Just to counterbalance my earlier blog post about the “savings ethic” of Indians, I thought I should also add a post on the “scamming ethic” of Indians – which sometimes wears a pretty face: it’s all done for the family. To bad if the family sometimes sounds like its name is Corleone….or in this case…Ramalinga Raju.

Raju is the disgraced CEO of Sathyam computers, an infotech giant. Sathyam was cooking its books on an Enron-esque level and its unmasking has sent sent shock-waves through out India’s ” New Economy.” Here’s a recent post that tries to figure out whether the average Indian is as shocked or more innured to this kind of corruption than the media coverage lets on:

“The corporate malfeasance confessed to at Satyam has shocked the nation with words like “financial 26/11? and “India’s Enron” being used to describe this catastrophe for India Inc. Satyam has been subject to ritual humiliations like having their corporate ethics award withdrawn and being taken off stock indices. The economic pundits are baying for blood. On the board floor.

But what does the man in the street think of all this?

Let’s find out in this exclusive GB TV news report.

[Background music: Satyam Shivam Sundaram. Ishwar Satya Hain. Satya Hi Shiva Hain. Shiv Hi Sundar Hain. A haaa A haaaaaaa]

Samar is 16 years old and is in Class 11. This is what he had to say.

I don’t see what’s wrong in making a few untrue statements in the balance books. I mean come on dude. Everybody does that at school while doing lab reports. I mean how can one really get a straight line graph while plotting V vs I? It never happens. So you massage the data so that it “fits”. The teachers know it. The students know it. The teachers when they were students did it.

Mona is 33. She works in a cell center.

If you don’t have it, you pad it. Be they balance sheets or bra cups. That’s common knowledge. When prospective grooms come to our house, I always wear padded bras. My aunts told me to do so. Are they asking me to cheat? I don’t think so. And just to balance out that exaggeration, I also under-estimate. I say I am 25 years old.

And it’s not just the younger generation who are supportive of the management at Satyam.

Raghavan is 45. He works for the government.

[Angrily]

So what’s the crime here? Using shareholder money to buy shares in the company your son runs at outrageously elevated prices? I mean if you are dragged over the coals for looking after your family, what is a man to do? Apne to aapne hote hain. What next? Ban the Congress Party?

Lalaji is 65. He has run a grocery for 45 years now.

My dad always used to tell me “Before you decide to be Harishchandra, remember what happened to him. And let that serve as a warning.” I have always followed that dictum and every successful business has to. I keep a metal weight below my scales, I put small bits of stone in the rice, I adulterate the cooking oil. I have two ledger books.

It’s not just me. The dairy-boy who my wife buys milk from has more water than milk. The asli desi ghee I buy is hardly asli. Everyone is tampering with numbers and ratios. Thats how it always has been with dhanda-giri.

There is just one crime in business. Just one.

And that’s getting caught.”

More at Great Bong.

 Comment:

*Satyam means truth. And the lyrics in the quote are taken from a famous old Bollywood movie called Sathyam, Shivam, Sundaram  (which you could translate as “Truth, Goodness, and Beauty”)….

*Ghee is melted butter

*Harishchandra is a prince in classical Hindu literature who is renowned for his truthfulness and goes to extraordinary lengths to keep his word and keep his obligations.  Truth- speaking is almost universally posited as one of the two or three highest virtues in classical Indian texts (the others equal to it are equanimity and doing your duty).  Gandhi wrote an intellectual autobiography called “My Experiments with Truth” and the Indian state’s motto is Satyameve Jayate which is Sanskrit for the “Truth Always Triumphs.”