<p> The indictment of Rajat Gupta for insider trading by a tearful 12-member jury in the US comprising of eight women and four men has not only shocked his family but the three million-strong Indian American community and hundreds of his admirers the world over.<br /><br /> His life story, before the trial, had been a fairy tale of fulfilment of an American dream: orphaned at 18, graduate of IIT Delhi, MBA from Harvard, first non American managing director (worldwide) of McKinsey, director of Goldman Sach’s board, director of Procter & Gambles’ board, advisor to the UN Secretary General, trustee of Rockefeller Foundation, advisor to several prestigious companies and NGOs, personally worth over US $84 million!<br /><br /> I am saddened having met him a couple of times at the Kellogg with Indra Nooyi and Sam Pitroda at discussions organised by Prof Bala Balachandran, while serving as the India’s consul general in Chicago. He was looked up to as a role model, a success story which inspired many young graduates who were still dreaming their American Dreams. <br /><br />Rajat Gupta was the brain behind and one of the founding fathers of ISB Hyderabad; he contributed significantly to making it a world class institution. No wonder when the government of India instituted the Pravashi Bharti samman award, he was the first Indian American to be honoured. Gupta, at the peak of his career, could do no wrong; he was wining and dining with the likes of Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and Kofi Annan!<br /><br /> It is very rare for a jury to feel sorry while convicting an accused; Rajat Gupta’s was such a case. But everybody is asking, why did he do it? Some sum up in five letters: Greed. Rajaratnam, whom Gupta is accused of having helped, was believed to have said in a conversation (taped secretly by the agencies) that Gupta wanted to earn US$ 50-100 million without doing much. There is speculation that Gupta wanted Rajaratnam to help his equity fund, the New Silk Route. The jury felt, he was driven by his need for greed! Preet Bharara, the Indian origin federal prosecutor who eventually nailed him also felt sorry for him saying, “Gupta achieved remarkable success and stature, but he threw it all away.”<br /><br /> A decade back in India, one of the top IT company heads was voted the best businessman of the year; he was hailed for his vision and leadership qualities and considered a pioneer and a role model. Little did the distinguished jury know that he had committed a massive fraud on his share holders and siphoned off crores of rupees. His name was Ramalinga Raju (of Satyam ) who possessed an MBA from Ohio University in the US. He is now being prosecuted for cheating, embezzlement and insider trading.<br /><br />Illegal emigration<br /><br />There is the case of the Joshi couple, the two IAS officers in Madhya Pradesh who amassed more than Rs 350 crore in a short span of service. Another smart, intelligent and gizmo savvy IAS officer in Maharashtra, in his coded messages, used to call bribes as hardware and call girls as software! A secretary in the ministry of external affairs who was responsible for promoting economic relations was removed from his post and chargesheeted for aiding and abetting illegal emigration. He came from a well to do family and could have lived comfortably without a government salary.<br /><br /> Why do highly intelligent, successful and meritorious individuals earning relatively high salaries/profits and living a comfortable life take such risks and throw away all the achievements and laurels of a life time? Are they consumed by ambition? Is it their insatiable desire to get rich and richer? Don’t their academic brilliance and meritorious record shield them against such temptations?</p>.<p><br />When Prof Dipak Jain, the first person of Asian origin to be the Dean of Kellogg (currently dean of INSEAD) introduced classes on ‘samskara,’ morals and ethics, many eyebrows were raised. He was of the firm belief that if the top executives have not inculcated moral and ethical values in corporate management, from time to time, mega frauds cannot be ruled out. Self discipline (cut your coat according to your length), contentment (to shun insatiable desire to acquire more), foolproof checks and balances in financial transactions and moral and ethical values adhered to by a company do help in avoiding cases of fraud and corruption. But the most basic reason why the seemingly successful people resort to frauds and corrupt practices is that they have deleted the ‘right and wrong’ from their mental disc. Once an individual has stopped asking the question whether what he /she is doing is right or wrong, that individual can do anything without any compunction or remorse.<br /><br />Eventually it is the choice between two contrasting concepts of success underlined long ago by Mahatma Gandhi and the Chinese leader, Deng Xiaping. Gandhi always stressed that all noble goals must be reached through noble means. On the other hand, Deng who is the father of economic transformation of China maintained, that “so long as the cat catches the mice, it doesn’t matter whether it is white or black!” Whether it is 2G scam or the Commonwealth Games scam or the allocation of coal mining rights, those who perpetrated the scams had drawn no ‘Lakshman Rekha’ for themselves.<br /><br />Whether it is Rajat Gupta or Ramalinga Raju or A Raja or Suresh Kalamdi, they all seemed to be following the dictum of the Chinese helmsman Deng Xiaping rather than of Gandhiji. It is high time we go back to the Mahatma and embrace his moral and ethical values and discriminate between the right and the wrong. That is the bedrock of a just, fair, equitable, successful, caring and sharing society.<br /><em>(The writer is a former diplomat</em>)</p>
