Inspire Someone Today
Inspire Someone Today
E128| Another Sort Of Freedom | Gurcharan Das
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Gurcharan Das, the esteemed Indian author and former CEO of Procter & Gamble India, shares his inspiring journey from being "Nahi Kumar" to a celebrated writer and public intellectual. His story is filled with pivotal moments, shaped by his parents' contrasting influences and the profound lessons of humility taught by a guru in his childhood. From his educational pursuits at Harvard University to his transition from engineering to literature, Gurcharan's journey underscores the essence of following one's true calling. We explore how these experiences have become the backbone of his diverse career, reflecting on the personal insights that have guided him along the way.
Our conversation with Gurcharan takes a philosophical turn as we explore the art of making a life rather than just making a living. As a classical liberal and a proponent of India's economic reforms, he provides a unique perspective on balancing career ambitions with personal fulfillment. Through stories like Kamble's rise from security guard to role model, Gurcharan emphasizes the importance of finding purpose in work. He offers wisdom on the impact of economic policies on youth opportunities and shares how mentorship and family advice have shaped his life decisions. We also dive into the profound concept of Nishkam Karma and the importance of discipline in creative endeavors.
The episode wraps up with a compelling discussion about India's industrial potential and the need for economic reforms. Gurcharan argues for an industrial revolution in India, highlighting successful models like the Apple iPhone assembly to demonstrate the potential for job creation and economic growth. By examining the significance of labor-intensive sectors, he advocates for reforms that could enhance competitiveness and attract global manufacturing leaders. As we conclude, Gurcharan leaves us with an inspiring message to live with personal freedom and aspiration, encouraging listeners to find happiness in their work and live an examined life.
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A Journey of Inspiration and Transition
Speaker 1In kindergarten. I brought home a report card one day at the end of the. This is in August. This is in March 1947, the year of our independence. I was five years old and my mother saw me with this report card entering the house and she says did you stand first? My father was behind her on the other side and he said to my mother that was the wrong question. Ask him what he likes about school. Does he like to draw? Does he like poetry? Does he like stories? Does he like to sing? Who are his friends? Those are the right questions.
Speaker 2Welcome to Inspire Someone Today podcast, a show where we dive into the stories and insights that has the power to create ripples of inspiration in your life. I'm your host, shrikanth, and I'm thrilled to be with you on this journey of inspiration. Hey, my dear listeners, we are back with yet another episode, with yet another guest. Joining us today is Gulcharan Das. Mr Gulcharan Das needs no introductions. He is an Indian author. Das Mr Gulcharan Das needs no introductions. He is an Indian author, commentator and former CEO of Procter Gamble, india. He is widely known for his books that explore India's economic culture and moral philosophy, such as India Unbound and the Difficulty of being Good. Doing the rounds on the stands is his latest memoir, which is Another sort of freedom. That's the reason why we are here today, without much further ado. Gulcharan Ji, thank you for joining us on this episode of Friends by Someone today. Thank you, let's get started From the Naheed Kumar to Gulcharan Das. How did this transition happen?
Speaker 1Well, I must have been three. I just learned to run and, by the way, I've been running ever since, and often I run into myself. But the reason I remember so much of my childhood is because my mother kept a diary and I appeared on page 17 of her diary for the first time and she says this is a restless baby. And then, six months later, she's calling me a difficult child. And then, a year later, she's calling me a troublemaker. And when I went to the kindergarten, my teacher, I kept raising my hands to do something that was not allowed, and the teacher kept saying Nahi, nahi. And so she said look, from tomorrow I'm going to call you Nahi, that Nahi Kumar, because that will be much easier. And anyway, so that is how my name evolved until my grandmother suspected that my mother gave me the name Ashok Kumar because she thought my mother was secretly in love with a Bollywood actor named Ashok Kumar. You know the Bollywood actor there, ashok Kumar was just as popular today as Amitabh Bachchan or Shahrukh Khan or whatever.
