In praise of leisure

Recently, N R Narayana Murthy, the doyen of the Indian IT industry who rose from humble beginnings and who symbolises corporate success through single-minded purpose and unremitting hard work, said that Indians must work 70 hours a week, that our younger generation is not working hard enough, and stirred up a hornet’s nest. 

While many corporate leaders predictably plumped for Murthy, saying if India has to become No 1 and beat China and the US, our youngsters must work harder, what they didn’t say was more significant than what they said: Iron labour and drudgery is good as it keeps their cash counters ringing and their stock prices zooming. Leisure is evil. An idle mind is a devil’s workshop. Long hours for employees -- whether they are writing code, staring at the computer screen moving the mouse all day and night, or moving loads and turning lathes on the factory floor -- is refreshing. 

“The idea that the poor should have leisure has always been shocking to the rich. This idea shocks the well-to-do, because they are convinced that the poor would not know how to use so much leisure,” said philosopher Bertrand Russell, in his famous essay ‘In praise of idleness’. 

Social media was, however, quite critical of Murthy and other tycoons. One of them, echoing Russell, said on Twitter, “Being successful at the loss of mental sanity is not a trade-off I’m willing to make.” Another, with scathing sarcasm, said, “Why would you not want to work 70 hours a week and kill yourself in the process to help line the pockets of these despicable billionaires?”

Russell postulated, “Leisure is essential to civilisation, and in former times, leisure for the few was rendered possible only by the labours of the many. But their labours were valuable, not because work is good, but because leisure is good. And with modern technic, it would be possible to distribute leisure justly without injury to civilisation.” 

The All-India IT and ITeS Employees’ Union was quick to condemn Murthy’s comments, saying that a 70-hour work-week is “illegal” and employees should not be forced to work more than 48 hours a week, which comes up to 8 hours daily for a 6-day work-week.

“With increasing automation, there needs to be a constant reduction in working hours to have more creative and leisure time, which in turn improves productivity,” the Union said. 

To put it in the right perspective, Indians are already working harder. Indians currently work an average of 47.7 hours a week — higher than Americans (36.4), the British (35.9), and the Germans (34.4), according to the International Labour Organisation. They also work more than people in other Asian countries such as China (46.1), Singapore (42.6), and Japan (36.6), ILO data showed. 

The above data is largely from the organised sectors. In the unorganised sectors, we all know that most daily wage earners have to work at least 10 hours a day to make ends meet, and they take up additional part-time jobs.  

There is some virtue in dolce far niente, what the French call “pleasant idleness”. J B Priestley, in his profound and delightful essay ‘On doing nothing’ says, “All the evil in this world is brought by persons who are always up and doing...The devil, I take it, is still the busiest creature in the universe.” He reflects, “The world, we all freely admit, is in a muddle, but I for one do not think that it is laziness that brought it to such a pass. If, for example, in July 1914, when there was some capital idling weather, everybody, kings, archdukes, generals, journalists, had been suddenly smitten with an intense desire for leisure and taken a fortnight off, then we should all have been much better off than we are now. But no, the doctrine of the strenuous life still went unchallenged; there must be no time wasted; something must be done.
And, as we know, something was done.”
And we had the outbreak of the First World War. 

We must not only strive to distribute wealth and build a more equitable society but also aim to distribute leisure to create a happy society. Should leisure be the privilege of only the well-to-do, the privileged, and the modern-day maharajas, as it was in the times of emperors and the landed gentry? It must be recognised that all the great poetry and literary works and painting and sculptures were the product of those who had a fair measure of leisure. The world would have been poorer without the poetry of Wordsworth or Kalidasa if they had had no idle time to look at nature or simply lie on the grass and stare at the skies and the drifting clouds. Nor would we have the spiritualising Upanishads or the Ramayana if our sages did not meditate in the forests, or in other words, simply did nothing. 

Even if everyone gets some degree of good leisure, many will not become great poets and painters. But free idling time and recreation is a good balm for the soul, and humanising. Imprisoned between the four walls of an office in front of a sterile computer or wedged behind the sales counters in a shopping mall, or harnessed to the machine six days a week for 10 hours a day is the tragic fate of the modern man and woman, condemned, like the Greek King Sisyphus was, to futile labour -- to roll an immense rock up the mountain, only for it to roll down so that Sisyphus had to begin again, and repeat it eternally.  

But we must admit, as Jerome K Jerome said in his essay ‘On being idle’ that “It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.” 

To go back to wise old Bertrand Russell, who was not a romanticist but a hard-nosed logician, mathematician and pacifist, he advocated that, “If the ordinary wage-earner worked four hours a day, there would be enough for everybody, and no unemployment.” 

We must work less, not more. That will also pave the way for a more egalitarian society that offers equal work and equal leisure. 

What’s more, it will lead to fewer warmongers and wars, and produce more poets, painters, singers and sportspersons and bring more joy to more people. 

(The writer is a soldier, farmer and entrepreneur)