MMA along with Sastra University organised a discussion on the book, “Power Within: The Leadership Legacy of Narendra Modi” authored by Dr R Balasubramaniam, Author & Member – HR, Capacity Building Commission, GoI; Founder – SVYM & GRAAM, Mysuru. Apart from the author, the panellists included Dr S Vaidhyasubramaniam, Vice-Chancellor, SASTRA Deemed University & TATA Sons Chair Professor of Management; Dr V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras; Anand Raghavan, Chartered Accountant & Trustee, Palkhivala Foundation; and Rajiv C Lochan, Managing Director, Sundaram Finance Limited.
Dr R Balasubramaniam: I have had the privilege of watching our Prime Minister from close quarters, having done a lot of interviews with him and a lot of one-to-one discussions. I think he’s a man yet to be fully understood by the nation. I wrote the book because it’s a story to be told to the whole world. The story is about India’s contribution to leadership, and we can’t lose sight of that. What our nation has achieved and what we hardly speak about is the enormous civilisational wisdom that our country is full of.
We also live in a time when we either romanticise everything about India and discard it, or we criticise everything India and Indian and we discard it. We say we had an airplane 3000 years ago. We did plastic surgery 5000 years ago. Today’s world demands evidence. I have tried to find the big path and the point of equilibrium.
I am not saying the western models of leadership are not good enough. Neither do I say that India’s leadership is the only solution for the world. All I try to present is the wisdom of India and analyse it using a case study of Prime Minister Modi.
Forty years ago, I went into the forests of India, and I was deeply pained by the fact that the government had no idea of what governance was. The government didn’t understand citizens and its tribal populations. I come from an area where there are four reservoirs and four dams. One of the early prime ministers called them the temples of modern India. I found them as the cause of the doom of modern India. A national park was declared, and all the tribals living there were thrown out mercilessly. I felt the state, in its wisdom, created poverty in the first place and then they decided to fight poverty among the tribals. As a 22-year-old, I was angry.
But for my conviction and the principles of Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi, I would have taken to arms. I thought something was wrong. “Why can’t people sitting in Delhi understand this?” I mused. Policy making must start with compassion, understanding citizens and listening to the voices of masses. In that frustration, I wrote several books. I found extraordinary leadership in tribal chieftains. I was asking myself, “If these people can exhibit such leadership, why are people in Bangalore and Delhi not learning from them?”
We live in a nation where a poor person is by default considered to be ignorant. We think only a Harvard MBA can teach us how to explain all this. That led me to go to Harvard itself and understand what they know more than us. I spent some time there after my masters and realised that I did not get the answers to the questions I had, but it actually helped me ask the questions in a better way. I started asking questions. Why did I even come here? What did I learn here? Or is there something missing back home that I have not understood properly?
Packaging Indian Wisdom
As my young son was watching a Tom & Jerry cartoon, it suddenly occurred to me, ‘Why are we giving him a Western narrative of what a cat is and what a mouse is? We have our own Jataka and Panchatantra tales. Beyond a few pages of comics, we don’t go deeper. I was blessed and fortunate to have two gurus in my life. My diksha guru was Swami Achalanandaji. The privilege of knowing him for just five years made me understand scriptures from a particular angle. He worked from Viveka Chudamani to Atma Bodha. My other guru was Swami Sureshananda of the Ramakrishna Ashram. He taught me how to run an organisation.
In the course of a conversation, I started sharing my frustrations of discovering so much in Indian literature and scriptural wisdom, but not being able to package it together. In a moment of wisdom and in his own way of looking at it, Swami Sureshananda said, “I know somebody who, as a young man came to the Ramakrishna Ashram to become a monk, and we turned him away. He is now the Chief Minister of Gujarat. Why don’t you use the model that you’re evolving to filter him and see whether you can fix your model.”