Speaker 1Anyway, my grandmother then took me to a guru and she placed me at his feet and she asked the guru give this boy a name. And since he saw me at his feet. He said let's call him Guru Charan Das. So I was instantly transformed, at age four, from Ashok Kumar, which means the Prince of Happiness, to Guru Charan Das, which means the humble servant of the feet of the guru. So many years later I was grown up and I asked the guru why did you give me that name? And the guru said well, son, it's good to be reminded about humility once in a while. And so then he gave me the very best definition of humility there is. And it means, he said in his words, it is to take your work seriously, but not yourself seriously. And this also began, went on to become really my mantra for another sort of freedom. The book, the memoir that I have just written, the dedication to that book says to the happy few who don't take themselves too seriously, too seriously what a lovely start that was.
Speaker 2The transition began right at the helm when you were age four. And talking about transition, mr Ranjit, you had a diverse career, from leading a multinational to becoming a full-time writer and a public intellectual. What have been the most significant turning points in that journey?
Speaker 1Well, I can tell you that it begins in kindergarten. I brought home a report card one day at the end of the. This is in August, this is in March 1947, the year of our independence. I was five years old and my mother saw me with this report card entering the house and she says did you stand first? My father was behind her on the other side and he said to my mother that was the wrong question. Ask him what he likes about school. Does he like to draw? Does he like poetry? Does he like stories? Does he like to sing? Who are his friends? Those are the right questions, because you have to uncover this young boy's real passion in life. And so we jumped on this journey to when.
Speaker 1I'm 17 and I have the good luck of getting into Harvard University as an undergraduate and I remember my mother at Palam Airport in Delhi. She has tears in her eyes and in between the tears she's saying to me now, better study something useful. You have to get a job and you have to make a living. Why don't you become an engineer like your father? You'll always get a job as an engineer. So at this point in time we have the same binary expressing itself my mother is concerned about making a living and my father turns to me and he says you decide what you want to do, don't necessarily follow what your mother's advice is. Anyway, I go to Harvard, I sign in the form that I want to do a major in engineering, and so I start studying to be an engineer. And I have a roommate who is studying Russian literature and he's reading the novel Anakaranina. And one day at lunch he says Gurcharan, if you decide to marry someday, marry somebody like Anakaranina. And then he starts talking about the beauty of Anakaranina and talking about all her virtues. And then I say to myself something is wrong here. Here this guy is dreaming of sleeping with Anna Karenina and look at me, I'm calculating pipe friction and mugging up Bernoulli's equation. Something is wrong. And so in the next semester I switched to the liberal arts and I studied philosophy, greek tragedy, roman history, history of capitalism. I studied literature and I studied everything, including Renaissance painting and Bauhaus architecture, and even a course called Sanskrit, love, poetry. And when my mother hears that I am studying Sanskrit at Harvard, she goes hi, hi mera munda, a dead language. Only the dead will give him a job. But my mother, my father, has to calm her and to tell her that he's making a life. Don't worry, he's making a life through books. Anyway, I graduated in philosophy from Harvard. So this is another milestone in my life where I move again from making a living to making a life.
Speaker 1And then I'm back at home in Chandigarh where my parents live for the summer. I've got a scholarship to do a PhD in philosophy at Oxford and one day I asked myself do I really want to spend the rest of my life at that stratosphere of abstract thought? No, I want a life of action. Now, I don't know what that life of action means, but quietly I inform Oxford that I'm not coming and my mother's worst nightmare has come true that she has a grown-up son at home, idle, doing nothing Vela, we call it in Punjabi Vela. And so we have a neighbor who comes to visit my mother and have coffee with her in the morning, and she's always a nosy neighbor needling my mother what is your son doing? And my mother gets embarrassed every day. It's saying I don't know, you know. And so I see her embarrassment.
