How a Muslim Billionaire Thrives in Hindu India
Mike Ghouse, September 18, 2007
Part II is added below
Not all Muslims wear their
religion on their sleeves, why should they? Not all Hindus,
Christians, Jews or others wear it either. The below posted
article on Azim Premji in the Wall Street Journal is getting
quite a lot of reviews. I have included notes from my friends on
the subject followed my own commentary.
Premji should be applauded for keeping religion out of his
office. As a Muslim he has not Muslimized his office nor does he
hire people based on religion. He is a true role model for India
for years to come. Much of the conflict can go away, if all
Indians follow that model.
Indeed, Premji is a shining example of keeping business as
business and keeping the faith where it belongs; home and your
heart. I hope this model of his becomes a norm in India or
elsewhere. On the other hand, as a pluralist, I do not have any
problem if people practice their faith every day.
My Brother in Bangalore has both the picture of Krishna and the
Name of Allah hanging on the wall in his real estate office. As
he share is his office with his Hindu friend. If you are new and
visit my office or home your head will spin… trying to figure
out my religion. Religion is personal, it makes one a better
human and create better relations if it is understood in the
spirit which it was issued.
In any given office, let's say there are people from all faiths
and are working together. There will be coffee breaks, lunch
hour and bath room visits. When people take lunch break they may
go to a restaurant together and order different foods, from pure
vegetarian to Kosher, Halal, Beef or pork to whatever. We can do
the cry baby – you are not sensitive about me, you know I don’t
eat (meat, pork or beef) and you have this dead animal sitting
in my face on your plate, or we can get angry that the others
did not give a hoot about my sentiments. All of them can go back
to the office with a sour face.
Better yet, no one should abstain from eating certain food out
of respect for the other, as the other would be insisting,
please eat what you enjoy. I respect you for who you are and not
what is in your plate. We can also add “Hey, I am so happy that
you got what you want to eat, enjoy it my friend. Perhaps, all
of them will enjoy their food and go back to office without a
good mood.
It is not, wearing or not wearing of religion that matters; it
is our attitude towards inclusion that really matters, as it
uplifts every one in the office.
No one does business with the other for their religion. It
should be for who they are and not what they wear on them.
Mike Ghouse
http://www.mikeghouse.net/
Salil
Many thanks for your mail. I too was puzzled by Versey's piece,
which
I see as a case of overreading. I appreciate many of her
writings and
Versey is by no means a religious or political conservative but
her
argument here sounds suspiciously conservative. Indirectly she
seems
to be saying that the only authentic Muslim is one with a beard
or in
a burkha.
Versey thus seems to miss one fundamental point : just because
Premji
does not proclaim his faith in obvious ways does not make him
less of
a Muslim or less of a good Muslim. There are many Muslims like
this in
India, whose Indian Muslim identity is not defined exclusively
by
Muslim personal law, who do not agonize whether wearing a
wristwatch
or taking out a life-insurance policy is consistent with fiqh,
or who
insist that they don't need to pay taxes because they already
pay
zakaat.
My hunch is that the possibility of Premji becoming a role model
for
Muslims makes the mullas, self-proclaimed leaders like Syed
Shahabuddin and Bukhari, and our politicians nervous. (As
someone
informed me backchannel, in the opinion of Rafiq Zakaria, Kalam
is not
a real Muslim). Who will keep them in business? Sania provokes
the
same anxiety which is why the fatwas started pouring out when
she made
news for her sporting achievement...
Muslims who fit the Premji paradigm (in terms of not wearing
their
faith on their sleeve) often don't speak up because of the
possibility
of censure and ostracism in local community structures, and
because
they are not recognized as Muslims in the same way that
rabble-rousers
and so-called community leaders are. Our media too have not
quite
given these Muslims the voice they deserve. So, yes, three
cheers for
all the Premjis and budding Premjis.
Rohit / Boston
Hi Salil,
The article appeared in Counterpunch.org, a controversial outlet
to say the least.