So, it started off trying to find a case study for the model I was describing. I thought Mr Modi was sitting somewhere in Gujarat. ‘I don’t know him. I can’t reach him. How can I even study him?’ I thought. I wrote another book called ‘Leadership Lessons for Daily Living,’ where I wrote about ordinary people who were exhibiting extraordinary leadership. It could be a street vendor in Mysore or an auto driver I met in Myladuthurai. In all my journeys across the country and the world, I met different kinds of people. I wrote about them using the Indic references, but I didn’t come out with anything solid in that book.
Karma Chari to Karma Yogi
But then fate has got its own way of conspiring, and three years ago, the honourable Prime Minister Modi invited me to join the Capacity Building Commission that he was setting up. It is something very close to his heart and which he says will revolutionise India and its preparedness to meet future challenges. Our job is to make civil servants stop thinking like karma chari and acting like karma yogi, and something which was very deep in his vision. He said, “How do we go beyond a rules-based approach and get the people to understand they have a role to play in serving this country? How do we make the bureaucrats future-ready?” These things were music to my ears. I got a chance to be part of this mission and more importantly, I had a chance to see him in action.
I have so much of research that we put it all together. I wondered if Mr Modi would allow me to go deep into his life? He gave me only three directions. He said, ‘The book is not about me. It is about India’s leadership. The world should understand that our leadership models are far more huge and stronger and far deep-rooted than anything else. You can use me as a case study, but don’t forget the fact that you’re talking about India.’ Second, he said, “After reading this book, 1000 leaders for this country should emerge. Then your book is a success. Not by how many people read it or how many books are sold, but how many leaders this nation gets.” And the third, he said, “It should be about offering a way forward for all of us.” He doesn’t have to pretend to be humble with people like me who work with him. In one conversation during the Capacity Building Commission meeting, he even said, “You’re building capacities of civil servants. Your job also includes telling me what I should improve upon.” That is the kind of approach he has got. He is a lifelong learner.
Energy Comes from People
I wanted to package him. We had many one-on-one conversations. There are many incidents about him which are not known to the outside world. Some are in the public domain. For example, he had come to Chennai, may be a year or two ago. I didn’t put it in my book. He had come to Anna University for a convocation. He recollected an incident and told me, when I asked him, “Where do you get your energy from?” All of us in Delhi know how long he works. If he’s on a flight to the US, he works on the plane. He lands back and half an hour later, he is in a meeting. People who accompany him have jet lag, but he doesn’t. The magic of his work is something that all of us aspire to imitate, but we can’t do it.
Mr Modi said, “I went to Chennai for the convocation and I was told this is the university where the highest number of students graduate. I saw the hall. It was packed, but it didn’t look like a hall where the highest number of students graduated. After some time, I asked the Vice Chancellor, “Is this all the students who are graduating today or are there more students?” The VC told me, “There are other halls which have television sets. More students are watching from there.” The Prime Minister never disrupts anything, whether it’s a presentation you make to him or a conversation you have with him. He is never disrespectful or disruptive. He listens to you very deeply and he did the same thing at the end of the session with the Vice Chancellor.
Mr Modi continued, “I asked the Vice-Chancellor if I can go and meet the other students. I asked them all to stay back. I went and talked to those students. People think that I am trying to show off or trying to impress somebody. I know that the state will never elect me. It’s okay. I went there because I get my energy from those people. They give me energy when they share their problems and aspirations with me.”
When he was a pracharak, he used to be roaming around the country and that was a different connectedness. But by default, your position disconnects you from a lot of those realities. Mr Modi, though, is very well connected. Even today, he can pick up the phone and call any of his old pracharak friends in some village and ask, “How is it happening there?”
Remarkable Connectedness
In my research, I discovered some fascinating things about him through his principal secretary, Dr P K Mishra, an extraordinary bureaucrat of this country who’s been with him for close to 25 years. He was earlier the Chief Minister’s principal secretary. He narrated two incidents which I think I must share. I quoted only one of them in the book. When the Swaminarayan temple had a bomb attack, even before the DGP of the state or the chief secretary of the state or the principal secretary knew, the Chief Minister Mr Modi got to know about it. He called the three of them and said, “I have heard there is a bomb attack in Akshardham temple. Rush people right now.” Within three minutes of the attack, he knew it. That is his connectedness. Even today across the country, he has got people who can relate to him on a one-to-one basis.