Speaker 1And I quickly start looking at the newspapers in the morning I checked the Times of India, I checked the Tribune, I checked Hindustan Times and finally I find an advertisement which is a wanted ad for trainees, by a company that makes Vicks Vapora. And so I apply and I get the job. And so overnight I have to move from the ivy covered halls at harvard, doing high philosophy, to the dusty bazaars of india selling wick to chemist shops, telling them one dozen with one free, one dozen, one free, how much do you want? And so life is very different. But I like actually the rough and tumble of the business life, but I miss the intellectual life. And so my father tells me you can see that I'm uneasy after a couple of years. And so he says well, you've got the weekend, why don't you do something you like on the weekend? You're working for an American multinational company. And well, so one Sunday morning I take his advice and I sit down to write a play. I tell myself in my confident, tall 22, age 22, that Shakespeare too must have sat down on a morning like this to write Hamlet. And so why can't I? Anyway, I begin writing a play. So I have a second weekend career. That opens up. The play does well, it wins a prize, it gets produced, it gets published, and then I write the second play, which also was done off-Broadway and anyway. So I got a second career.
Speaker 1I start moving up the company ladder and then one year there's a flu in the country. In between the company had sent me to the States for training etc. But I'm back in India and there's a flu and we sell a lot of wicks vapor up at that year and we think we have done a good job to keep the shelves stocked of the chemist shops during. We run three shifts and as we are celebrating that year by then, by the way, I moved up in the company and I'm a senior guy. So the day we are celebrating our success that year, I get a summons.
Speaker 1The lawyer presents me with a summons from Delhi and it says that we have broken the law. And what is the law? We have broken the licensing law. By the way, this is the time of the license. We've broken the law and what have we done? We've sold more VIX Vaporub than allowed in the license. It's 30% more tonnage of VIX that we have sold in during this year and there's a three-year jail sentence in breaking that law.
Speaker 1Jail sentence in breaking that law, and so I'm summoned to Delhi where the officer in charge. He's the joint secretary in MRTP and he treats me like a criminal. So I explained to him that there was a flu and I thought we did good. We helped millions of homes, families, children during an epidemic, a pandemic, and so this is the reason why it happened. And he says but you broke the law. I said yes, technically we broke the law. He says you admit that you broke the law. And I said yes, and he writes down something.
Speaker 1And then he says and I have these two lawyers with me who are shivering by now, and so we go out of his office, but at the door I turn around and I say to him that you know, we are American multinational company and the news will get out. It's not every day that an executive of an American multinational goes to jail, and so it will appear all over the world the New York Times, washington Post and everywhere. And so I ask him that what will the world think when they read the story that here was a company that was helping its people during a health emergency and you sent the executive to jail? What will they think of our laws? What will they think of our prime minister? And he said are you threatening me. I said no, I'm just telling you this is what will happen. I won't even have to leak the news, it will come out. And he said will happen, I won't even have to leak the news, it'll come out. And he said go. Anyway, when I came out of his office, the lawyers told me you idiot, you should have fallen on his knees and begged for mercy and look at you threatening him. And so I had a number of sleepless nights after that. But the government quietly dropped the inquiry. They must have seen common sense.
Speaker 1But I was so sickened by this almost nightmare that I I mean, I was been a socialist like everybody I joined the Swatantra party at that point and I became a classical liberal, became a classical liberal. And so really, as a country, we only got our economic freedom in 1991. We didn't get it in 1947. And so we lost two generations of our country's young people's hopes because there were no other jobs. You know, we created these wonderful IITs and I and iims, but there were no jobs for the. So they all ran away from india because the only jobs were in the government and the iis or whatever. And so you know, I mean you're. I'm giving you certain milestones. To answer your question as to how, finally, I became a big supporter of 1991 reforms, you did, and these are some wonderful pure-tell moments that you touched upon.
Speaker 2I'll just bring up two elements in what you said. You have been a fantastic storyteller so far. One was in that whole journey. If you look at it, there is this subtle unburdened confidence in you that you are able to take on anything, anything, with a lot of confidence, be it writing, be it on your corporate role. Where do you think this unburdened confidence stemmed from?