While I agree with many of your points, I think perhaps Versey
is taking the WSJ article in a different context. I found it
interesting that she first made it a point to say that India "is
not Hindu," something which made me read her piece from a
different vantage than I normally would. She also spent a
significant portion of the article pointing out that Muslims are
clustered into ghettos, and also took the time to mention that
she herself was born an Indian and felt no supranational loyalty
that superceded that to her country of birth (strange point to
make, all things considered).
Perhaps her gripe was more that taking note of a Muslim Indian's
religious affiliation somehow suggests that Muslims everywhere
should be shown they can still be Muslim and succeed in India,
when what she really wanted was to dismiss Muslim identity as a
factor altogether. I've noticed this trend among many
Muslim-Indian nationalists, some of whom find it insulting that
people allegedly pay special attention to their religious
affiliation when what they desire more than religious tolerance
is unconditional acceptance as Indians first and Muslims second
(if at all).
It doesn't look like Versey would even broach the topic of Hindu
tolerance, but would rather focus on Indian unity. Why else
would she take the trouble to venture a bit off-topic and say
India was not Hindu (not to mention throw in her own personal
experiences in a piece meant to be a rebuttal to someone else's
article)?
Just a thought.
Best
Khalil
Khalil,
Thanks for sending this. Where did it appear?
The spirited nature of the piece apart, I think Versey has
missed the point of the piece - spectacularly. While she sees
the article as patronizing to India and to Mr Premji, I see it
as a great example of disabusing readers who aren't familiar
with India or with Islam, that
just-because-India-is-a-Hindu-majority-it-doesn't-mean-a-Muslim-can't-succeed;
and that A-Muslim-tycoon-doesn't-have-to-be-an-oil-sheikh.
These are important markers, worth reminding in these
interesting times. And Mr Premji's ascent is as remarkable as
Stan O'Neal heads Merrill Lynch or Rick Parsons heads Time, Inc.
Yes, a headline saying a black heads an icon in white corporate
America would not sound outrageous; it would draw attention for
all the right reasons - it would show the meritocratic nature of
corporate America. (Two decades ago, no Fortune 500 company was
run by a person of color or a woman; I was at a US B-School
then; the talk was of glass ceiling. Now, nobody talks about
that. Cream rises to the top, whether white or not). I think
that's the rationale behind pointing out a Muslim running one of
India's topmost companies. Contrast that with Gujarat, and you
realize how important Mr Premji's achievements are. Gujarat is
his home state, run by one of the most hardline chief ministers
who was denied visa to the US because of his role in the Gujarat
riots. That's a contrast no journalist should miss pointing out,
even if the riots per se have no relation with Mr Premji's
achievements, because the coexistence of those riots and Mr
Premji's achievements show India in all its contrasts.
What's worse are the unresearched innuendos with which the
column is filled. "In all likelihood" she says, the Muslim mafia
is richer or investors in big companies. Isn't that a caricature
itself? Has she checked where they invest? Would they want a
paper trail of investments, which can be linked to companies, so
exposed, so that it could be confiscated?
More power to Mr Premji for not closing office on Muslim
holidays, or for not wearing his faith on his sleeve. But the
fact that he does not do these things, at the time of religion's
revival, is a legitimate point. The Marriotts are Mormons, and
there's a burger chain in California which publishes references
to biblical verses on its plates and cups. Wipro doesn't print
"786" or something similar on each shrink-wrapped software
package. I think this is an important thing for readers to know.
That they don't start their day with a prayer - unlike Japanese
company songs - is also an important thing to know. It shows Mr
Premji to be an ordinary person, an Indian, pursuing profit.
What better compliment can be there than that?
Finally, while Mr Premji had a family business to start with, it
was a vegetable oil business; it was his entrepreneurship that
built a completely different line of business, and made it such
a success. India deserves more of him, more of Sania Mirzas,
more of Irfan Pathans, more of Aamir Khans, and more of Nafisa
Alis. And their thriving doesn't necessarily show Hindu
tolerance. In some cases, they may have succeeded despite Hindu
bigotry. Now, that's a good story readers in India need to know,
so that they get off their smug high-horse of India shining and
rising and all that....
Cheers,
Salil/London
The sub-text quite clearly is that only those Muslims thrive
in a modern world who aren't actually 'Muslim.' Whatever that
word may mean to whomsoever. Anything to get a little attention.