The second incident. He called the principal Secretary in Gujarat one day when he was the CM and told him, “I am very happy that one civil servant in the Women and Child Department works on Saturdays and Sundays. The problem is that he is not working in the area where he is posted. He’s working elsewhere.” It was a sort of joke that the civil servant was using government jeep for his personal tourism. The principal secretary verified it and found the CM’s comment to be true. Incidents like these speak about his extraordinary leadership and communication.
India has got so much to offer. I have only used Prime Minister Modi as a case study in my book. But it completes what the world needs. We are living in a world where Black Swan events are the norm and not exceptions anymore. Public leadership around the world has failed. Many times, they are unable to manage the problem that they have created. We need leaders who are extraordinary. I have argued how the Indic model is the solution for the whole world. That’s what India tried to convey in the G20 declaration touching the 4Ps: Planet, People, Peace and Prosperity. We focus on vasudhaiva kutumbakam—the world is one family.
Dr S Vaidhyasubramaniam: To set the context for panel discussions, let me touch upon two aspects. One is a personal experience of Swami Vivekananda himself. The second is research that was done in the early 2000. Swami Vivekananda went to the US after he undertook a Bharat yatra. Those were the times when we had an impoverished India. Certain parts had famine and certain parts had floods. The bottom line was that the country was ravaged by both.
It was in that situation that Vivekananda went in 1893 to Chicago to address the World Parliament of Religions, which was organised to establish a different theocratic supremacy, but in that platform, it required the saintly statesmanship of a towering personality like Swami Vivekananda to address the audience. He told the audience, ‘I come from a country that has the potential to lead the world.’
In the early 2000, they did research to understand the civilisational propensities of nations. An important finding was how the civilisational propensity of Bharat was so dominant, so much so that the world’s biggest temple was in Cambodia, that in a remote village in Vietnam people still speak Sanskrit and there was a Central University in Indonesia that was called the Sandipani University. The civilisational symbols of India were present beyond the current boundaries of India, not because India exercised its military powers. It had tremendous soft civilisational assets with which it could dominate different geographies of the world. ‘Power Within’ connects various leadership models that primarily find its source in many of these civilisational assets.
The author narrates about the 1979 tragedy in Morbi district in Gujarat. At that time, Modi was as an ordinary karyakarta of RSS. He worked with team members to handle decayed dead bodies. There are two things that are important in leadership: level of concern and level of control. If your level of concern is within your level of control, then you have to act. But what the modern generation does is just take a photo, put it on Twitter and say, ‘Chennai Corporation, the road is bad.’ You require a person who acts and gives a solution. The various levels of training that he had at different points of life have made him a leader who can find solutions, not only to our country but to the whole word. We saw how India helped the whole world in handling covid.
My first question to the panellists is: What leadership attribute that the author has cited about Prime Minster Modi that resonates with you personally or professionally?
Dr V Kamakoti: I have had personal experiences in observing our honourable and beloved Prime Minister. The first thing that inspires me is his mann ki baat (Prime Minister’s Radio program). After the first 50 episodes, we did a word cloud. The central word that came was ‘people’ followed by ‘country.’ That is what reflected in our G20 theme. In the radio talk, the PM mentions about a person who makes a product somewhere in the north east. That person now exports his product. That is the impact of mann ki baat.
The second thing that I like about him is igniting hope in the people. One of our IIT alumnus, Ganapathi was involved in developing the CoWin app. When we did the vaccination, we needed to have certificates. The whole world was watching us. After developing the app, Ganapathi went to the PM and suggested the name of ‘Covin’ for the app. The Prime Minister immediately responded, “Hum jeet gaye (We have won). Why don’t we name it Co-Win?” That’s a very small thing but a great inspiration. We have done 250 crores of vaccinations today. The Western vaccines would not have worked here. We made our own vaccines and exported to other countries free of cost. This is where we are proud to be Bharat.