Speaker 1well, you know, I think it begins in the fact that I was a difficult I mean my mother said a difficult child and that I was, uh, my family celebrated when my brother was born because he was very calm and so I was. I mean, from my mother reminds me that my father's boss brought a toy for me when I was a child and I broke it instantly and then tried to mend it, to fix it to see how it worked, and then tried to mend it to fix it to see how it worked. So there was a streak in me which made me confident to take a risk, to try a different way. I mean quitting engineering and ending up in philosophy and then, after 91, I really quit the corporate world to become a writer, and it was the same thing. Of course, one thing I must tell you that wasn't a total risky decision, because I had started a second career when that day worn two hats Monday to Friday hat and Saturday, sunday hat and that I had gained a lot of confidence. I'd written three plays, I'd written a novel. All of them had been successful. So I had a certain, not only confidence, but my father's advice about making a life, and you know it was. I mean every person in his 40s, whether you are successful or less successful.
Speaker 1By then I was CEO of Procter Gamble, india. I had been. After 10 years of that, I had gone to the world headquarters. Gone to the world headquarters, I was managing director Procter Gamble worldwide, responsible for strategy, global strategy. And so my wife was horrified when I told her that I wanted to quit, that I was unhappy. You know, basically, shrikant, I wasn't happy. I may have reached the top, but I asked myself is this what life is all about? Selling wicks and oil overlay and pampers and tie, I mean all good brands, gillette, all these are very good brands, but there must be a bigger world outside. And that's what I felt. And so it was my father's advice about making a life. So you know, I've lived my life with both my mother making a living, my mother's advice and my father's advice. And I'm not suggesting that you have to quit your job to make a life. No, you can make a life at your job too.
Speaker 1And my book you've read it in the I told the story of Kamble and how this assistant security guard in a company rose up like a giant in our company and became a role model, and now he loved his job. I think he would have paid us to come to work. And so I would say that the critical thing here in the story is the desire to make a life. And I was lucky to have a father like that, because I think in every Indian youngster maybe not so much now when we have a little more prosperity, but when I was growing up there weren't jobs available and my mother reflected the insecurities of the Indian middle class, and so I thought there was a bigger world outside.
Speaker 1What would help me make a life? Now that I had the confidence was and every Indian asks this question and I'd studied enough economics at Harvard to know that we were a poor country and I said how does a poor country become a rich country? And thus was born the book India Unbound, and it was the first book that predicted the economic rise of India. And India blights by rising and we're still not creating enough jobs, but still we are on a much happier, much stronger path than we were in 1991.
Speaker 2I can't wait to get onto your memoir Before we get in there. You have touched upon a couple of these metaphors pretty consistently. One is making life versus making a living, and the other piece that you have spoken pretty regularly is about while my friends played golf for the weekend, I kept writing for the weekend. So in the current context, because a lot of our listeners are young listeners, how do you metaphorically have them to kind of relate to these two messages?
The Art of Making a Life
Speaker 1have them to kind of relate to these two messages. Well, I think the idea of making a life versus making a living. A lot of people will sympathize with that idea because all our parents will always tell us you've got to make a living, you've got to have a job. Yes, I think you know, very few of us are so wealthy that we won't need to work and to make a job. But my father's message about making a life meant that you know you can make a living, but you must remember that there's something else also, that there is a life, and you owe it to yourself as a human being to question, to live an examined life and to live a life. So what is that life? What is that life? And the Kamble story in my book will illustrate it.
Speaker 1And the first thing is that when you're making a life, you get so absorbed. By the way, in my definition of happiness, there are two sources of happiness. One is to love the work you do and two is to love the person you live with. And if you achieve these two, you've got it. And I would say that making a life requires you to get so absorbed in your work, you get so absorbed and you like it so much. One thing happens you forget the time. You say, oh my God, it's five o'clock, I thought it was only three. You've lost two hours in the afternoon because you are. So time gets distorted, gets distorted. Second, what happens is that you forget yourself, meaning that you don't care, the, the. What drives you is your work and you're not thinking oh my god, if I do this, will I get the next promotion. You know, which is a common thought, that if you are in the corporate world, that you think about my next promotion and the other thing about it is so you don't care. Actually, when you're so absorbed, you don't care who gets the credit for what you're doing. Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. He calls the idea Nishkam Karma. Nishkam Karma is the idea of acting for the sake of the actual and not for the fruit. Nishpala Karma not for the benefit that you will get results, results. We all care. If we take an exam, we want to pass, so that's a result. But what we don't care is ultimately, that we want it's the excellence of the work that defines the work. It's a. You know, the athletes called it being it in the zone. That's the expression they use. And uh.
