do anything’. Have you paused to think what does it really mean when you say that? I’ll break it up for you. Government means the political class, bureaucracy, judiciary and, not always obvious, the fourth estate — the press.

Let’s dive a little deeper. The average politician’s life is not easy — after he has established himself, what is his life? Those who have spent a day or two with a politician will understand what I am saying. The man — or woman — is obsessed with two things: elections and Opposition. Is he obsessed with your or my problems? Then, there are other questions: about his corruption and competence. In a system where you win an election because you defeated the
opponent past the post, where is the question of competence?

As citizens, who are we waiting for? Let’s move to the next level. Spend two days with a senior bureaucrat or government servant. A large part of his mind — 50 per cent — is occupied with his unhappiness over his job. If he is happy, he is trying to keep the job, extend his tenure and believe me, it’s a major problem. If you have been in a Minister’s office for an hour, you will hear him getting at least five transfer requests — transfers to be made or to be stopped. This is the mindset of the bureaucrat, and then there are questions about his political alignment, corruption and competence.

Third — the judiciary — the best of all but in the last five to seven years, it has showed either under-reach or overreach. Under-reach means, thousands of cases are pending. Or massive overreach — there was the mining ban a few years ago and it was catastrophic. It took years for us to recover from that.

More recently, we had Aadhar — one of the proudest moments of the country but we could find no way of salvaging what had been done over the years. The US praised us, jealous that we had created an authentic identification model in a few, short years, probably at one-tenth the cost of what any other country had spent.

The press — the less said about them the better. What started as a noble profession has become a business. Let’s move faster, to big business houses. A lot of you must own one or be part of one — what have we done? Corporate governance is a mess. Tatas lead the way as examples of good governance but, on the other hand, you have ICICI and IL&FS… these raise questions of dependence. Are we dependable as a people? We complain against the government and the bureaucracy but are we dependable people? It’s all about business and business happens when there is dependability and trust. So if you want to build a big business, that requires big dependability.

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Look at the other agency involved in rebuilding India — NGOs. How many of you know that India has the largest number of NGOs in the world? Unfortunately, those who are in the NGO activity will be quick to point out that 70 to 80 per cent of them are fraudulent. That’s us.

Forget them. From the balance that are left — some are fantastic. The greatest of all are the Tata Trust where it’s difficult to distinguish whether Tata is a business house or an NGO — 66 per cent of all their profits go to the Tata Trust.

But I have an aspect to bring your attention to. When our problems are enormous and there are only a few agencies doing dependable and good work, would you have them rather consolidate or fragment?

I will give you an example of what can happen when they all unite. Have you heard the Polio Vaccination story? I am
sure you must have had someone come and speak to you about it in this Club. It is one of the greatest stories of India and how did that happen? By people coming together. The Birlas and some other industrial houses came forward, there was a donor in Cyrus Poonawalla, the Government came in and the local NGOs joined hands. From being way behind
the goals set by us in the United Nations Millennial Goals, we reached a point where we did it.

However, there is huge fragmentation in the efforts being put in. And, of course, we, poor citizens, patriotic, passionate and deeply involved with our country, we are the last agency.

Do you think we have a role to play in rebuilding our country? If we are not going to think about it, I give it to you in writing, nothing is going to happen. Why has this happened? Democracy has become an illusion that keeps us
where we are. Democracy that is of the people, by the people, for the people, is just a glamorous definition. It had great appeal as we fought the monarchies and imperialism, communism. Is it of the people, for the people, by the people?

If you look at countries that got independence around the same time as us — where they are and where we are — we all know that.

It’s a big topic so let me come to some actions that I think can take us there.

Pride: Unless you have pride for your country like the Chinese have, nothing is going to happen. And what should
we be proud about? I mean, am I a bigot, a xenophobe? No. We were the most amazing country in the world. From
scholars to musicians to artists to language experts — they all wanted to come to India. So we were an inclusive society.

One of our friends asked me to define India in some manner. I said, ‘If you look at the world — anybody who has
got any power has been hegemonic, whether it is technological power, be it industrial, some religious belief, they
wanted to impose it on somebody else. They wanted to take away from somebody else. India never did that — that’s what our pride should be. And, from a business point of view, this is why we thrived, why we were such a rich
country. In an open society, so much more can happen.

I’m making a movie. In it, we show an episode where a Jewish girl comes to investigate India because she finds
that no country in the world gave them shelter 2,000 years ago and India did. India welcomed them and they continued to live peacefully. So what is the role of this peace, intelligent citizens, in creating this massive prosperity, that is something that we need to talk about — and what about metaphysics and spirituality? This country, while it was prosperous, we had something else which is unique in the history of the world: we had tapasya, we had people here doing tapasya like Bhagirath for thousands of years.

2. Governance. Can we only depend upon independent directors and auditors to do something? Today, the role of corporate sector is very large and I think it will become larger — we need to do something about it. I’m hoping to start an institution which we will hope to call Institute of Custodians where you are not an independent director but it’s a custody of public faith and intelligence.

3. So, what do we do as citizens? Come together and hang in together because there will be failures. All these
politicians and people we talk about, it wasn’t a cakewalk for them — they failed many times before they came to be.
But unless we come together, nothing will happen. We have to create a culture of non-confrontation active change.
Reduce dependency, which is our biggest problem. When we start doing something, the asymmetry between us and the powers that be starts changing. Mostly, we demonstrate a solution so no one can tell us, anymore, ‘This cannot be done’. We say, ‘No, this can be done.’

LASTLY, LET’S TAKE A PLEDGE THAT EVERY ONE OF US WILL DO SOMETHING AT LEAST. AND NOT STOP THERE, GET BETTER, ENCOURAGE OTHERS.