“The Calcutta confluence”

As mentioned in the report of the executive council meeting of the Federation of Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India (see "The Calcutta confluence,” Par­siana, April 2002) "72 out of every 75 children (Parsi Zoroastrians) going abroad will not come back” (i.e. there will be a 96 percent loss to the Zoroastrian community due to emigration). Whatever the actual percentage of migration figures, it remains clear that talent will go where it sees promise of being meaningfully nurtured and utilized. Patterns of executive behavior observed in a number of industries in India asphyxiate the initiative of subordinates and accelerate inefficiency wherever such administration exists. Apart from decision-making, the chief duty of management is to delegate responsibility. Often enough the subordinates tend to be almost entirely dependent on the executive.

It is not uncommon to find in industry and elsewhere in India bosses surrounded by groups of inferior co-workers or "yes-men,” presumably, for smooth sailing, and this has been usually noticed in cases where there is a fear of subordinates outshining and attracting more attention/recognition from the superior executives. This trend ushers a phenomenon comparable to Gres­ham’s Law of monetary theory, wherein the inefficients drive out the efficients from the administration sphere.

It seems likely that the pattern of education in India has given rise to an autocratic class, resulting in the heads of a number of institutions being more or less autocrats.

In such a climate of affairs, many executives in India are prone to: Promote Parkinson’s Law of creating jobs artificially rather than delegating precise duties and authority; to judge efficiency by the degree of subservience acceptable to their subordinates; to consider unqualified surrender as the basic qualification for employment, promotion and success; to foster a system of delegation which, in principle, is work division without the power and authority for its execution. That is, the executives assign all their work, sometimes also supervisory, to their subordinates but withhold the quantum of authority necessary for the execution of such jobs.

The resulting influence of this is: subordinates tend to develop an escapist tendency in their work; they are starved of a sense of belonging to their institutions; they are almost perpetually in search of other jobs or perhaps, become antiquarians of the industry out of frustration.

It is the practical men that India needs, and emotional ones she often listens to; but that of course, is what the Indian intelligentsia — particularly, those overseas — are saying about the planners and industrialists.

Europeans have often made fun of the "amateurishness” in Indian boardrooms. One European public relations firm has studied the performance of investors and managers of Indian origin in Europe. It gives them very high marks for their "positive attitude” to the European market, for their careful preparation of each new manufacturing venture and for their attitude to labor relations. Certainly anyone who is able to cope with labor relations in India would not find them difficult anywhere else. When managers of Indian origin are asked to run new acquisitions they seem to get on well. They are able to communicate easily, they master quickly all local rules and regulations (though they find far too many of these, especially in the field of consumer and environment protection and in product liability) and they develop good relations with employees.

All this may seem good to hear. Indian workmen too may with equal justice claim that once abroad they also usually work wonderfully well. None of these facts is by itself decisive since only the best and most enterprising workmen and managers go abroad. Of those who remain at home it would not be fair to say that their defects are balanced by defects in Indian management, but that their virtues are wasted by oppressive trade unions and over-heavy taxation.

FURHOK K. TANGREE

La Roche-sur-Foron, France