Speaker 1Tendulkar was once asked just when he was approaching his second double century. He was asked remember the famous double century at the end of his career? And it was a brilliant, brilliant job. And so the reporter asked him how did it feel like when you were approaching that double century? And he said I don't know, I wasn't even there by then. The ball had become so big and the bat had become so big that the bat just kept hitting the ball.
Speaker 1Now, that's self-forgetting. That's the point, the guru remember. He changed my name. He changed my name, and what did he mean? He said to take your work seriously, but not yourself seriously. It's the same idea.
Speaker 1Most of our troubles are we are responsible. You know we are responsible. What will others think of you? We keep asking ourselves huh? And we're always worried about approval of others. And that is when, and it's only when, we forget ourselves, the way Tendulkar forgot himself that we rarely are. Not only, we are absorbed, but this is the secret of happiness to love something you do. And that's, of course, when I changed to writing. It was much more of that.
Speaker 1Now I'm not suggesting after 30 years of being a writer. I mean, I've had my success as a writer too, but the best part of writing is when I forget myself. I write every day for the last 30 years, wake up at 5.30, I'm at the desk by 6 in this room, in this very, very study, and I don't allow myself in the morning to read email, to do whatsapp, to even read the newspaper, because all these will put me on someone else's agenda. I don't even do yoga or walking because I may meet other people and they may put me on their agenda. I don't answer phone calls. You know people think writing is a very creative profession. Oh, you need to get into the mood. It's not a mood today. Today we won't write Rubbish, it's discipline, and so creative writing or creative work is done with enormous discipline. That's another thing. So, anyway, you asked me about making a life, so these are some of the ingredients of making a life.
Speaker 2Wonderful. Continuing with that, we'll talk about another sort of freedom. So by making a life, you did touch upon some elements of how one can get freedom, but now we are talking about another sort of freedom, which is the name of your memoir, and you have touched upon some elements of it during this conversation, and where I want to draw your attention is on some elements that really hit a good chord with me. So I want to pick on some of those elements and want to get your perspective on that. One such thing was Gulcharanji, was this line most of the shadows in our lives are the result of our standing in our own sunshine. How profound.
Speaker 1Well, that's part of the problem. Which I talked about was the ego. That's why I think that to make a life, you have to learn the art of self-forgetting. I'll tell you that it's not an easy thing to do. I mean the notion, this, the advice of krishna to arjuna in the bhagavad gita. It's idealistic. It's idealistic, I mean. It's very hard, you know, because that we are hardwired. We have risen through the evolutionary cycle from animals up from two apes and so on, so self that the self has served us to survive. If there was no feeling of self, we may not even survive in the world. But there comes.
Speaker 1There's a difference between being self-interested and selfish. It's a very thin line if it, if it's raining, I carry an umbrella, nothing selfish about that. But very quickly that self-interest becomes selfish. Meaning we are standing in a queue waiting and we are saying why am I not getting premium treatment? You know why it's it's you know you want to be always in business class or first class. Why am I in second class?
