Some bumps ahead but not a dead end

plagued by labour unrest, auto majors in INDIA May have cause for worry, yet doubts about the country's capability to be a global hub are unfounded, reports Pawan Chabra

For the global automotive industry majors, India has for a long time been a favoured driveway. With companies like Hyundai, Toyota and even Ford choosing this country as their manufacturing hub, the sector is enjoying one of its best growth phases ever. However, one cannot deny that this is a labour intensive industry and it has hence been buffeted by recurring incidents of labour unrest in the country. Industry watchers claim that India (which is currently the second largest two-wheeler market in the world after China) is well on course to becoming the seventh largest passenger car market worldwide (currently the eleventh largest) by 2016. However, the current labour problems that are looming large over companies like Rico, Honda Motorcycle and Scooters India Limited (HMSI) and Sunbeam in the Gurgaon-Manesar belt have once again ignited the debate on whether India can indeed grow into a major hub for automotives in such a scenario. The billion-dollar quation to be asked is: will such incidents slow down the growth of the Indian automotive industry in the long run?

The problems started with the strike at HMSI’s plant when the majority of the 5,500 workforce decided to launch a 'go- slow' in August. As a result of the action, production at the HMSI plant dropped by over 50%. HMSI filed a petition in the court threatening to take its operations out of India. In fact, the company has stopped taking orders for some of its models with the back-order touching 1.4 lakh units leading to a production loss of over Rs 300 crore for about 75,000 units of two-wheelers. Similarly, Rico, which supplies to giants like Maruti Suzuki and Hero Honda (market leaders in their respective segments) has been facing severe labour problems for the past one month. At present almost 95% of its 3,500 workers are on strike.

The protest became dangerous after a worker, Ajit Kumar Yadav, 26, died when police fired on agitating employees of the auto component manufacturer. In fact, the auto belt in the region of Gurgaon-Manesar was rocked by the industrial unrest that had been simmering for the past few months. About 8,000 workers walked off their jobs as the Communist Party of India-affiliated trade union, All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) mobilised a protest against the death of the worker. The picture gets clearer when one looks at the issues from the workers’ point of view. “We are fighting here for our rights and the management has no right to exploit workers,” asserts Chander Jeet Singh, a member of the Rico’s employees union. “After all, it is also in our interest to keep our jobs. We didn’t do this to threaten the management,” said another worker protesting against the company.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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On a downward spiral

It is extremely difficult for a sensitive Tamil to be “objective” and “dispassionate” about recent happenings in Sri Lanka. At the end of the Fourth Eelam War, when the war against the Tigers degenerated into a war against Tamil civilians, many of us were demanding that the government of Tamil Nadu should impress upon the government of India to immediately mobilise international opinion and work out a mechanism, acceptable to both Colombo and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), to rescue Tamil civilians from the war zones and escort them to “safe havens” manned by UN organisations. During this worst period in Tamil history, India did not come to the rescue of the Tamils trapped and subjected to savage bombing by the Sri Lankan Air Force. On the question of the rehabilitation of the Internally Displaced People, herded like cattle in the Manik Farm, without proper food, medicine and water and denied the basic right of freedom of movement in their own country, our plea for speedy rehabilitation has fallen on deaf ears. Tamils in Tamil Nadu are helpless and we feel let down that the self-proclaimed champions of overseas Tamils have developed feet of clay.

The degeneration of Sri Lanka from one of the torchbearers of social and human development into one of the most notorious killing fields of the world is a direct offshoot of the failure of nation building. The Mahatma once said the greatness of a nation depends upon how well it treats its minorities. The attempt to build the nation on the basis of the language and religion of the majority Sinhalese community, excluding all just claims of the minority groups, led to gradual parting of ways. The violence of the militants was met by the savage counter-violence of the state. Fanned by intolerance and self-righteousness, political assassinations became common.

When the ethnic conflict started in 1983, many of us justified the violence of the Tigers as a natural response of a victim against an oppressor. But gradually the civilian population became victims of savage acts of terrorism; the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991 created a big divide between Velupillai Prabhakaran and what should have been his support base in India. Other dastardly assassinations followed – Amirtalingam, Neelan Truchelvam, Lakshman Kadiragamar, Ketheeswaran – which created a sense of revulsion among one-time supporters of the Tigers.

If one takes an overview of Sri Lankan history, the victims of assassination were not merely Tamils, but also Sinhalese leaders. And among the heads of government who were assassinated in Sri Lanka, two are extremely important – Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike and President Premadasa – because both represent two distinct turning points in modern Sri Lankan history.

Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike was the first Sinhala leader to transform elite politics into mass politics. This Oxford-educated scholar gave up his western dress and Christian religion and championed the cause of the vernacular elite, traditional Buddhism, Sinhala language and literature.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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Remembering Indira

A quarter century after her assassination, the legacy of Mrs Gandhi lives on in the nation's political arena

“She put Nixon in his place”

The man who served in the Prime Minister’s secretariat during Indira Gandhi’s early years at India's helm assesses her achievements and enduring legacy

I am committing the ultimate act of immodesty by quoting from one of my books: “So often Indira Gandhi is depicted as solemn and serious. Seldom is it mentioned that this graceful, sparkling, engaging human being was a caring humanist, a voracious reader, with wide-ranging non-political interest, that she was endowed with charm, elegance, good taste, that she enjoyed the company of artists, authors, poets, painters and the talented, that she had a sense of humour…” When she was assassinated on October 31, 1984, the spring went out of my life.

I had the great opportunity to work in her secretariat (not PMO at the time) from 1966 to 1971. I was the first member of the IFS to be personally chosen by her to be a member of her staff. At the time Prime Minister’s secretariat was a small, well-knit unit. Esprit de corps was much in evidence. One interacted with the Prime Minister almost on a daily basis. She was in many ways a liberating force. She approved of candour, humour, loyalty, discretion. She had no time for the pompous, the cautious, the calculating and the pretentious. The pompous were deflated by one severe look that reduced the man/woman to (metaphorically) asking for blood transfusion. The collapse was instant.

How do we assess her achievement after a quarter century? Her great father laid the foundations of a democratic, secular, pluralistic India. His daughter strengthened the foundations and carried his idea of India further. During the seventeen years of Nehru’s term in office only once the green lights turned red – 1962. For her, the angels stopped fluttering in 1975 – Emergency – and 1984 – Operation Bluestar.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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Going, going. Gone?

The only party in Assam, that not only gave the Congress a run for its money but also defeated it in two Assembly elections, the Asom Gana Parishad, seems to be on its deathbed, Monalisa Gogoi writes

For the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), the issue is no longer about winning elections. The party, that defeated the mighty Congress in two Assembly elections, is suffering from bitter internecine conflict. The results of the vicious infighting are beginning to manifest. The AGP seems on its deathbed, having lost 10 straight elections at various levels, a party with which no one wants to stay anymore. The crutch of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), that, it had hoped will help it to stay on its feet lies broken, with the national party having reaped more benefits from the desperate marriage.

The latest to quit the party include former AGO general secretary and former general secretary of the powerful All Assam Students’ Union (Aasu) Prabin Boro and Phani Pathak, an AGP candidate in the last Assembly polls. The reasons for departure can be traced to the fact that the AGP has failed to deliver on just about every front, economic, political and regional. While it was in power, it did nothing to address the foreign nationals’ problem in the state, an issue that had got them elected in the first place.

“I was made the spokesperson of the party and yet not allowed to speak to anyone. Senior leaders questioned my abilities,” says Boro, who, unlike many of his Bodo community, chose to join the AGP, even when Bodo factions set up their own militant and political fronts thereby wiping out the AGP’s presence from such areas. The Bodo People’s Front (BPF) eventually became a part of the current ruling Congress coalition. “The AGP,” says Boro, who has now joined the BPF, “is now a club. They have no place for young leaders and that is the main cause of the decay. The AGP’s losing spree is the result of the decisions of its leaders.” The problem is endemic. “I now keep myself confined to Tezpur,“ says Brindaban Goswami, a former president of the party, and MLA from Tezpur, who at one stage had unseated Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, the former Aasu president who later headed two AGP governments. “No one looks for me anymore,” Goswami now says, having handed over the reins of the party to current president Chandramohan Patowary, who, too, has had a disastrous run, leading the party from one defeat to another. Scores of grassroot cadres in districts such as Sonitpur and North Lakhimpur have abandoned the AGP in search of greener pastures. Having lost the last Lok Sabha elections, Arun Sarma, a two-time parliamentarian, is now back as professor at the Veterinary College in Guwahati.

Attempts to improve the situation now verge on the desperate, if not ridiculous. The only change that has been visible in the AGP during its downslide is the direction of the main gate at its headquarters. When Mahanta was around, it faced the east. During Brindaban Goswami’s time, it was changed to the north. Now, with Patowary, it is back to the north after having been changed to the east once in between. In the absence of political acumen, it is now Vaastu that now rules the precincts of the AGP headquarters. Phani Bhushan Choudhury, a senior leader who, in October, 2008, fought tooth and nail to unite the various factions of the AGP — Mahanta’s AGP (Progressive) and senior rebel leader Atul Bora’s Trinamool Gana Parishad (TGP) — before the Lok Sabha elections responds by disconnecting the phone when asked about the AGP’s current Vaastu manifesto.