That reminds me to make a suggestion that SAJA could look into
creating a hall of fame for worst pieces carried by the most
read papers.
Regards
Saima
How a
Muslim Billionaire Thrives in Hindu India
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
SECULAR ENGINEER
How a Muslim Billionaire
Thrives in Hindu India
Mr. Premji Has Wealth
And Clout as Wipro Chief;
The Imam Disapproves
By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV
September 11, 2007; Page A1
BANGALORE, India -- The world's richest Muslim entrepreneur
defies conventional wisdom about Islamic tycoons: He doesn't
hail from the Persian Gulf, he didn't make his money in
petroleum, and he definitely doesn't wear his faith on his
sleeve.
A native of Mumbai, Azim Premji has tapped India's abundant
engineering talent to transform a family vegetable-oil firm,
Wipro Ltd., into a technology and outsourcing giant. By serving
Western manufacturers, airlines and utilities, the company has
brought Mr. Premji a fortune of some $17 billion -- believed to
be greater than that of any other Muslim outside of Persian Gulf
royalty.
Such success, Mr. Premji says in an interview, shows that
globalization -- a force Islamist activists decry as Western
neocolonialism -- is turning into "two-way traffic" that can
bring tangible benefits to developing countries.
Mr. Premji's rise is already inspiring some Indian Muslims to
embrace the modern, globalized world. "He's an icon. He shows
that excellence has no caste and no creed, and that if one has
excellence, one can make it to the top," says Mohamed Javeed,
principal of Bangalore's predominantly Muslim Al-Ameen College.
One of the students, Mohammed Nasseer, enthuses, "I'd love to
become like Premji one day."
A role model like Mr. Premji might seem to be what India's
Muslims need. Though the country's economy is growing at 9% a
year, the vast majority of India's estimated 150 million Muslims
-- the largest Islamic population in the world after Indonesia
and Pakistan -- remain socially marginalized, badly educated and
mired in deep poverty. By and large, they're left out of the
social transformation that is propelling millions of their Hindu
compatriots into prosperity, as barriers of caste disappear and
India's new corporate giants provide opportunities that never
existed before.
Yet, to many in India's Muslim community, Mr. Premji's enormous
wealth, far from being inspiring, shows that success comes at a
price the truly faithful cannot accept. They resent that Mr.
Premji plays down his religious roots and declines to embrace
Muslim causes -- in a nation where people are pegged by their
religion and where Hindus freely flaunt theirs. "If you are a
Muslim and want to be rich in India, you have to show you are
very secular," says Zafarul Islam Khan, secretary-general of the
All-India Muslim Majlis e Mushawarat, an umbrella group.
A Muslim school a half-hour's drive from Mr. Premji's Bangalore
home reveals the chasm between this globalist success story and
the country's Muslim masses. Students sitting cross-legged on
the floor of the Masjid e Takwa madrassa spend their days
memorizing the Quran in Arabic -- a language that neither they
nor their teacher understand.
The classes are taught in Urdu, a tongue that's largely confined
to Muslims and uses the Arabic script. There is no science in
the curriculum. Neither is there English, the language in which
Wipro conducts business and interviews job applicants, as it
looks for Westernized staff who can deal with international
customers.
The madrassa's imam, Munir Ahmed, says that for his students, a
future as self-employed shopkeepers or peddlers is preferable to
seeking formal work at a large company. "A job is like being a
slave," Mr. Ahmed chuckles, adding that his graduates are in
great demand as teachers in other madrassas. Schoolboys in the
streets nearby, asked about Wipro, say they've never heard of it
or of Mr. Premji.
The condition of India's Muslims is rooted in the partition of
the subcontinent along religious lines in 1947. Amid horrendous
massacres, millions of Muslims fled to the newly formed
Muslim-majority state of Pakistan, just as most of Pakistan's
Hindus and Sikhs escaped to India.
The Muslims who abandoned India included large numbers of the
most educated and successful. Those remaining after partition
have become "economically, socially, educationally...India's
most backward community," says Mahmood Madani, a Parliament
member who is secretary-general of India's leading Muslim
religious organization, Jamiat Ulema e Hind. By some economic
and social measures, Muslims are even losing out to Dalits, the
erstwhile "untouchables" who are at the very bottom of the Hindu
caste hierarchy.