Seeking Freedom and Self-Discovery
Speaker 1It's, it's self-absorption, and it's not a nice thing. You know such a person. You sit next to this person on the flight and all he can do is talk about himself, talk about how great he is and all that. Nobody likes that. It's much better to have the confidence. It's much better to have the confidence to know your worth. You know you talked about confidence, confidence to change your life From one why did I from an engineer become a philosopher, and from a philosopher the salesman of Wix, and then became a CEO, and then I quit to become a writer. So all these things require not so much to tell yourself how great I am, but to tell, to be humble and seek for an experience that gives you, makes you live an examined life, and that's what the Guru also was giving advice. So that's the one way I would answer. And, frankly, once you do that, then you achieve what I in a quartet of books that I've recouped, and we have this notion in the Hindu tradition Artha, dharma, karma, moksha. These are the four, what's called the Purusharthas, the four goals of life, the four aims of life. So I wrote the first book. I mean I wasn't aware that I was following this, but I wrote India Unbound, which was about Artha, about living the material side of life, material well-being. Then I wrote the Difficulty of being Good, which was about Dharma, which was the moral side of life, the moral dimension, the moral side of life, the moral dimension, theatrical dimension of life. Then I wrote a book on karma, karma, the riddle of desire. That was on the third goal of life, which was, I celebrate, the desire, which is another very human goal. And so another sort of freedom is about the fourth goal of life, moksha.
Speaker 1Now, our understanding of moksha today is different from the original meaning of moksha. Original meaning meant just moksha, meaning freedom, which means that in the Sanskrit, ancient Sanskrit literature they talk about. When a prisoner comes out of jail you say mukti ho gayi, he got freedom. When you pay a debt to somebody, you feel mukti ho gayi, moksha. So it is a purely secular idea. It's only really later in our history, and particularly after Shankara, that moksha became this very spiritual ideal of going beyond birth and rebirth, meaning which was beyond this life. So this my meaning of freedom, in another sort of freedom is precisely self-forgetting diminishing your ego. No, the Vedanta and all talks about eradicating your ego. No, I don't think you can eradicate the ego. That's not human. But you can eradicate the ego, that's not human, but you can diminish it, and that's what I am talking about.
Speaker 2And you also have a very strong point of view on an autobiography versus memoir, and you do make a recommendation for people to write their own memoirs. Can you touch upon that element as well?
Speaker 1Well, I think we all want to know ourselves, and what I have discovered, as shri kant, is that a memoir, you know, will. Let me first define the difference between an autobiography and a memoir. An autobiography, yes, it's a straight retelling of your life. I was born here, my parents, my father was this, and I went to school here and so on. I worked here and everything right.
Speaker 1A memoir tries to connect the dots in your life and tries to find a pattern. In both cases, whether it's an autobiography or memoir, you have to remember, you depend on memory. But in the case of a memoir, you go beyond retelling your story. You actually try and find a pattern in your life by connecting the different incidents that happened to you, and so, if you're lucky, as I was, it results in getting to know yourself better. My pattern was this struggle in my life, constant struggle to give purpose and meaning to my life, and that's why I kept doing these crazy things at different points in my life. So my advice to everybody, including your listeners of this podcast, srikanth, is to write a memoir. Why? Because you have to relive your life, and I've discovered that reliving your life is better than living it. Why is it better? Because you can play God, you choose to remember what you remember and you choose to write about what you write, and so you are in charge, and so in that process you develop, you evolve a certain knowledge of yourself.
Speaker 2What practices do you adapt to keep yourself so sharp, so witty? Guru Charanji.
Speaker 1Well, you know now. I mean, I was born in 1942, in the middle of the World War. You know when all these guys were bashing each other, Hitler and Stalin and Mao no, mao wasn't there, but Hitler, stalin, churchill and Emperor Harold de Rovito. Luckily India escaped thoseobito. Luckily India escaped those world wars.
Speaker 1No, I am now in my 80s, but I think what kept me going is one I narrated to you my routine. If you're going to wake up at 5.30 every day, you better sleep by 10 o'clock at night, and which is what I do, and swim at four in the afternoon as well, and the other thing. So when I finish at 12, uh, my writing, then I go for a swim, and luckily, even in, even in del Delhi in the winter it's very cold, but there's a pool nearby with warm water, and so solar, heated, warm water, and so I swim, and that opens the pores of the skin, the body, and relaxes the body. Then I come and have lunch with my wife, and it's then that I actually lie down, and that's when I read the paper, whether on my ipad or in the, the hard copy of the newspaper, and only after one hour do I meet my secretary and do the affairs of the day. You know everybody has to. You've got I'm on boards that the bank work, investments, yeah, walk, all those things.
