Orbit Change Conversations

No culture is perfect. There is good and bad side of any culture. This is as true for country culture as for company culture. I am reminded of how Honda lost its way in early 90s because its culture of engineering excellence became self-indulgent. Luckily Nobuhiko Kawamoto, the successor to the legendary founder Soichiro Honda, turned it around before much damage was done.

Indian culture also has its good and bad parts. The good parts are the intellectual pluralism underlying its religious diversity. This in turns comes from a strong tradition of skepticism in Indian society, something that Amartya Sen calls “argumentative” tradition. I believe that this underpins a particular type of innovation in India – the jugaad form of innovation.

There are, of course, bad parts too. How does this sound as a summary…

The shrugged shoulder is real, a daily reminder that part of India’s charm rests on the fact that it does not much care for rules. Indians can be downright poetic about it, this inclination to dodge taxes, to cut lines, to erect entire neighborhoods without permits, or simply to run red lights, while smoking or talking on the phone, or both.

No sterile, one-size-fits-all rule book applies here. Indians prefer a more individual justice for their reality and the long history that shaped it.

Paolo Catalfamo, now managing director of the American Chamber of Commerce in India, recalled the six years he spent managing an American investment fund here. “The issue I spent most of my time on was trying to explain to my headquarters in San Francisco why the rules they received had to be interpreted,” he said. “They didn’t get the concept that rules don’t have one meaning only, that they have many meanings. They had a very hard time.”

Like most things in this nation, built on layers of the past, physical and mental, it is not always easy to explain why this is.

Some experts claim that the Hinduism, which grew up here, holds no small responsibility: Sins can be committed, then forgiven. There is no single standard for salvation; each person’s life is weighed on its own. Relatives worried about where their dearly departed ended up can pray for personal intervention from some 2,500 priests — a system perfectly calibrated for India’s individualistic ethos.

Faced with greedy and hostile authority over many chaotic centuries, it is argued, Indians fell back into what is often called “familism,” the idea that only the family can be trusted. Everything outside the realm of family and clan can be ignored — or tricked into submission.

The state responded to its own weakness by imposing too many laws. “The problem is with so many rules, it’s almost impossible to obey them all, and they are applied badly,”… “Indians are almost forced into illegality by a poorly functioning system.”

Is the above a good description of the ills of Indian culture?
If you are like me and think it is, then think again! The extract is about Italy, yes Italy, from today’s IHT. I haven’t changed anything except the words in italics. In fact, there are only three changes: Italy has been replaced with India, Catholic Church with Hinduism, and saints with priests.

Uncanny cultural resemblance, wouldn’t you say?

I have spent quite some time in Milan. At one time on 2000, while at Lucent, I traveled so frequently there (we were helping a mobile operator get win the 3G license and get off the ground) that I knew which set of flight attendants I would meet on the Continental flight. I learnt that there is great similarity in what ails Italian and Indian culture. Cultural change is needed in both places.

The good news about India is that its private sector has already confronted its culture and changed dramatically. It now values competitiveness, meritocracy and transparency. There is a healthy resurgence of healthy institution building mindset. Although JRD Tata has been the inspiration, the credit for the recent change goes to people like Azim Premji and Narayana Murthy.

Now India needs similar revolutionaries to transform its government. I am ever the optimist and think it can be done. What’s your view?

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