<p> The indictment of Rajat Gupta for insider trading by a tearful 12-member jury in the US comprising of eight women and four men has not only shocked his family but the three million-strong Indian American community and hundreds of his admirers the world over.<br /><br /> His life story, before the trial, had been a fairy tale of fulfilment of an American dream: orphaned at 18, graduate of IIT Delhi, MBA from Harvard, first non American managing director (worldwide) of McKinsey, director of Goldman Sach’s board, director of Procter & Gambles’ board, advisor to the UN Secretary General, trustee of Rockefeller Foundation, advisor to several prestigious companies and NGOs, personally worth over US $84 million!<br /><br /> I am saddened having met him a couple of times at the Kellogg with Indra Nooyi and Sam Pitroda at discussions organised by Prof Bala Balachandran, while serving as the India’s consul general in Chicago. He was looked up to as a role model, a success story which inspired many young graduates who were still dreaming their American Dreams. <br /><br />Rajat Gupta was the brain behind and one of the founding fathers of ISB Hyderabad; he contributed significantly to making it a world class institution. No wonder when the government of India instituted the Pravashi Bharti samman award, he was the first Indian American to be honoured. Gupta, at the peak of his career, could do no wrong; he was wining and dining with the likes of Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and Kofi Annan!<br /><br /> It is very rare for a jury to feel sorry while convicting an accused; Rajat Gupta’s was such a case. But everybody is asking, why did he do it? Some sum up in five letters: Greed. Rajaratnam, whom Gupta is accused of having helped, was believed to have said in a conversation (taped secretly by the agencies) that Gupta wanted to earn US$ 50-100 million without doing much. There is speculation that Gupta wanted Rajaratnam to help his equity fund, the New Silk Route. The jury felt, he was driven by his need for greed! Preet Bharara, the Indian origin federal prosecutor who eventually nailed him also felt sorry for him saying, “Gupta achieved remarkable success and stature, but he threw it all away.”<br /><br /> A decade back in India, one of the top IT company heads was voted the best businessman of the year; he was hailed for his vision and leadership qualities and considered a pioneer and a role model. Little did the distinguished jury know that he had committed a massive fraud on his share holders and siphoned off crores of rupees. His name was Ramalinga Raju (of Satyam ) who possessed an MBA from Ohio University in the US. He is now being prosecuted for cheating, embezzlement and insider trading.<br /><br />Illegal emigration<br /><br />There is the case of the Joshi couple, the two IAS officers in Madhya Pradesh who amassed more than Rs 350 crore in a short span of service. Another smart, intelligent and gizmo savvy IAS officer in Maharashtra, in his coded messages, used to call bribes as hardware and call girls as software! A secretary in the ministry of external affairs who was responsible for promoting economic relations was removed from his post and chargesheeted for aiding and abetting illegal emigration. He came from a well to do family and could have lived comfortably without a government salary.<br /><br /> Why do highly intelligent, successful and meritorious individuals earning relatively high salaries/profits and living a comfortable life take such risks and throw away all the achievements and laurels of a life time? Are they consumed by ambition? Is it their insatiable desire to get rich and richer? Don’t their academic brilliance and meritorious record shield them against such temptations?</p>.<p><br />When Prof Dipak Jain, the first person of Asian origin to be the Dean of Kellogg (currently dean of INSEAD) introduced classes on ‘samskara,’ morals and ethics, many eyebrows were raised. He was of the firm belief that if the top executives have not inculcated moral and ethical values in corporate management, from time to time, mega frauds cannot be ruled out. Self discipline (cut your coat according to your length), contentment (to shun insatiable desire to acquire more), foolproof checks and balances in financial transactions and moral and ethical values adhered to by a company do help in avoiding cases of fraud and corruption. But the most basic reason why the seemingly successful people resort to frauds and corrupt practices is that they have deleted the ‘right and wrong’ from their mental disc. Once an individual has stopped asking the question whether what he /she is doing is right or wrong, that individual can do anything without any compunction or remorse.<br /><br />Eventually it is the choice between two contrasting concepts of success underlined long ago by Mahatma Gandhi and the Chinese leader, Deng Xiaping. Gandhi always stressed that all noble goals must be reached through noble means. On the other hand, Deng who is the father of economic transformation of China maintained, that “so long as the cat catches the mice, it doesn’t matter whether it is white or black!” Whether it is 2G scam or the Commonwealth Games scam or the allocation of coal mining rights, those who perpetrated the scams had drawn no ‘Lakshman Rekha’ for themselves.<br /><br />Whether it is Rajat Gupta or Ramalinga Raju or A Raja or Suresh Kalamdi, they all seemed to be following the dictum of the Chinese helmsman Deng Xiaping rather than of Gandhiji. It is high time we go back to the Mahatma and embrace his moral and ethical values and discriminate between the right and the wrong. That is the bedrock of a just, fair, equitable, successful, caring and sharing society.<br /><em>(The writer is a former diplomat</em>)</p>