Speaker 1And then at five is my social time, and social time means I go for a walk and usually with somebody who wants to meet me or I want to meet, and so we walk and we talk, and so between swimming and walking I get my daily exercise, and so that's the kind of life that I routine, I live, and also, you know, writing keeps me on my toes, whether it's a newspaper column or it's my, it's another book, but it it keeps the mind active. For 30 years I've not asked in the morning. I've never I've not asked. And what shall I do today? There's always something that needs to be done and it and I'm, I'm pulled like a magnet from my bedroom to my study, your study so reflective of that.
Speaker 2So we'll round off our conversation on. Conformity is a prison. We should not be defined by what we do, but what we are. And you wrote this in response to your visiting md's wife and her wanting to know about Indian culture and how you were prepared to kind of give her the brief of India, and then it turned out to be something else. Her expectation was to know about culture, not about business.
Speaker 1Right? Well, you know, that's the other. We have talked about this idea this afternoon and I would only say that when you free yourself that other sort of freedom I talked about is partly to free yourself from what do others think of me? You know, if you're working and you're working without any expectations, society's expectations, your parents' expectations you achieve a degree of freedom, and I would say that that's what makes you who you are, that's living to be who you are, instead of what you asked me. So I think that's the freedom. It's another way of not to suggest that I've achieved it. By the way, it's a work in progress.
Speaker 1I still I can forget myself when I'm writing. But when the writing is over and I go to the bookshop in Khan Market, I check the store and when I find I mean, it happened a few months ago I went to Bari and Sons and I found that here I'd written a new book, but it wasn't in the window. So I charged in and I said I'm a famous writer and you don't have my book in the window. So you see, the ego never goes away. It very, very difficult. The thing is to recognize, recognize that that that's not the part of you that is ultimately fulfilling the part of you is. It's fulfilling is the work you do. And I'm still bothered, uh bothered, whether I have uh achieved what I set out to be.
Speaker 1And and there's that quote of Seneca's that I used in my, I mean in my book I mentioned. Oh, seneca, you know, says while I was busy, life passed me by. And sometimes I also ask myself that, am I too busy and has life passed me by? And then I ask what is that life? And then I wonder what my father meant making a life? And then if Seneca could ask this question Now I must tell you about, I must tell your listeners could ask this question Now I must tell you about, I must tell your listeners, Seneca was a Roman, very successful Roman writer, playwright, the leading intellectual of the Roman Empire. He was advisor to the emperor and the emperor was incompetent. So that means Seneca was running the empire and then he fell in love with the wife of the emperor and he had to flee for his wife's life because they were going to kill him. Now for him to ask this question if he did not live his life, who did so? It's not an easy, easy question to answer.
Speaker 2Indeed. So, Guruji, we have been having wonderful conversation, particularly around your memoir. As we are getting closer to home run, and for somebody who has followed India's economic growth very closely, what have you observed from India's journey over the decades and what do you think is the future of this country over the next 20 years?
A Call for Industrial Revolution
Speaker 1Well, let's begin in 1991. That's when our economy really began. The first 40 years were a washout. So since 1991, we have grown at 6% a year average, over 30 odd years, exclude the COVID years, and now that's, as I said, very good. We have lifted 450 million people out of poverty. The middle class has grown from 10% to 30%, but we still have not created enough jobs. And why? Because we have failed to create an industrial revolution. Our economy is fired only on two cylinders, not on three. What has failed is manufacturing and services have done very well and they will continue to do very well and, thank God, we are known in the world because of IT and the digital revolution We've.