“Every leader has his choice,” explains Apurba Bhattacharjee, a party general secretary. An unnaturally thin gathering of party cadres at the head office on the AGP’s foundation day this month is just an indication of where the party stands with the people in the state. Having ruled the state through two terms, the party now has 24 seats in a Legislative Assembly of 126. Its regional base among indigenous communities such as the Karbis, Bodos, Misings, and the tea garden workers’ community is all but gone, with most communities having successfully formed their own political fronts. Repeated attempts to contact Patowary for an estimate of affairs in the party failed, the staple answer being, “I’m in a meeting.”

It’s tragic for a party that 856 students had died to set up. They laid down their lives in the six-year-long Assam Agitation under Aasu leadership in the 1970s and ‘80s. Just about nothing seems to be able to stem the decay that now eats into the very core of the AGP. First came the vertical split in the party and forming of the Natun Asom Gana Parishad (NAGP) in 1990-91 by Bhrigu Kumar Phukan, a close associate of Prafulla Kumar Mahanta. After the two factions came together in 1994, came the expulsion of Prafulla Mahanta who, then, formed the AGP (P) about five years ago while Atul Bora formed the TGP. It was only a year ago that the factions came together to fight under the AGP banner. The Purbanchaliya Lok Parishad (PLP), a respected political group too joined the AGP, thanks to the efforts of a few who wanted a united Opposition in the state. Yet the Lok Sabha elections proved disastrous, one that is widely blamed on the AGP’s lack of courage to go it alone. The right-wing BJP walked away with four seats while the AGP was left with one.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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Blindsight: Yoga and Islam

Rajaque Rahman, a devout Muslim, is a former journalist now engaged in teaching yoga-based spiritual programmes, as part of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living Foundation. To him, both – Yoga and Islam – have common goals…

Recent fatwas forbidding Muslims from doing yoga have left many confused about what Islam really says about it. Malaysia’s National Fatwa Council and Indonesian Ulema Council’s edicts on the ground that yoga will erode their faith in the religion reflect a complete ignorance about the discipline of yoga.

As the Quran and Hadith have nothing specific that deign the practice of yoga haram, the ulemas based the ruling on their own concocted fear of supposedly ‘Hindu’ elements of yoga destroying the faith of a Muslim. The best way to allay their fear is to look at the Hindu philosophy on yoga and see how and where it contradicts the tenets of Islam.

Yoga simply means uniting with the self. Maharishi Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras starts by calling itself an enunciation in union. The asanas, the practice of which is the focal point of these fatwas, are just one way of attaining that union. Is striving for such a union with the self against Islam? It cannot be. For, Prophet Muhammad has said, “He who knows his own self knows his Lord.” So anything done in pursuit of knowing the Lord will count as a meritorious act of following the Prophet. So yoga as a spiritual pursuit is very much permissible in Islam.

The best explanation of why yoga is not just permissible, but also desirable for Muslims is to be found in the second sutra of the Yoga Sutras. Yogas Chitta Vritti Nirodhah. It means yoga is stopping all the modulations of the mind. Ceasing all the outward activities of the mind and reposing in Allah is the ultimate goal of Islam. Prophet Muhammad said, “I have a time with God to which even Gabriel, who is pure spirit, is not admitted.” Hence, the soul of prayer is a complete absorption, a state without room for any outward thoughts which is also the ultimate purpose of yoga. So doing yoga asanas as a means of attaining a thoughtless state will qualify as the highest form of ibadat (prayer).

This leaves only one ground for orthodox mullahs to frown at yoga: that yoga stems from polytheist beliefs of Hinduism. But when yoga means union, how can it be linked to polytheist beliefs? In fact, yoga takes one away from polytheism and leads to Advaita, which is in perfect agreement with the Islamic doctrine of tauhid (oneness of God).

It’s universally proven that yoga brings peace of mind, and on that count yoga is almost obligatory for Muslims. For the Quran says, “The only religion with Allah is Islam.” As Islam means peace, peace of mind is a prerequisite for one to be truly following Allah’s only religion.

Outweighing all these synergies of yoga is the discomfort among Muslims in chanting certain sounds, particularly Om which generally forms a part of yoga. This uneasiness is caused again by lack of knowledge about what Om signifies and why it’s chanted. Contrary to the general misconception, Om isn’t a name of a God or a prayer to a particular God. Om is a universal sound that is chanted for its effect in harmonising one’s being and creating peace within and without. The vibration the sound creates has the power to take one to that state of complete absorption which Prophet Muhammad mentioned as his time with God. That’s why Om and other similar sacred sounds such as Aameen and Amen are normally chanted at the time of supplicating before God. Hindus chant Om before praying for peace, Muslims and Christians chant Aameen and Amen respectively after seeking blessings from God. This proves that the accent is on the resulting state of harmony which helps one connect with God easily.

So doing yoga with the sole intention of attaining a thoughtless state so that one can connect with Allah wouldn’t make one a bad Muslim.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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