Azim Premji it seems is the first to smell the rat err, bell the cat.
A day after Manmohan Singh asked industries to broadbase employment and make it representative, Wipro chairman Azim Premji made it clear that his firm would recruit people only on the basis of merit thus ruling out reservation at Wipro. [...] “We have no alternative but to hire the best talent available within India and the best talent available globally to man our positions - critical positions, non-critical positions, (and) programming positions”, he added…. Premji said, “We appreciate the compulsions the country is going through in terms of reservation. But we (Wipro) are an organisation which requires selection on merits.”
Wish other industry biggies were this candid about their true views. But it is difficult to shake off the fear induced by the Evil Indian State for over 50 years.
What is now required is not meaningless, time-wasting debates over reservations in the private sector but a show of strength from the Indian industry as a whole that the days of such socialist nonsense are over. However, events over the last two years have shown that more and more businessmen have displayed a greater interest in getting into the Rajya Sabha–this phenomenon is yet another symptom of the fear I spoke about.
Tags: Commentary, Indian Politics, Pseudo Secularism Hall of Shame, Society & Culture
On 04.20.06 Niketan says:
Kudos to Mr Premji for having come out with this statement. Actually Mr Premji has an advantage that he belongs to a ‘particular’ community so the govt, politicians and the media will not hound him for this statement. Unfortunately not many other business people are that lucky. Yes - if the entire industry stands up to this bullying, then the debate will be worthwhile.
Of course Praful Bidwai, Dilip Dsouza and Shivam Vij will be silent for now. If Narayana Murthy or Rahul Bajaj had come out with this statement, just see how they would have gone hammer and tongs against him - against the so called ‘Brahminical tyranny’.
I think some industrialists will say yes and subvert the rules by paying off some people. Ultimately how the govt propose to implement this is something that nobody has asked. Are they going to appoint HR inspectors. In addition to Excise, Sales tax and others we will now have HR inspectors - Seems to be going back to the glory days prior to 1991.
All this in the name of social justice. Well, even the socialist policies we had formulated were supposed to achieve that, but achieved just the opposite.
On 04.20.06 Nitin says:
More power to Premji!
On 04.20.06 Niketan says:
Further to my earlier post, can u post this at the other India. I have been unable to do so. Seems like our ‘diversity’ people may not comment on this due to reasons I have mentioned earlier. Read Dilip Dsouza’a comments - how he has drawn analogies to Deccan Airways, Sehwag and Dhoni. In fact I was following one commenter - who said the right fact - Mandal talks of class but ultimately it is caste and not class that is coming into the picture - purely vote bank tactics. I had even challenged them - remove certain castes from the Backward tag - Especially the likes of Laloo, Mulayam etc. Well let us then see the reaction.
On 04.20.06 Sandeep says:
Niketan,
>>Further to my earlier post, can u post this at the other India.
I reckon you’re unaware of my previous encounter with Dilip. You can read it here: http://www.sandeepweb.com/2004/08/16/indebted-to-dilip-dsouza/
He was kind enough to comment on a few posts after that but then he stopped altogether. And I guess it’s no point trying to post at the other india blog.
On 04.20.06 Sandeep says:
Sorry Niketan,
Which specific post on the Other India are you talking about?
On 04.21.06 Niketan says:
Sandeep
It is regarding the reservations - not sure of it is in his own blog or at the other India. Sorry about the confusion. Just browsed through it quickly.
On 04.24.06 Sachin Kumar says:
Sandeep,
What makes you think whatever Premji says is beneficial for India?
He hasn’t even given out any of his stocks to his higher management, do you think what he’ll tell you will not be good for him.
To get to the point, he’ll go against it because he’ll have to make changes to his HR systems. which will take up money.
If he was that much against any “reservation” in principle, he’d have not used the’Minority Owned’ status for his own, in US which is his major market. I’m sure there will be other countries where he’s have used its systyems to make his money.
