Two faces of India Inc.

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In early 2004 I was attending a corporate symposium where CEOs moved about with feline alacrity and everyone seemed to have an unusually sunny disposition. People joked that it was a mirror image of India Shining, that celebrated phrase of unbridled optimism and electoral doom. In several photo-ops, the high profile head honchos did a collective thumbs-up. When I almost nervously protested that this utopia looked grossly exaggerated, I was dismissed with contumacious indifference, as if a gate crashing party pooper. I beat a hasty retreat, and ever since have a guarded reverence for these five-star CII/FICCI/Assocham events which I have since believed are just platforms for the self-promotion and private business lobbying by a select group. I would like to term them as India's " obnoxious oligopolies". A similar group was in full attendance a few days ago at the Gujarat Global Investors Summit.

At the same venue Anil Ambani ( Reliance ADAG) and Sunil Mittal ( Bharti Airtel), heads of their respective conglomerates, apparently publicly adulated the bearded, beaming Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi . Ambani and Mittal would like to see the poster-boy of the saffron party in a galloping hurry unfurl the Indian tricolours at the Red Fort. Of course, they are blissfully unawares or have conveniently forgotten that their Prime Ministerial designate ( if that were to miraculously transpire) may have the dubious ignominy of not being able to shake hands with President Barack Obama in the White House, as Obama's state department is unlikely to grant Mr Modi a US visa. For a dastardly sequence of events that he personally supervised in Gujarat in 2002 as its elected head. We can well imagine the geopolitical ramifications of that embargo, but obviously India's leading corporate chiefs did not. The blatant bonhomie between our big boys and Mr Modi is a manifestation of the blinkered vision of India Inc. It also reflects short-term memory loss as they forgot that a seething Modi had asked the CII to publicly apologise for Anu Agha's " genocide" comments in 2002. Tragically, they genuflected before him instantly.

India' s corporate sector has essentially a very small moral fibre, which is also unusually elastic. They are creatures of extraordinary convenience. I remember when the Manmohan Singh government took over in Y 2004 there was a gargantuan collapse of the stock markets. Bust! Those black-suited merchant bankers and the twenty- something bespectacled analysts predicted serious doomsday , what with a left -of- centre national party in a fragile coalition supported by withering age-old Marxists on the wrong side of India's demographic median. Of course, their prognostications were based on facile factors; no one even briefly comprehended the huge premium the think tank of the Singh-Chidambaram combine could bring to India's economy and its financial markets.

Corporate India, still angry that India Shining had been grievously derailed was almost dismissive about the ruling combine's expertise, competence and longevity. Understandable perhaps, but what was indeed surprisingly palpable was the cosmetic assessment of India's real issues of poverty, the common man's dire straits, the onerous burden of improving education, health and removing backwardness, and the challenge of balanced growth. Our award-winning blue-chip brigade only understands corporate tax, exchange rates, prime lending rates and stock market reforms. Unfortunately, the government has a lot more to do. And one of them is to build an equal opportunities secular foundation and a civil society, something that Mr Modi has long forsaken.

The electoral reverse of the BJP was seen by many industry spokespeople as a "bad verdict"; India would pay-dear, there would be no more glittering sunshine. If India's business lobby was once servile and subjugated to the political class up to the mid 1990s, one now saw the emergence of raw arrogance and calibrated condescension . Truly said, nation building be damned; there was just one consistent objective: profits. Now that too is pure capitalism at work and a rational CEO obsession, but surprisingly the nature of the governing polity seemed inconsequential to Corporate India. That is exactly what some of our industry stalwarts unwittingly ejaculated yesterday in collective unison when they endorsed Modi for Prime Minister. Unluckily for them and Modi , Satyam has become the perfect villain of the piece eroding the general credibility of our entire class of business barons.

For the Ivy League corporate India, Satyam has arrived with blaring horns as a deadly neutralizer. Suddenly that pious façade and jargonised bravado stands shattered ( pardon the oxymoron). Satyam is not just an epic corporate fraud by itself, it also has a strong principal cast which includes multinational auditors, ritzy merchant bankers, Harvard gurus on shareholder protection, and independent directors who made more money from sitting fees or should we call it "sleeping fees". The supporting crew is endless and each had their own private agenda. As the Satyam saga unfolds, several leading CEOs will be fully aware of that "discretionary element" which is usually co-handled with remarkable dexterity by the prized auditors and the senior management in close cohorts. Insider trading allegations rage because they are true, so before we have more corporate chiefs expressing their political preferences, maybe they should get their boardroom act cleaned up.

Narendra Modi's pogrom which consumed 2000 lives is essentially a meaningless statistic for India's business czars as long as Modi can unlock free land, provide subsidized capital, and make big commercial announcements. From a hardcore shareholder standpoint, India Inc are bang-on target. If Modi is attracting foreign capital and domestic investment, by all means, he is development-driven. However to profess his name for national leadership reveals either a shocking neglect of social sensitivities or a callous disregard for political morality. These CEOs speak in national forums, and whatever their private predilections, they need to understand the larger ramifications of their public disclosures.

Instead, I would like it if our jet-setting CEOs talked of creating an RTI Act for corporate India , wherein we can find facts ,as ordinary individuals and not just shareholders. Isn't it the ultimate paradox that while the GOI has installed transparency, the constantly jabbering India Inc only pays it token lip-service, and worse, walks away with Golden Peacocks and other shimmering accolades, an act of sheer deliberate ruse? What are their various items under contingent liabilities, and the cross funds flow between group entities? How have they benefited by certain vested policy changes which have impacted company health? What ethical standards are followed in business lobbying? Besides published accounts, how do they indirectly fund political parties? So before telling us why Modi will make a great PM, corporate India should do some serious introspection within.

But maybe there is a huge lesson for India Inc from the widow of the slain ex-ATS chief Hemant Karkare. While India's big boys were enjoying Modi's hospitality and some questionable industrial freebies, a lonely sad woman had the moral strength and upright spirit in her to return Mr Modi's tainted charity donation back to him. Perhaps before getting their failed corporate governance act right, corporate India will first need to develop a social conscience.

(Sanjay Jha is the executive director of Dale Carnegie Training India in Mumbai.)