Illiteracy is higher among Muslims than among Dalits in the key
6-to-17 age group. Although Muslims account for more than 13% of
India's population, they make up only 1.7% of undergraduates in
India's version of the Ivy League, the seven Indian Institutes
of Technology. The underrepresentation is just as severe in the
nation's bureaucratic elite: Muslims make up 3% of staff in the
Indian Administrative Service and 1.8% of the diplomatic corps.
Only a few of the Muslims who stayed behind in India after
partition have managed to prosper, including some Bollywood
stars and A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who until recently held the
largely ceremonial post of Indian president. "The Muslims we
have in India are mostly the poor and the laborers, and a few
very rich people like Premji," says Ramachandra Guha, a
prominent historian.
With the country regularly rocked by bombings carried out by
radicalized Muslim groups, such as the twin attacks that killed
42 people in the technology hub of Hyderabad in late August,
even many Hindu politicians and academics see an urgent need to
bridge the economic divide between the Muslim minority and the
Hindu majority. The Indian government is considering measures to
extend to most Muslims the affirmative-action benefits that have
long reserved a large share of government jobs and university
places for Dalits and other underprivileged groups.
Unlike those observers and Muslim community leaders, Mr. Premji
bristles impatiently when the plight of the broader Muslim
populace is cited. "This whole issue of Hindu-Muslim in India is
completely overhyped," the 62-year-old executive says.
Mr. Premji has mentioned his Muslim background so rarely in
public that many Indian Muslims don't even know he shares their
heritage. None of Wipro's senior managers aside from Mr. Premji
himself are Muslims. The company maintains normal working hours
on Islamic high holidays. Among its 70,000 employees, there's
only a "sprinkling" of Muslims, according to Sudip Banerjee,
president of a division that accounts for a third of revenue.
Mr. Premji's private philanthropy is dispensed through a
foundation that's managed by a Hindu former Wipro executive and
cuts across religious lines. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks, U.S. officials asked the Aziz Premji Foundation to help
start an education program that would instill moderate values in
Islamic schools. The foundation declined the religion-focused
project, according to its chief executive, because "we are
working for all."
In an interview at Wipro's sleek Bangalore campus, which had
just been visited by a group of Israeli businessmen, Mr. Premji
scoffed at the idea he should display his Muslim identity or
champion the cause of Muslim advancement in India. "We've always
seen ourselves as Indian. We've never seen ourselves as Hindus,
or Muslims, or Christians or Buddhists," he said.
These secularist values came to him naturally. There was no
madrassa in Mr. Premji's own education. He attended a Mumbai
Catholic school, St. Mary's, and then studied electrical
engineering at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.
As a prominent Muslim businessman in the 1940s, Mr. Premji's
late father, M.H. Premji, faced repeated requests for support
from Pakistan's fiery founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who offered
the father a cabinet-minister job in the new Muslim country. But
the Premji family didn't believe in a religious state, and
refused to move. "We did not think in these terms," Mr. Premji
says. "There were roots in India, there were roots in Bombay.
Why should one in any way dislodge these roots?"
While India's Muslim groups complain about facing daily
discrimination, Mr. Premji says the only time he has been
singled out because of his Muslim heritage wasn't in India but
at a U.S. airport shortly after 9/11. In doing business in
India, he maintains, "I don't think being a Muslim or being a
non-Muslim has been an advantage or disadvantage. It's just been
based on the merits of the opportunities."
He's been adroit at seizing those. After the death of his father
in 1966, he took the helm at Wipro at the age of 21, against the
wishes of board members who wanted seasoned management. Long
publicly traded -- although controlled by the Premji family with
81% of the stock -- the company then had annual sales of only $2
million. It was known as Western India Vegetable Product Ltd.
and mostly produced a kind of sunflower oil called vanaspati, a
staple of Indian cuisine.