On 05.03.06 Desicritics.org: Media, Culture, Politics, Sports and More with a South Asian Focus says:
Just before His Educational Eminence, Arjun Singh announced this divisive move, other Reservation champions in the Manmohan Singh government had already threatened to unleash Reservations in the private sector. Thanks to people likeAzim Premji, this move has been thwarted. For now. Amid opposition from the private sector to reserving jobs for SCs and STs, the Government on Tuesday said it will not impose quotas on India, Inc., but only wanted more “affirmative action” from the industry for
On 05.16.06 m s waldia says:
It is time that we understood the real meaning of the issue.
Soon it will not be a case of mere discrimination against legitimate fundamental rights of so called upper cast citizens, but a case of PERSECUTION. Hitler had started the same way dividing German society and started a drift that changed the course of world history.
Does parliamentary democracy in India mean that bunch of politicians can kill the legitimate and fundamental rights of a certain section of society and start depriving them?
The constitution of India as it stands now, has lost the ability to protect rights of people who are being persecuted by the state on the basis of cast and religion -i.e. so called upper castes and Hindus!
Various Congress goevrnemnts have amended constitution so many times to suit its narrow political ends that the whole constitution has become lame and severely deviated from founding principles.
Is it not the time for petitioning the issue in UNHRC? Is it also not a time to start applying to foreign consulates and demand political asylum on the ground of persecution by the state? We now need to make world understand that a crisis similar to economical deprivation (worse than ethenic cleansing) of so called upper cast is systematically being run by governement of India.
Beware world! If situation deteriorates in India by the action of screwed up Indian politicians then the whole world will suffer due to massive migration of people form India.
On 05.17.06 mukesh k says:
Wipro chairman Mr. Ajim prem ji’s comment on reservation:
I think we should have job reservations in all the fields. I completely
support the PM and all the politicians for promoting this. Let’s start
the reservation with our cricket team. We should have 10 percent
reservation for muslims. 30 percent for OBC, SC/ST like that. Cricket
rules should be modified accordingly. The boundary circle should be
reduced for an SC/ST player. The four hit by an OBC player should be
considered as a six and a six hit by a OBC player should be counted as 8
runs. An OBC player scoring 60 runs should be declared as a century.
We should influence ICC and make rules so that the pace bowlers like
Shoaib Akhtar should not bowl fast balls to our OBC player. Bowlers
should bowl maximum speed of 80 kilometer per hour to an OBC player. Any
delivery above this speed should be made illegal.
Also we should have reservation in Olympics. In the 100 meters race, an
OBC player should be given a gold medal if he runs 80 meters.
On 05.26.06 L Gandhi says:
In ref to Sachin Kumar’s post on this page:
What makes you think reservations will be beneficial to India? The easier things become for any one starta of society the lazier they will be, and the worse the consequences of supporting them. People thrive in competitive environments, and hence become more productive.
So what if Azim Premji or other businessmen like him may use systems to make profit. Why not, as long as they dont misuse the system, which our Indian politicians are so grossly doing today.
And of course no company will want to spend thousands and lakhs on changing HR systems, and then landing up with less than the best, thanks to forced reservations, which leave educational institutions and companies alike vulnerable to the dead rot generated by such rules.. So fight against reservations now!
On 05.27.06 Suraj Sabberwal says:
Premji has spoken with such forthrightedness - exemplary. His honesty & integrity is much appreciated.
On a separate point, I am amazed about Sachin Kumar’s factually incorrect observation that WIPRO has not offered stocks to it’s employees.
Let me take you back in time to 1991. None of our home grown companies even dreamt of offering stocks to their employees. One company stood out - Wipro Infotech. They made an offer to each & every employee (even a fresh graduate with 6 months of work experience) had the option of buying shares of Wipro Infotech.
One of them is writing this note & is grateful to such a visionary company & it’s leader.
regards, suraj