DOING BUSINESS IN 21ST CENTURY INDIA

DOING BUSINESS IN

21^ST CENTURY INDIA

How to Profit Today in Tomorrow’s Most Exciting Market

Gunjan Bagla

Hatchette Book Group USA

Pp 254       Rs.495

What with WTO and the on-rush of globalisation, the cry of the seafarers of old was bound to take on a new gusto. Eastward ho! And thus the quest began for a new ‘treasure island’, newer fortunes (this time at the bottom of CK Prahalad’s pyramid and in a world as ‘flat’ as Friedman would have it). And of course the East, as hospitable as ever, obliged, bent over backwards …while the son of the local tailor spoke with a Yankee twang. Our markets explode with things ‘phoreen’ ranging from the use-and-throw to the throwaway. And along comes Gunjan Bagla adding to India Inc’s collective come-hither.

The book carries endorsements of the Chairman, American Chamber of Commerce in India, a Professor of Marketing somewhere out there who is also a founder of India China & America Institution in Georgia, a director of RAND Center for Asia Pacific Policy and a President of US India Business Council. Perhaps an endorsement or two from acknowledged experts on Indian culture (few as these may be!) or history would have lent credibility – but then perhaps Bagla’s audience would not be bothered with such trivialities as unqualified generalisations and unconfirmed sources of information. But even that audience (particularly that audience) would certainly react to the Apostle Judas Thomas being referred to as “Doubting Thomas” from the Last Supper. A minor inaccuracy in a widely documented event. Does it lend credibility to the less verifiable statements?

The book has a glossary of around 18 pages. The terms range from catchwords of regional languages of India that do creep into our English conversations (Baap re, Badmash, chamcha, Tharra, double-roti – words that are hardly likely to get into international business discussions) to the totally unnecessary. Surely the run of the mill businessman / industrialist knows what an ‘annexure’ is; and do words like Britisher, Calling Card, Car Park, Christian Name really need to be explained? Okay, the average American (if such there be) may need to be cautioned that a ‘Dicky’ or ‘Dickey’ refers only the boot of an automobile. But by far the strangest (and perhaps the most shocking) entry in the glossary is “Mahatma Gandhi” the man about whom Albert Einstein had said: ‘Generations to come… will scarce believe that such one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth’. There may not be many educated persons in the world today who have never heard of Mahatma Gandhi. Would a similar work on the United States of America or on South Africa carry George Washington or Nelson Mandela as an item in the glossary? If Bagla had felt the need to introduce Gandhiji in this magnum opus of his, he could certainly have done better than relegating him to an entry in the ‘Glossary of Indian English.’

The book otherwise reads easily in near-conversational tone. The most realistic act of Bagla in this book is his quotation from John Godfrey Saxe’s poem about the elephant and the six blind men. The poem is an indication that India (far more complex than an elephant and as inscrutable as they come) cannot be understood or explained away without experiencing it. Talking about elephants, Louis V Gerstner, who led IBM through its end-century historic turnaround felt bold enough to name his book: Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? Dr. Manmohan Singh may, self-effacingly, agree: the wonderful elephant of India is dancing; the cash-cows are a-traipsing. Hordes of ‘foreigners’ will come as thousands have already. They will live here, and learn how to flourish in this ‘functioning anarchy’ as John Kenneth Galbraith indulgently called it. We need not call anyone here nor caution them over cultural pitfalls; Indian culture does not snigger at a faux pas. Publications like the present one smack of inferiority, an apology for our way of life. Our traditional “welcome to our humble abode” is uttered only to give voice to our ancient belief: Atithi Devo bhava – a reflection of our respect for the guest, not a reference to any inferiority of our abode. We need not take it to the extreme!

The concluding chapter entitled The Song Behind the Words to some extent removes the bad taste of the previous 210 pages. The true Indian spirit does attempt here to sing, though weakly, a new song.