Mr. Premji set out to diversify, and a break came in 1977, when
a coalition of Hindu nationalists, Socialists and others
displaced the ruling Congress party. The new government clamped
down on multinationals, prompting the exodus of corporate giants
like International Business Machines Corp. and Coca-Cola Co. Mr.
Premji stepped in, beginning to manufacture computers and other
electronics.
"The space was opened because imports were banned into India, or
imports were very expensive because of duty tariffs," he
recalls. He set up shop in Bangalore, a southern city whose dry
highland air is well suited for assembling electronics. He hired
managers and engineers from India's large military industry.
Wipro became a major manufacturer of technology hardware.
The bonanza ended in the early 1990s as a different Indian
government, seeing capitalism rise in former Eastern-bloc
nations, abandoned socialism and eased import restrictions. This
created something of a crisis for Wipro and other electronics
manufacturers. "The goods and services that we produced were no
longer needed because customers could buy what's best and
available on the global market," says Wipro's Mr. Banerjee.
While many of Wipro's peers didn't survive the change, Mr.
Premji spotted another opportunity in the upheaval. Wipro went
to the foreign companies with which it did business when it was
a manufacturer, such as General Electric Co. and Sun
Microsystems Inc., and offered a new relationship. At relatively
low cost, its high-quality engineers could take on outsourced
work such as design, research and testing.
Wipro's outsourcing business now spans the gamut. It has simple
call-center management, but it also designs mobile phones for
leading international brands. It runs the computer systems of
European utilities and does full-service business consulting. In
the fiscal year ended March 31, Wipro's profit surged 44% to
$677 million, as sales climbed 41% to $3.47 billion. The shares,
which are also traded on the New York Stock Exchange, have
tripled in value over the past five years, giving the company a
market value of some $20 billion.
As Wipro becomes a global powerhouse, company officials say they
seek to hire the best regardless of creed. They say that among
the reasons few Indian Muslims meet Wipro's stringent standards
is that they often study in Urdu rather than English, and rarely
pursue engineering degrees. Urdu, which is also the official
language of Pakistan, is intertwined with Islamic identity on
the subcontinent. In southern India, where most of the country's
technology industry is based, Hindus speak a number of regional
languages and are more likely to study English.
"All our hiring staff are trained to interview in English," Mr.
Premji says. "They're trained to look for Westernized segments
because we deal with global customers." Out of every 100
résumés received, only one or two usually come from Muslim
applicants, according to a former manager in Wipro's
human-resources department.
Yet, as outsourcing giants like Wipro and Infosys Technologies
Ltd. have grown and hired, the attitudes of some Muslims toward
education are slowly beginning to change. Bangalore's Al-Ameen
college is run by a movement that seeks to modernize the Muslim
community. About 360 graduate and undergraduate students, both
men and women, are currently studying for computer-science
degrees. Most are Muslims, including pious young men with long
beards and women with an Islamic hejab that covers their hair,
though not their faces.
Many graduates have already gotten jobs at companies like Wipro
and Infosys, says the college's principal, Mr. Javeed, and have
started to earn salaries well above those offered outside the
booming technology industry. "This has brought awareness to the
Muslim community about the need to pursue higher education," he
says. "People are beginning to realize that education is power,
that education is money, that education is an opportunity."
Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com
YOUR COMMENTS PLEASE
http://www.counterpunch.org/versey07252007.html
Lessons from the Case of Dawood Ibrahim
God Acquitted!
By FARZANA VERSEY
Haji Mastan, the aging underworld Mumbai don, looked at my
fingernails that were at the time rather long, neatly filed and
painted with toffee-coloured varnish. He asked me, his gaze
still fixed on my talons, "Mussalman?"
Since my nails professed no religion, I assumed the query was
directed at me. I nodded. What followed was a short lecture on
Islamic nails. 9/11 was years away and America had not
discovered the Muslim version of Dirty Harry. If that were so,
then I would have been accused of sitting with a terrorist
(though he called himself a social worker), just as Dawood
Ibrahim has been branded one by the United States.
You may wonder why I am bringing up his name now. The 1993 bomb
blasts' judgement is out. Nowhere has Dawood been held
responsible for it; he was not even a mastermind.