During Covid, we felt a heavy dependence on the Western world, especially for telecom. That is when our PM came up with one word, atmanirbharta. Today we have l1 telecom suppliers. We have the national telecom security directive. We have BSNL going for 5G. Several things happened just because of that one word. As a technologist, I am very grateful. The next one is the intersection of leadership and spiritual growth.
I also had the opportunity to work with the PM for Kashi Tamil Sangamam (KTS) 1.0 and 2.0. The PM always feels that the language should not become a barrier to communication. During KTS 2.0, just 24 hours before the inauguration, I got a call from the PMO that the PM would like to have his Hindi speech translated online with this head set and it should be done through ‘bhashini’ software. I coordinated and thank God, it worked. When the function finished, he came and hugged me. That’s the inspiration I got. He is a tough task master. Once you commit to something, he sees to it that you deliver. That is a very important leadership trait.
Rajiv C Lochan:
I have not had the chance to rub shoulders with Prime Minister Modi, like Professor Kamakoti or others. I had the chance to meet him only once, when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat and I was working with the Bank of Baroda. We put together a strategy for the bank in Gujarat and met the CM with the Chairman and General Manager of the bank. We were expecting a battalion to come for the meeting. But we were surprised that he came alone and spent 45 minutes with us. Frankly, he knew more about what the bank was doing in the state of Gujarat than any other. It was really stunning. I certainly was blown away back then at the gravitas of the man.
To me, leadership is less about leadership, more about followership. And from that standpoint, leaders need to have followers, otherwise they can’t be leaders. How do you inspire others? There are two sort of foundational aspects. One, you need to have a very deep sense of purpose that drives you. Two, you need to have a very deep sense of awareness—of yourself, the people around you and also the context in which you are operating.
There are multiple instances and ways in which the Prime Minister has demonstrated all of these in an integrated way. As leaders, we have to make a small number of big decisions. That’s the mandate. We don’t have to make large number of small decisions. You’ve to be convinced internally and not so much look for validation from the external. There will always be critics, skeptics and contrary views. Having an internal locus of control is quite important to be a leader with conviction.
The author has talked about viveka, vairagya, tyaga and seva (wisdom, determination, sacrifice and service) as leadership qualities. Perhaps I would add Anushasan (discipline) and vinamrata (humility). The Prime Minister does a fantastic job of bringing all these aspects together, regardless of who he interacts with -whether it’s a senior bureaucrat or Elon Musk or a farmer in Madhya Pradesh. He is able to connect and relate quite remarkably. He has a deep sense of purpose and a strong sense of awareness. When these two are in place, you have the opportunity to build on that. You bring courage of conviction; care and commitment; and energy and optimism. His physical vitality at his age is remarkable. He works 17 to 18 hours non-stop, goes across multiple time zones and he is able to do this with humility.
Anand Raghavan: The concept of leadership as enshrined in this book is not about an individual trait. It’s about an institutional mechanism of passing on leadership to the next generation. The author says, ‘Leadership is not about power or authority. It is about understanding oneself and others around us, coming to terms with our own inner potential and what we are capable of and exploring how we can expand our capacities by mobilising others.’
Dr S Vaidhyasubramaniam: Prof Kamakoti, what is your view on how Prime Minister Modi has globalised Indian education? As you have been in the thick of action, can you share some inputs on that?
Dr Kamakoti: It requires an elaborate answer but I’ll finish off very briefly. Mr Dharmendra Pradhan, the Union Education Minister, the Secretary for Higher Education and I met and we discussed about setting up of an international campus of IIT and we looked at three aspects which the Prime Minister had driven very clearly. One, we need to go to a place where they need us. Two, the school education in that place should be good, because that’s the input we are going to get. Three, the government there should be willing. We decided on Tanzania because Africa and India share the same pains of having been exploited by some Western countries at some point of time. We also see that they need us.
