Historical truths seem to be non-existent in today’s India while its violations are many. Be it business or politics, the time-tested idea of the older generation passing on the baton to the youth does not hold good for us Indians.
Here, the old and the worn-out, barring a few exceptions here and there, refuse to make way for new blood. They fight brazenly to hold on to their turf no matter how competent and effective the GenNext is.
Incidentally, India is supposedly home to the world’s largest population of youths. The old never retire here. Even if they are forced to hang their boots, they machinate to stage comebacks under various excuses. For them, age is never a criterion but an embellishment.
One simply has to glance at the corporate and business world where such examples abound. NR Narayana Murthy chose to come back to the saddle of Infosys years after his retirement and the board hailed it as if Murthy had the magic wand for all the ills in the world.
The investors, mostly government-owned banks and insurance companies, must now be aware what difference his return to Infosys might have made. The message his return spelt out was that a change of guard to the younger lot does not bode well.
Similarly, Tata Sons chairman Cyrus Mistry was ousted in a cold blood boardroom coup earlier this week. The board sacked Mistry, 48, and brought back Ratan Tata who is 78 years old. Mistry, representing the Shapoorji & Pallonji Group, the largest individual shareholder in Tata Sons, was sacked and it is nobody’s guess who was behind his summary ouster.
Mistry, in an email, has let it out that he was never given a free hand to operate in the board. And Ratan Tata had been stymieing his every move to improve upon the company’s top and bottomlines. The manner of Mistry’s ouster was unsavory and does not behove a respected brand such as Tata.
Instead of listing his ouster as a key item for the board’s discussion, it was suddenly brought up under the residual head of ‘other business’.
Not everyone is happy with the goings-on in the Tata Group and questions are being raised about Mistry’s unceremonious removal. The business world finds it difficult to come to terms with the fact that someone at the age of 78 could appropriate to himself a role that will require of him to drive a Rs7 lakh crore conglomerate such as Tata Sons.
This is bizarre and not in keeping with the reputation of good corporate governance that the Tata group prided itself over the past many decades. It baffles common sense how a man at such a fast yellowing age, could shepherd a sprawling conglomerate such as Tatas whose expanse across sectors and geographies challenges operational coherence.
Mistry had to go as the old satraps in the board, whose average age is over 60, were arrayed against him. The old guard found it difficult to digest modern business practices that Mistry symbolised.
In India, no matter what we preach, when it comes to grabbing power and pelf, the old refuse to share the turf. The culture of passing on the baton to the GenNext does not happen here. The oldies think they are like old scotch that gets only tastier and better as time passes.
Sample the ongoing war in the first family of the Samajwadi Party in UP.
The party has been torn into two between the youth leadership and the old timers over the issue of who is the boss in the party. The old generation in SP has been fighting tooth and nail to defend its turf while the youth leadership has been crying hoarse to get heard.
Mulayam’s full-throated support for his brother Shivpal and his appointment of sullied Amar Singh as the party’s general secretary after his ouster from the party years back is a testimonial to the old guard’s penchant for opposing the rise of the new generation.
Nature is bound by its own set of laws. Every animate and inanimate being in the world is subject to it. The aberrations, if any, are only relative to these universal truths. One of the cardinal principles of human civilisations across ages and geographies is to preen and prepare posterity to carry forward not only the old ethos but to also try and gradually better the physical and cultural progress.
Across ages and regions we have seen outgoing generations trying to bequeath what was good with them while new generations try to plug historical loopholes. GenNext always uses hindsight and finds solutions to the challenges that baffled the old guard. This is borne out by history.
Individuals and nations that have defied this natural premise have found themselves on the wrong side of history. Is India destined for a terrible future? That is what all of us need to ponder.