To come to the verdict, Judge P. D. Kode said: "A criminal has
no religion, criminality is the only religion. It was a heinous
terrorist act to kill totally innocent Mumbaikars who had no
role to play in the Babri Masjid demolition and who had not hurt
the accused in the riots that followed. They have unnecessarily
brought disgrace to the Muslim community which has, among other
communities, played a pioneer role in nation building."
This is like saying Paris Hilton has brought disgrace upon
Chihuahuas. I don't feel disgraced at all and can we stop being
pressurised into becoming pioneers? Why can we not just be
zardozi embroiderers, butchers, smugglers, doctors, SIM card
owners? Okay, skip the last two. As for nation-building, that is
the job of those who are our elected representatives. Everytime
there is one of those 'Muslim moments', we are asked to list out
reform movements in Islam. When was the last Hindu reform
movement? The Brahmo Samaj? We have to listen to nice examples,
like how Azim Premji makes computers and Shahrukh Khan makes
faces before the camera. These people do us proud, we are told
to say. Have you heard a Hindu say he is proud of Narayana
Murthy who, incidentally, has nothing to do with Hindu
terrorism?
However, it is wrong to state that criminals have no religion.
How many have claimed to be atheists?
Criminals do what they do by taking the cover of religion. And
governments play to that. Remember how a ceasefire was declared
during the month of Ramzan? Did the state imagine that militants
in Kashmir would have no energy left to hold a gun only because
they were not swallowing saliva?
If religion gets debased by criminals then why are holy books
popular reading material in prisons? Why are priests called in
before the person is to hang? And if the judge is saying that
the blasts killed those who had no part to play in the
demolition of the Babri Masjid, then is one to venture the
dangerous theory that had the victims been those responsible for
the demolition it would have been kosher?
Dawood Ibrahim was at that time busy giving interviews from
Dubai about patriotism. "How do you think one feels about the
country of his birth, where his family and mother still live?"
Why are criminals expected to mouth clichés? Realising that he
had to take a stand he spoke lovingly about the Muslim League,
as though he were a modern-day Jinnah. He was seeking a certain
purity for his deeds.
Seen in a broader perspective even the devil is pure, untainted
as he is by any virtue. A single-mindedness may limit a person
but it also keeps him away from other diversions. The Dawood who
courted the rich and famous is no more. At that time his agenda
was large enough to encompass a lot of others and even have some
of their fame rub off on him.
Today, he is a hunted and haunted man, hiding in a mansion with
walls that have ears. His very power has made him powerless. He
cannot even call himself a don, so he calls himself a
businessman. He is not the first big criminal and certainly not
the last. He lacks the suave intelligence of a Charles Sobhraj,
the rustic charisma of a Haji Mastan or the obvious religiosity
of a Varadarjan. Yet, in the Indian psyche he has surpassed them
all because we have created this behemoth and never paused to
think what he might have been.
A small-time actor who would one day turn producer? A pani-puri
stall owner who would expand his business and open a flashy
resto-bar? A mechanic who would ultimately own a garage?
The tragedy of Dawood is that he is inexorably bound to a
'motherland' by ties of delusion. As he had stated, "Not only
was I born in India but also innumerable people in that country
know that I am their 'Bhai'."
Had we left him to do his job he would not have become a hero.
He lacks the commitment of a militant and let us accept one
thing: Terrorism is a form of dissent; people do get killed, but
if you like reading up trivia then it shows that the number is
way fewer than those killed by donkeys. These are the only
people who oppose fully, unlike civil society that continues to
enjoy the handouts dished out by the System.
You can hang as many people as you wish, but all of us have a
noose around our necks. We suffocate on the stereotypes we form.
Farzana Versey is a Mumbai-based writer-columnist. This piece first appeared in The Asian Age, India. She can be contacted at kaaghaz.kalam@gmail.com
Farzana,
I am posting your comments on my
webs,
blogs and
groups. I call your responses
as taking a principle stand. I can relate with your line of
thinking on this. Indeed, my comments differ from yours, but
they are as strong as yours in questioning the stand one takes.
