What is worse than moralising by politicians? Cant and harangue by business tycoons. Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy’s gratuitous sermon to India’s youngsters to work 70 hours a week (14 hours a day in a five-day week) falls in that category.
In a podcast, Murthy recommended that India should emulate the work ethics of countries like China and Japan to bolster productivity: “If we want to compete with the fastest growing countries like China and Japan, we need to boost up our work productivity. At the moment, India’s work productivity is very low. The government also must reduce the time it takes for decision-making and curb corruption in bureaucracy.”
This is exactly what the Germans and Japanese did after the Second World War, he said. “They made sure that every German worked extra hours for a certain number of years.”
Supporting him are many business magnates, including a young tech entrepreneur who is reportedly rude and abusive to his employees. Unperturbed by the expose of his misbehaviour by the media, he brazened it out in a public function. He justified his own insolence, saying, “My own personal style is aggressive.”
Evidently, Murthy would like youngsters to suffer uncouth bosses too—for the greater glory of the nation! “Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.”
Murthy’s statement reminds one of former US President John F Kennedy’s famous quote, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” In Capitalism and Freedom, the legendary economist Milton Friedman analysed the quote: “Neither half of the statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society. The paternalistic ‘what your country can do for you’ implies that the government is the patron, the citizen the ward, a view that is at odds with the free man’s belief in his own responsibility for his own destiny.”
Apart from the implicit paternalism, there is a fake binary involved in both cases: the citizen and the country in Kennedy’s quote; the youngster and the nation in Murthy’s statement. But the truth is that citizens, including youngsters, are not apart from and other than the country or nation; they are the country. Similarly, government is not apart from and other than citizens; it is the expression of citizens. Especially in a liberal democracy.
Now, there can be questions about the genuineness or even the representativeness of democracy in India and many other countries, but no one can deny the fact that the relationship between the individual and the State in a democracy is organic and symbiotic, not organismic and symbolic.
Murthy, perhaps unbeknownst to himself, expounds the organismic view when he exhorts young men and women to sacrifice their joys and pleasures for the future of the country.
Quite apart from being dangerously close to collectivist ideologies like fascism and communism, this view is at odds with facts and the imperatives of practicality. Murthy laments that “India’s work productivity is very low,” which is true, but this has nothing to do with the number of hours Indians work.
As per the International Labour Organization (ILO) 2023 data, on average Indians work 47.7 hours per week per employed person, the highest in the 10 biggest economies. And yet, India’s productivity is just $8.47, as compared to $70.68 of the US where working hours are 34.4. In a more comparable Brazil, productivity is $17.4, whereas working hours have ranged between 38.1 and 39.4 since the last quarter of 2018.
There is little, if any, correlation between working hours and productivity, as per available data. Therefore, by seeking to increase productivity by increasing the number of working hours, Murthy is barking up the wrong tree.
Further, for CEOs and other top corporate bosses, working 70 hours a week may not be as physically and psychologically draining as it is for those who don’t enjoy such comforts as chauffeur-driven cars, spacious office rooms, and luxurious homes. Reaching the office using the Metro (which, incidentally, is among the more comfortable public transports in India), working there for almost 12 hours (in a six-day week), and taking the Metro to come back home would consume 15 hours of every day. Such a rigorous routine can reduce normal humans into automatons.
And this is only about white-collar jobs. The commute and working conditions of blue-collar workers are much worse than those of office-goers. By the way, many of them are already condemned to 70-hour weeks—or even worse.
Murthy and those supporting him have exhibited a gross lack of empathy for their less fortunate brethren. They should be campaigning for speeding up economic reforms which alone can enhance production, productivity, and prosperity. And they should resist the temptation to seek easy solutions and lecture others.
The author is a freelance journalist. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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