It is an irony. The word ‘Satyam’ means truth, but the IT company occupied the front pages of newspapers and prime time of television news channels for ‘asatyam’, which means untruth or false or fraud. The Chief of Satyam, B. Ramalinga Raju confessed that he doctored the balance sheets to a tune of about Rs. 7000 crore to keep his company’s reputation, client attraction and stock rates at the highest level for several years. The country's fourth largest IT Company with 53000 employees - after TCS, Infosys and Wipro and ahead of HCL - was for several years cooking its books by inflating revenues and profits. It was a creative, innovative accounting fraud. This pulled the stock market down and it would affect more in the coming days. Business leaders as role models?
In the last decade, the business leaders became household names. With Indian politicians’ reputation sullied due to scam after scam and criminals establishing themselves as politicians, the public were longing for better leaders. With opening up of liberal market economy and IT boom (with tax holiday) brought many business leaders to public focus. With media playing unaudited watchdog role, eulogized business leaders like Raju. They were promoted as ‘value-bearers of Indian culture’, role models of global entrepreneurship, examples for ethical governance and what not. Suddenly, Raju’s fall leaves the field still wide open.
Corporate Governance
IT companies are portrayed as models of corporate governance. Media has lost is investigative element in India and is superficial in presenting and interpreting news. Though these companies brought foreign exchange for the nation, they had five booby traps they were not aware of. At last, it has begun to catch up with them.
Consumerism: Consumerism of worst kind came into existence due to this Corporate Elitism. City after city fell to this economic onslaught. A driver in such company would earn may be Rs. 15000 a month, while a teacher who shapes an entire generation would not even earn half as that amount. A data entry person would earn twice as a medical doctors who save lives of the people. Moreover, with that kind of disposable income, consumerism became the ideology and lifestyle of youngsters who were running a rat race. In addition, their captain, in Raju’s own words was riding a tiger and did not know how to dismount.
Corruption: Corporate world denies they are corrupt and preach ethics and values to the world. Even in campus interviews, the people who came representing their companies indulged in corrupt practices of taking bribe, favoritism, nepotism and even asking for sexual favours. The project team leaders exploited the team members for sexual favours. As the World Bank declared, the Satyam tried to bribe officials to bag a contract and the company was black listed for eight years. Instead of acknowledging their crime, they demanded apology from World Bank. The Auditors (Chartered Accountants) were like bond slaves doing what they were bidden to; did not abide by their professionalism or law of the land.
Career over family: These corporate houses promoted career over family values. With long working hours, the spouse and children were neglected. Marital discord was a common problem in almost all families working in these Post Modern Information era corporations. Extra-marital affairs wrecked many families. The companies are more concerned about projects and profits; but did not bother about the families of their staff.
Casteism: These captains of industries were so ‘broad minded’ or ‘liberal’ that they consider only merit as criteria for selection of their staff. Therefore, they vehemently opposed reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward Castes in the private sector. Nevertheless, a reputed study revealed the surname (with caste) determined whether a person got an interview before appointment. In that, it became den of arrogant sophisticated westernized elite, who lived in imaginary India disconnected from Bharat.
Communalism: The huge profits with tax holiday for these businesses were spent liberally in helping Sangh Parivar affiliated non-Government organizations that spread hatred and revenge among masses. That is their contribution to save India from Western influence and maintain the cultural integrity of the nation. Many of their staff working for these companies in North America taking clue from management became huge donors for Sangh Parivar organizations in US.
Government
The Government just left these companies, with tax holidays and even special incentives. Chief Ministers like Krishniah and Chandrababu Naidu became Chief Executive Officers of Bangalore and Hyderabad respectively forgetting other parts of their respective states also other departments in the government, on the advice of the corporate heads. These corporate leaders started demanding free land or subsidized land for their companies. They dictated terms to the Government for them to continue their existence in their cities. Many political leaders accepted their demands and neglected the poor and other sectors like industry and agriculture.
Media
Media should have been the watchdog or prophet in a multi-cultural society with a developing economy in a political democracy. However, it forgot its cardinal role, and played a secondary role to IT boom. They did not analyze the situations wisely but show caused the best and ignored the rest in this boom sector. Media created heroes out of non-heroes in IT sector and the young people were attracted to IT in large number neglecting other disciplines.
Society
The civil society failed to do social audit of these firms. As long as the money flow increased, employment opportunities in urban areas increased, malls increased, options for consumption increased, people were glad. They did not realize such astronomical salaries to IT professionals created wider gap between the rich and poor and between them and other professions.
Awards?
Strangely this company has won long line of awards, including the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year Services award 1999, the Dataquest IT Man of the Year Award 2000, the Asia Business Leader Award 2002, and the Golden Peacock Award for Corporate Governance as recently as September 2008, did help in adding to the buzz about the company. That sounds interesting and disgusting. Who are the people who give these awards? They could not smell the dead rat odour underneath.
Government should respond
The Government of India should step in to stem the rot. Corporate Governance and ethics is a myth projected by elite of India to escape Government monitoring and control. Immediately, the Government should withdraw tax holidays for these companies. A law should be enacted in the Parliament fixing the ceiling for salaries and a CEO cannot draw more than ten times the salary of the least paid employee. Strict monitoring should be introduced and there should be provision for transparency in their administration. Media should have the feet on their ground and fly in imaginary and imagination clouds thus neglecting ground realities. Civil society should be vigilant not to allow aberrations and lopsided priorities to prevail. Contributions to society should be criteria and not the contributions to GDP the criteria for judging the worth of individuals and companies. This is a wake up call for the nation, will the nation respond?
Dr. J.N. Manokaran
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