Indore

Rajat Hooda, IIM Indore

A very happy new year to all of you.

I crave experiences.

They can be in the form of being a part of the first team ever from the IIMs to qualify for the Global Innovation Challenge in Darden Business School, Virginia, to being a part of the Army Relief force which helped the earthquake struck victims in Uri.

From receiving incubation and funding for one of the most ambitious rural upliftment social ventures in India to giving the background score of a movie which almost 🙂 made it to the Osian film festival.

From holding one of the strongest records of quizzing in Delhi University history to leading a market exploratory study for one of Intel’s biggest launches in India.

From developing the online game Klueless3 to managing three national rock bands which recorded and cut professional releases.

Still Hungry!

Always will be.

gtalk (rajathooda@gmail.com)

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Question of the Day (02/01)

Who amongst the other 5 candidates do you think is your biggest competitor in Olympus 2008?

What a finale! 🙂 toughie of the highest magnitude.

 No quotes today… 🙂

 Apologies for being blunt but I think there’s no way I can answer that accurately. Three posts are hardly a reflection of ones potential.

However, I can do one thing. I can make a logical and educated guess.

What is the one thing in war that can turn the tide of any battle? The one thing that can ensure that an army of a thousand is beaten by that of a hundred. The one thing that was the ace up the twelve Olympians sleeve when they defeated the Titans.

It is… the element… of surprise.

It is the one thing that can demolish any strategy completely.

It is the fog of war.

It is the unseen.

Therefore, I would like to take the other 5 highly able candidates and see which one of them I know least. That individual, to me, would be my biggest competitor. One from whom I do not know what to expect at all. Or at least, the one from whom I can anticipate what to expect, with the lowest probability.

Let’s see now.

I met Kaushik when he came down to my college for our festival IRIS. In fact we have spent well over two days together in the same event. I can confidently say that I know him the best of the 5 finalists.

During Vista, in IIM Bangalore, I briefly met Neetu Chitkara through a common friend. Not much at all. Definitely not enough to make an informed judgement. But it’s all I’ve got. And it’s more than I can say for the rest.

This morning I IMed Kedar Naik and it was my first interaction with him. So I shall claim to having known a wee bit more of him than I can gather through only reading the blogs.

This is where it gets hazy. Both Anshul Gupta and Arjun Myne are individuals I have had zilch contact with. So how do I filter it further? Simple. I know where Arjun Myne is coming from through his introduction. I have read more of his thoughts by virtue of the fact that he has replied to comments on his posts.

Hence, my biggest competitor, in Olympus 2008, from where I stand at this instant, is Anshul Gupta.

Plain and simple.

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Question of the Day (01/01)

Educated, energetic and able youngsters of our country (except those belonging to some political linage) often shy away from entering politics and hence do not take up a direct responsibility of making a positive impact on the society. Comment.

Honour Among Sneaks

“A politician should have three hats. One for throwing into the ring, one for talking through, and one for pulling rabbits out of if elected.”

~Carl Sandburg

Interesting statement. And one that, in all likelihood, has more than a few takers.

I have two things to talk about in my comment.

The first of them deals with the assumption that shying away from politics implies not taking up a direct responsibility of making a positive impact on society. Baloney. Is societal impact driven only through politics? What of art? Any form of art is a form of power; it has impact, it can affect change. It can not only move us, it makes us move. Let us not bicker over the path to societal impact. Any individual who can do something better than anyone else has the power to impact society. However, there is one thing I do agree with. People who have the capacity to be better politicians than the current breed do not tread that path.

Why they don’t is what the second thing deals with.

The main reason is the media. Every person wants some form of recognition and acknowledgement of a job well done. However, in the prevailing scenario, few get it. There would be a handful of people who would not have heard of Rahul Gandhi and Sachin Pilot – individuals whose opportunities have come primarily because they are inheritors of a lineage. However only a handful would have heard of Madhu Goud and Sipiparai Ravichandra. Why is the media selective about its list of young politicians? It is indeed sad that our system has not yet allowed idealistic youngsters from non-political families to have a meritocratic rise.

And whatever happened to ‘grabbing ‘em young’? Student political movements have moved to the fringe, distanced from grassroots reality. The last I heard of a student body influencing mainstream agenda in this family was in Assam, when All Assam Students Union leader Prafulla Kumar Mahanta became the country’s youngest chief minister. When Nandigram happened recently, there were no audible student voices; nor have campuses come alive on the nuclear debate.

