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        During the last decade there has been an unprecedented  explosion in the world of publication of books in India and abroad on different facets of India — history, society, religion, culture, economy and people. This renewed and reawakened interest in India was created by the revolutionary economic reforms initiated by P.V.Narasimha Rao in 1991. Even today market is getting flooded by more and more books on India and its economy — printed by people who do not understand them, sold by people who do not understand them, and even written by people who do not understand them. A spectacular exception to this established rule of the book market is REMAKING INDIA : ONE COUNTRY, ONE DESTINY by Arun Maira published by 'Response Books', New Delhi. Ratan N Tata has given a foreword to this avant-garde book which sets new trends, establishes new norms, proclaims new values, destroys old customs and upholds new ideals.

        In his foreword, Ratan N Tata has observed : 'The book contains a set of practical suggestions for accelerating India's pace of development but essentially this is not a 'how to' book. This book is the plea of a manager to be given the chance to place his diagnosis and prescription for the country in the public domain for a genuine dialogue to take place around it. I am pleased and honoured to have the opportunity to commend whole-heartedly this slim volume from one of the country's most caring managers. This book is a prescription from a seasoned manager on taking the country global'.
 
 
 

The cover page of Arun Maira’s book.

ARUN MAIRA

        Arun Maira is an internationally renowned authority on business leadership, teams and organisational transformation. Born in Lahore in 1943, he receive his Bachelors and Masters degrees in physics from St. Stephens College, Delhi University in 1964. He joined the Tata Administrative Services in 1965 and served with distinction for 25 years in the Tata Group. In 1990 he went to the USA to work with Arthur D Little INC ( ADL ) , an international consulting company. After serving there for 10 years, he joined The Boston Consulting Group ( BCG ), becoming Chairman of the Group in India. As a management consultant, he has advised clients across a wide variety of industries and in many countries on ticklish and tricky issues of strategy and organisation. As a brilliant writer, his books The Accelerating Organisation : Embracing the Human Face of Change ( 1997 ) and Shaping the Future : Aspirational Leadership in India and Beyond have been internationally acclaimed for their original insight and clairvoyant analysis.

        Arun Maira says in his introductory chapter that the role that businesses must play in a developing society and nation have been close to his heart for nearly 40 years. He recognises that Indian companies have a very important and difficult role to play in the country's development. It will be admitted on all hands that it is certainly more complex than the role of business corporations in developed countries. In this newly emerging world of never ending and ruthless globalisation, Indian companies, starting much behind their international competitors both in size and capabilities, must rapidly learn to compete with the best in the world. At the same time, they have to compassionately connect with and relate to the conditions in their own country and the communities around them. In this context, the apposite words of Arun Maira are important : 'This is by no means an easy task. The difficult question for Indian businesses is how to pursue improvement in business performance and effectively enrich the lives of people around them, not as separate activities but in a mutually reinforcing process that improves results on both sides. Perhaps some of the guiding ideals Indian companies need for their management could be different from the ideas that work for successful companies centred in economically advanced countries, because their social and economic environments are entirely different'.

        Arun Maira rightly concludes that processes of decision-making, planning and implementing change that may have been effective earlier in India cannot be effective any longer. New ways must be used that are appropriate to the changed conditions. For example, a directive, centralized planning process introduced by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1950, with experts like Mahalanobis determining the targets and allocation of resources cannot be an effective model today.

        Politically India has moved from an era of a one party dominated government to coalition governments. State politics and governments have become more independent of the centre. Further, many sections of the Indian society, which could be and which were excluded from the process of decision-making, such as the so called backward classes, schedule castes and schedule tribes, have to be included not merely as beneficiaries of development but as vital participants with power to determine the pace and direction of change. The second phase of economic reforms requires changes in policies that directly affect the masses —— issues such as subsidies, labour laws, prices of utilities and agricultural taxation etc. This makes the task of decision-making at a policy level more complex than in the first phase of reforms soon after 1991 that mostly affected corporate industries. These changes call for new approaches to leadership and management.

        Now more participative processes are required for dialogue and decision-making by which diverse interests can be understood and aligned to the larger whole. In India governments and leaders change frequently and so top-down visions cannot have continuity and so lose their power and relevance rapidly. Therefore, visions in the new context have to be developed by a broad consensus involving many people to enable continuity and durability of the change process. Arun Maira laments that the underlying philosophy and procedures of management do not seem to have changed adequately to fit the new conditions now emerging in India. The paramount national need today is that new processes imperatively required have to be instituted forthwith without any further delay.

        Arun Maira makes it clear that he is not prescribing a dogmatic vision for India in terms of the size of its economy and its various sectors. Nor does he recommend a rigid economic strategy for bringing about growth. At the same time he does strongly advocate a solution for India. To put it in his own words : 'The solution is a process for inclusive development founded on the development of a shared vision. The thesis of this book is that the vision of the outcome of change that people desire must be created through participation. Further, an agreement on the way this will be brought about must be the result of a participative process of effective organisational learning and change. Therefore, to guess, or even worse, to prescribe, the vision that should be the outcome of this process would be antithetical to the core proposition of this book'.

        Arun Maira recommends a framework of concepts and techniques for a participative process of change. He intersperses short conceptual pieces with live stories from his own management experiences for four decades to illustrate the relevance of these concepts.

        After independence, India has been struggling to live by the lofty ideals of freedom and democracy for the last 59 years. Ideologically we may have won the war. But we have to achieve the practical means to live by this ideology even while taking action on a war-footing to provide basic human needs to our growing millions. The first and foremost amongst these is the need for physical security, which requires a 'war' on terrorism. The second is the paramount need for food, which requires a 'war on poverty'. In order to win these two wars, we have to totally discard the traditional ideas of leadership that have prevailed for more than thousand years. Arun Maira is definitely of the view that modern wars —— be it military, political or economic or social — cannot be won by Commanders-in-Chief in the traditional historical sense who require their unilateral orders to be followed without question, and therefore impose a state of emergency so that they are armed with the right to suppress descent. Arun Maira categorically declares that what India needs is a new type of leadership. We require leaders who can work without strong authority, integrate and harmonise the interests of many diverse people and yet deliver the goods in the manner and measure required without fatiguing delays. Our democratic framework requires such a leadership. Only such a leadership can build strong democratic institutions and processes that open societies like India need to win the so-called 'wars' that demand voluntary and enthusiastic participation of people with widely different beliefs. In order to achieve this objective of total participation of people, we have to stop thinking of our people as liabilities and convert them into assets. For example, India can become the largest knowledge and skill-based service provider to the world within the next two decades, just as China seems to have become the largest provider of low-cost manufactures. Arun Maira says we can bring in around $200 Billion additional revenues to India every year and generate an additional 40 million jobs. What we need to do before that is to focus on the process of engaging masses of people to accelerate the changes they want in this country.