The principle should be applicable to all, and that was my
opening line "Not all Muslims wear religion on their sleeves,
why should they? Not all Hindus, Christians, Jews or others wear
it either."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello Mike Ghouse:
Thank you for sending me your reading of the WSJ piece and the
comments to my rejoinder in Counterpunch. I usually find it
enlightening to look at other perspectives and do not feel the
need to reply. However, the allegation that I have mis-read the
WSJ piece is unfortunate, especially since some of the comments,
including yours, have clearly misinterpreted, or seen rather
narrowly, my version.
I reproduce my piece in full below with emphasis on certain
portions to drive home the point I was making and which has
perhaps escaped some (I may make some comments in
parenthesis)...apologies for taking up space and time...and do
convey my thanks to those who have made it into an enlivening
discussion.
It might also help to understand that I write living in India.
My vision is not Silicon Valley pumped-up iron or irony.
Best,
FV
PS: I wish the individual who wishes to send this to SAJA as
among the worst pieces had an argument other than the rather
weak swipe.(It lacks originality, too, since I have heard this
so often...I mean, I have been told that I was angry with Sachin
Tendulkar because he was given a Ferrari, so these personal digs
work as society gossip and do provide amusement.) Honestly, if I
need attention all I have to do is wear a burkha!
Here goes:
What Makes Premji a 'Muslim tycoon'?
By Farzana Versey
September 14, 2007, Counterpunch
Is Azim Premji really the world's
richest Muslim entrepreneur? Is there a list which mentions the
richest Hindu, Jew, Buddhist, Christian, Scientologist, atheist,
Rastafarian? (Am an equal opportunity 'offender')
Unlikely. At least nothing that would make the Wall Street
Journal want to give it front page legitimacy. Talking of
legitimacy, surely we are talking about legitimate enterprise,
for the underworld and the mafia, Muslim or otherwise, are flush
with money. In all likelihood, they are investors in the big
companies.
Mr. Premji heads Wipro, India's third-largest IT exporter. Its
fortune rests at $17 billion. I like rich people. But this
gentleman is not just rich; he has been saddled with baggage.
And The Wall Street Journal goes out of its way to prise it open
by saying that he defies all conventional wisdom about Islamic
tycoons - he does not hail from the Persian Gulf and does not
wear his faith on his sleeve.
Where did the term 'Islamic tycoon'
come from? What is unconventional about not wearing your faith
on your sleeve? Is it even important to discuss? (In other
words, I am saying, it is perfectly ok to not wear your faith on
your sleeve and there is nothing unconventional about it; in
fact it ought to be seen as the done thing and not even be
discussed...phew!)
Of course, it is. Imagine the world we are living in. Azim
Premji has to be displayed as the nice guy – no beard,
well-fitted suit, an amiable demeanor, likeable. He might have
been a crass bore with filthy lucre, the Tom Cruise type who had
to jump on an Oprah Winfrey sofa to declare his love for a Kate
to become interesting. Mr. Premji has been given a moment quite
unlike that cheesy one. He has been profiled (and do pardon the
pun) in an article titled, "How a Muslim Billionaire Thrives in
Hindu India".
I am an Indian and have always lived in the country of my birth.
It is not a Hindu nation. (I said
it because it is not, and this is what the writer called it. I
am well within my rights to correct this misrepresentation of a
secular republic as a theological state.) It may have a
majority of Hindus, but then it has a majority of illiterates.
Why wasn't the report called, "How a literate billionaire
thrives in illiterate India"? There are many such potential
headlines I may offer, but I should hope the point has been
made.
This 'Muslim billionaire' has
thrived because he had a family business to start with. He had
money to get a decent education and he had the spirit of
enterprise. Hindu India did not contribute to these, neither did
Muslims. It is an individual achievement. (I am clearly saying
that no religion or community is responsible for his success; he
is. Promise, I am not jealous.)
It is unfortunate that Muslims are
being made accountable for aspects of life that would under
normal circumstances not identity them with religion. (Again,
why? Instead of saying that I have taken a conservative POV, it
is quite the opposite.)
Yaroslav Trofimov, the writer of
the article, says, "Yet, to many in India's Muslim community,
Mr. Premji's enormous wealth, far from being inspiring, shows
that success comes at a price the truly faithful cannot accept.