Another primary reason is image. When you compare the image of a rich and successful businessman with that of a person wearing khadi clothes and a Gandhi Cap you can rest assured young men and women will not flock to join that camp. Compare this to the ‘rock star’ like persona that Tony Blair had in his glory days or Bill Clinton in his first term or even the kind of adulation that Barack Obama is getting from the people of America whether they be African Americans, Caucasian or Hispanic. How many politicians do we have who have been able to bring the different religious and ethnic groups together apart from the independence heroes who later took to governing us? The answer is the number that Aryabhatta gave to the world, ZERO. The image problem faced by the Indian polity is worsened by the scandals, particularly in the past decade, that have come to light. Who would want to associate with a bunch of criminals (20% of the members of the Lok Sabha have criminal cases pending against them).

Finally, it boils down to trust. Non-governmental organizations are trusted more than the government itself. People feel that they can contribute more by not joining the government. By doing so they feel less shackled and feel they can express themselves more freely and do much more than they would be able to do by being a part of the government.

Now after mentioning all of these problems it would seem that politics in India was an unappealing profession and that the best youngsters would have nothing to do with it. That is mostly the case but there are some beacons of hope. Kirit Somaiya, former BJP MP from Mumbai North East has been a tireless crusader against the corrupt elements in government, exposing the land grab that the Maharashtra government was indulging in. Shri Arun Jaitley has been one of the most effective Law Ministers of this country passing hundreds of new laws and removing hundreds of old and arcane laws. These are just two of the shining examples of people who entered politics when they were young (Arun Jaitley was the President of the Delhi University Students Union) and went on to make a difference and both of them do not belong to any political dynasties either.

It doesn’t take an army of educated, energetic and able youngsters to move the world. It takes a small platoon of young conscientious, visionary and earnest individuals.

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Question of the Day (31/12)

On the eve of the new year what targets should India as a country set for itself to achieve in 2008?

Salvation in Specifics

“To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.”

-Leonard Bernstein

Setting targets to achieve in 2008 will satisfy both of those.

So what great things should India set for itself to accomplish. Education, employment and poverty eradication measures have been around for the last 60 years. Though prudence demands that these should be tackled first and foremost, I’d like to shift focus and concentrate on specifics. I do so because it is with small and specific goals that a paradigm shift is achieved. And it is a paradigm shift that initiates change at a colossal scale. Also, I shall try to remain in the realm of the highly probable and doable rather than a world where lady luck’s perpetual intervention rules the roost.

According to me, the highest priority should be accorded to the following issues.

Instability. We see conflict everywhere, and our neighbourhood, which was always dysfunctional, has become even more so in recent times. The killing of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, and the renewed fighting between the Tamil Tigers and government forces in Sri Lanka, are a few examples. India with its ambitions to be a global player first needs to sort out the problems in its own backyard. We have always promoted democracy but we have three military regimes in our neighbourhood and the Sri Lankan government is increasingly behaving in an undemocratic manner with reports of extrajudicial killings and bombing of orphanages. I know that one year is too small a time to bring all these nations to democratic ways but we can use our influence with them to take steps to move towards democracy. Let us remember that China and India are the only two countries that provide any sort of recognition to the junta in Myanmar. If we decided to let go of our petty interests of oil and gas and looked at the bigger picture then we can make a serious impact there. Similarly with Sri Lanka, the Lankan army is supplied by the Indians to a large extent and the influence the Indian leaders have with the Tamil community in Sri Lanka can also help a great deal. Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in Pakistan is a blow not only for Pakistan but also for us. The jehadi elements there will get stronger and that spells trouble for India as well. Pervez Musharaff, whatever his past, is not a big fan of the jehadis himself and so, an asset for India. But India should also heap pressure on the Pakistani government to hold free and fair elections because only a democratically elected government can negotiate lasting agreements with us whether they are about Sir Creek, or Kashmir.

 

Violence. The Naxals have been a thorn in the side of the Indian state for more than 30 years. Recently the Prime Minister talked about getting rid of this cancer and said the state will bolster the security forces and take other measures. But if it were that easy to remove the Naxals from their hideouts in the Dandakaranya forests and other areas, if only they could be killed off with guns, then this would have been achieved long ago. But it is not so easy to kill them. Why? The reason is simple – when you are fighting the Naxals you are not fighting a rag tag bunch of terrorists. No! When you are fighting the Naxals you are fighting an ideology. Marx’s socialist state may have failed everywhere and Mao’s Cultural Revolution may have wrought destruction on the Chinese populace but the idea of equality is and will always remain potent. We all want equality and we do not like it when people exploit us and this is the feeling of resentment the Naxals tapped into. Slowly but surely they built up support among the people and now are a force to be reckoned with. So what should the government do to tackle them? Just like the Khalistan movement wasn’t destroyed in a year in the same way the Naxal movement cannot be forced to kneel in a year. But we can indeed start in earnest in 2008 to tackle them. As I said before, the Naxals embody an ideology and guns alone won’t be enough to tackle them. To counter them we need to provide them with jobs and education so that they see the light and do not stay in thrall to the Naxalites. This is a campaign that will take decades to succeed but a start can be made from the next year to remove this cancer from the Body of the Indian state.