Speaker 1In agriculture, we were a deficit country, a basket case, in the 1960s and today we are the fourth largest exporter of agricultural products. But manufacturing has failed. Manufacturing, and you can tell from these three statistics it's less than 15% of GDP, it employs less than 12% of employees and it exports 2% of global exports. Now, every country that went from being poor to middle class fired through manufacturing by creating industrial revolution. In the last 50 years, the Asian tigers came up Japan, Korea, taiwan and latest China. They all rose up on the back of export, of labor-intensive manufacture. That's where we have failed, and so, if we want to achieve the objective that Mr Modi has set for India at 2047, we will have to create an industrial revolution. We can't do without it. We can't skip the manufacturing stage, and it's still not too late, and also we can still reap the demographic dividend. We have 20 years before we begin to age as a country. China's already begun to age, and also this is a good moment in history, because investors are scared of China because of China's own flaws. But we have to do the heavy lifting, and heavy lifting means we'll have to do the reforms that will make our economy competitive Labor reforms, land reforms, agricultural reforms all these that Mr Modi failed to do in the last 10 years. He promised in 2014 Vikas Parivartan. We haven't achieved that yet, and so I would say the one model I have found that we can follow a success story, a recent success story which can become the trigger for growth, and we are in a much better position today to achieve that industrial revolution, because infrastructure is much better. The road mileage has doubled since 2011. Port handling capacity has quadrupled, so one of the good things this government has done is infrastructure. We are now one country, thanks to GST, we have an insolvency cold, so we are not stuck with these underperforming companies. So a lot of good.
Speaker 1But the model that I would suggest is the model by which Apple phones, iphones, are being made in India, and you know what this has meant. It has meant an employment, direct employment, through three factories of 150,000 people. 70% of these are women, and they are not high-skilled people. For many it's their first-time job. Just training on the job from four to six weeks made them perfectly capable.
Speaker 1So one thing we have to realize that electronics is a labor-intensive sector electronics assembly and now, if we can bring the component makers of iPhone, because now it's only assembly of iPhone, but the real job and the real value added is the components. Unfortunately they're all Chinese, but I think the government has now realized that it does not have to compromise security and bring these guys, because that's how technology transfer will take place when Indians start working for these Chinese component manufacturers. When Indians start working for these Chinese component manufacturers, and also the job multiplier is much greater. Then because you have micro. You have a small company who sells to the component company the ancillary to iPhone, and then there's a micro industry that sells to that company. So that's how the chain of multiplication takes place and job creation takes place. So, instead of trying to wait for Indian champions to develop, which will take time, there's not a single global brand today which is Indian, and so we should target all the global leaders in manufacturing in the labor-intensive areas Garment, shoes, toys, food processing, electronics.
Speaker 1A lot of electronics are labor-intensive. If I were Mr Modi, that's what I would tell From tomorrow. That's the job, and he can make those reforms happen. Only now it'll be tougher because he has coalition partners, a very aggressive opposition. He'll have to learn to sell the ideas, and you know, a reformer has to sell their ideas, you can't just impose them. Margaret thatcher, who is a great reformer, used to say I spend 20% of my time reforming and 80% selling the reforms.
Speaker 2So there you go. The birth of an economically developed India is focused on manufacturing.
Speaker 1And jobs and they will bring the jobs and India. 60% of India has to become middle class from 30% today.
Speaker 2But it can be done, not a far out guy. I think there is hope, there is ambition and there is aspiration in this country. Guru Charanji, this has been a lovely conversation. Wish the time was closer and we could have continued for some more time. This show is all about creating ripples of inspiration. Before we sign off, what would be your Inspire Someone Today? Message to all of our listeners.
Speaker 1Well, I would say, achieve another sort of freedom. I would say live lightly, live lightly. Patanjali also uses this expression. It's called Lagima. In the Yoga Sutras Patanjali refers to Lagima as one of the siddhis, one of the perfections, and the practice of yoga gives you that lightness also, but also self-forgetting gives you a sense of that freedom and lightness. So live lightly.
Speaker 2Live lightly not like a feather, but like a bird Live lightly so that it is good enough for you to propel forward, propel higher and achieve whatever you want to achieve. On that note, guru Chetan Ji, thank you so much for sharing this sort of freedom with me and all of my listeners. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Inspire Someone today. This is Srikanth, your host, signing off. Until next time, continue to carry the ripples of inspiration, stay inspired, keep spreading the light.