From the date when the External Affairs Minister went and signed the MOU there, followed by cabinet, parliament and other meetings, it took us just six months to start the institution. This is thanks to the momentum which the national education policy, especially the vishwa guru concept, has driven. When the Prime Minister asked, “When are the classes starting?” they replied, “Already started.” It was a very happy birthday. On 24 October 2023, which happened to be Vijayadashmi and also the United Nations Day, we commenced the classes.
When the overseas government asked us about the commercial terms, we said, “We are Bharat. We are coming to share our knowledge. Whatever money you generate, we don’t want even one rupee from that. Saraswati is mine. Lakshmi is yours.” Within the first two months, they gave us 100 plus acres of land to IIT Madras to establish the campus. The second batch is now starting. Superpower doesn’t come just by control but compassion. We exported vaccine free of cost to developing countries. We are now spreading education. I’m sure this is where India should be loved as a super power and not feared as a superpower.
Dr S Vaidhyasubramaniam: Leadership is about creating followers. Are there enough followers today who believe that good things will definitely happen in India?
Rajiv C Lochan: I think this process is irreversible. The government has put a number of reforms in place which cannot be reversed. Enough momentum has been built across these reforms. The single largest first time voters took part in 2014 elections and there was a decisive mandate after 30 years. We had a government that no longer had to suffer with coalition dynamics. That was the biggest signal from the citizens of the country. What followed from there was a series of reforms including demonetisation, GST, IBC, scrapping of Article 370 and so on. Most of us grew up in scarcity. This generation has grown up in prosperity. The energy level of the country has gone up by several notches.
Dr S Vaidhyasubramaniam: The G20 slogan has a lot of economic undercurrents. Was it an accidental coinage or has that to do with the PM’s understanding of economics?
Anand Raghavan: I find a common message around the PM’s development goals. Wherever the Prime Minister speaks, he is obsessed with ensuring that India becomes the third largest economy in quick time. We are fifth now. The world GDP is 100 trillion dollar and we are at 3.5. We represent one sixth of the world population. We need to get to 8% to 10% of the world GDP. That, I think, is clearly in his mind. His actions and policies like last mile delivery of welfare to the poor, upliftment of the downtrodden, getting states to align with the central economic policies aim at ensuring that.
Dr S Vaidhyasubramaniam: Prof Kamakoti, how do you navigate criticism and controversies?
Dr Kamakoti: There are two things I have learnt. First is to respond to complaints. Second, if something is wrong, I just go and apologise.
Dr S Vaidhyasubramaniam: India needs more Modis. How is he going to create more Modis?
Rajiv C Lochan: I feel that there’s plenty already created. Look at how the public sector is so vibrant now. The Reserve Bank of India has given the highest ever dividend back to the government. Never in the history of the Reserve Bank has this kind of a thing happened. Every public servant is operating under an energy level that is much beyond where they were 10 or 15 years ago. I think that with or without Prime Minister Modi, this engine will continue. That’s why I feel it is irreversible. There are enough and more successors ready, and all of them are equipped to carry the agenda forward.
Dr S Vaidhyasubramaniam: Professor Kamakoti narrated about the Kashi Tamil Sangamam experience. I was also fortunate to work very closely with the Prime Minister for both the versions. I want to share a personal experience about the Sengol event that happened in the new building of the parliament. I was so privileged to be participating in that event because I was given the responsibility of bringing all the aadheenams together. If you had noticed the photos, I was the only person inside the parliament building wearing white shirt and white dhoti. The rest were all in saffron.
What resonated with me at that point of time was a specific question that came from the PMO as to how a Pime Minister should greet the aadheenams. I said, “Typically, the way in which we do vandanam to gurus is by prostrating before them.” The next day morning, it was a pleasant surprise to see the Prime Minister doing shashtang namaskar to the entire aadheenams who assembled there. He was demonstrating hope, faith and belief in such a civilisational parampara. We are so privileged and proud about this.