They resent that Mr. Premji plays down his religious roots and
declines to embrace Muslim causes – in a nation where people are
pegged by their religion and where Hindus freely flaunt theirs."
(The following is a response to the above comment.)
What price has Mr. Premji had to
pay? He has quietly gone and made a success of his business.
There is no resentment against his hesitation to talk about his
Muslim identity, and no Muslim social organisations are
dependent on his largesse.
What is resented is the fact that in a country where most of the
150 million people of the community are ghettoized, the likes of
Premji are touted as examples of Hindu tolerance. This just does
not wash. It is most patronizing, and a huge insult to those who
do make a decent living but are tagged in ways that are negative
simply because they lack the visibility of a high-profile
profession. On any given day there will be a handful of Muslims
taken out of the celebrity closet to reveal the mothballed
magnanimity of the majority community.
No one wants Premji to stand up and be counted. But there is no
reason for him to play along with this secular sham, and he has
been doing so for a while. He said in an interview to the paper,
"We have always seen ourselves as Indian. We've never seen
ourselves as Hindus, or Muslims, or Christians or Buddhists."
The report further states, "Mr. Premji has mentioned his Muslim
background so rarely in public that many Indian Muslims don't
even know he shares their heritage. None of Wipro's senior
managers aside from Mr. Premji himself are Muslims. The company
maintains normal working hours on Islamic high holidays."
This does not sound like a report
in a respected newspaper but something straight out of a
pamphlet. What heritage are we talking about? Is there one
Muslim heritage? His last name could well be Hindu as his roots
are in Gujarat. What is so heart-warming and significant about
not working on Islamic holidays? Does it become news when many
Hindu-owned companies celebrate religious festivals with a puja
(prayer) and in fact during Diwali (that is an unabashed ode to
the goddess of wealth) people even offer prayers to account
books? Is it news that this includes Muslim entrepreneurs? What
is the purpose behind such a statement? And why is it surprising
considering that most of the 70,000 employees of Premji's
company are non-Muslim? (I am saying there is no one Muslim
identity; heck, my roots are in Gujarat and being born in an Aga
Khani family even Muslims do not recognise most of us as
Muslims...I also emphasise that if not celebrating Muslim
festivals is such a big deal then why do Hindu celebrations not
count, and the fact that Muslim entrepreneurs are part of THOSE
celebrations? Again, I have mentioned that most of his employees
are non-Muslim so not giving Islamic holidays ought not to be
seen as so important.)
These are devious little tricks. No one mentions good old Adnan
Khashoggi and his cruise liners in which the international high
and mighty had fun vacations.
Isn't there a mean between riding the Islamophobia and secular
waves? (I am looking for a balance. Not expected, I guess!) The
latter is as ridiculous as Mohamed al Fayed screaming about
being discriminated against by British society because of his
religion.
Azim Premji is a thriving businessman in the globalized world he
keeps talking about. A globalized
world that is unwilling to dignify him as just another wealthy
guy and has to mention his religion not just in passing but as
the very crux of his defiance – a defiance that is as imaginary
as other stereotypes. (Do I have to even explain this? Isn't it
obvious?)
He says with what appears to be an element of arrogance, "All
our hiring staff are trained to interview in English. They're
trained to look for Westernized segments because we deal with
global customers."
Indeed. The Chinese, the Japanese, the Russians are doing rather
well for themselves, and they don't go around kowtowing to some
colonial mentality that talks about English in such a fashion.
He mentions that most Muslims are educated in Urdu. Perhaps he
might like to check the statistics that say Urdu is a dying
language. Perhaps he might like to sponsor some schools for
Muslim children; he can do so incognito so that his secular
credentials are safe. Perhaps he might like to know that even
madrassas these days use his computers, so it is entirely
possible they are cracking codes on them. Perhaps he might like
to not even entertain questions about his Muslim identity. He is
rich enough to afford to say, "No comments". That is true
liberation.
However, being called a Muslim tycoon is like being addressed as
a hot Eskimo. And who doesn't like a touch of oxymoron?
(Farzana Versey is a Mumbai-based writer-columnist. She can be
contacted at kaaghaz.kalam@gmail.com)