Equality. Talking tangibly, and from my understanding, another thing which should be and can be done quite easily by the government if it sets it as a target for itself, as a sort of resolution, is passing the “Women’s Reservation Bill”. Let us not forget that we are still a patriarchal nation. A nation where girls are still murdered for the sin of, well, just being girls. A nation like ours could do with not a bit, but a lot of gender sensitization. Passing of the bill will be a major boost to achieving the goal of equality between the sexes and also a slap to the obstructionists who have been trying to block this bill for close to a decade now.

Compassion. A final resolution, not only for the government but also for us – the people; and by the people I mean the upper and middle classes, should be to become sensitive to the plight of the poor. Doubtless, poverty will not be wiped out in a year but compassion is one thing which does not need generations to develop. Yesterday I saw a movie “Man Bites Dog” by Rémy Belvaux. In this movie the protagonist who is a cold blooded killer is also the most sensitive character in the movie with love for his friends and family. As the director portrays so well in this movie, every human being on earth has the ability to express compassion and love. The only problem is we do not use that compassion to act and shape our outlook of the world. Like P. Sainath, the 2007 winner of the Ramon Magsaysay award for journalism, literature, and creative communications arts, put it so eloquently, “In our country some people are offered loans to buy a Mercedes Benz at a 6% rate of interest while farmers in Vidarbha can’t get 8,000 rupees to buy seeds from banks”. The government instead of forgiving all the loans just freezes the repayment for 5 years. Would this still be happening if the decision makers of this country show a bit of compassion? Would outrages like Nandigram be possible if we listened to that inner voice of ours and decided to something about it?

I doubt it.

We as a nation – and I am not just talking about the government – should wake up and make it our goal to freely spread the two greatest gifts god has given us, love and liberty.

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Question of the Day (30/12)

Will Cooperation rather than competition amongst the IIM student community help in building a stronger brand in the long run?

Of Alpha Males and Ancient Tales

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”

– George Bernard Shaw

A few weeks ago I read an editorial which contained a statement that was quite interesting. It said, quite blatantly I felt, ‘ABC is ABC and LIK is LIK and ne’er the twain shall meet’. I found solace in the fact that at least the bloke was wise enough to group six entities into two.

Hogwash though.

Humans are not defined by their competition with one another, all species do this. The organizational factor that we have that gave us an evolutionary advantage was (and is) our ability to work together. A competition of intellect does not end in glory; it only decreases the spoils of the victor.

A pyrrhic victory at best.

The students and alumni of a college establish its reputation and not the other way round. This fraternity of over 1500 students is the nations best and brightest. What is this lack of cooperation that we speak of and where is this bitter competition to be seen? If the crux of this ‘lack of harmony’ argument rests on that fact that placements figures differ at the end and which indicates some form of a biased and competing ideology then the argument stops here.

But I am assuming this must be being read by people who DO have an IQ above 50 so I shall continue.

There was never any competition between the student communities and there never will be. Of course, loyalties towards one’s school shall always ensue and rightfully so. It would be tantamount to extreme buffoonery to equate this sense of belonging to one of competition. But never, at least in my stint here so far, have I ever felt a tinge of competition with my counterparts in the other b-schools. I never understood what it was that I was competing with them for; because there was nothing. I came to this business school and have amassed experiences which have shaped me as an individual. It is these experiences that I am ready to compete for.

Cooperation will be the next natural step.

The IIM student community has come together whenever support is needed. The reservation issue showed all the IIMs expressing their concern jointly. Anytime an IIM alumnus makes a mark on the world, it is a matter of pride for all people from the IIMs. Understandably it will reflect better on the particular school to which that individual belongs but eventually we are peas in the same pod. The IIMs were instituted to train and create a pool of elite world class managers. It is THIS vision that persists till now. It is THIS vision that we must cooperate to expedite and expand.

And for those that oppose it. A story comes to mind.

I am reminded of the old tale in which two armies face each other on the battlefield (which is perhaps an ultimate form of competition?). The officer on each side orders his troops: “Ready!” The soldiers on both sides raise their guns. “Aim!” The soldiers on each side point their guns at the soldiers on the other side (their respective competitors). “Fire!” The soldiers on each side turn around and shoot their own officer, thereby ending the war, in which, whichever side might “win”, a lot of them on both sides were getting killed and wounded.

Life’s good.