Can We Give Back?

Very recently, when IBM, the $ 100 bn plus IT giant, marked its centenary with celebrations and bonus bonanzas for its employees, its Chairman and CEO, Sam Palmasino asked an elite gathering in Bengaluru  whether the remarkable talent pool that is in virtually every profession in India, has ever introspected about using its talent to benefit and transform education, health care or any of the problems ailing the less favoured in our society.  The sad part was that when no one in the packed hall stood to answer the provocative question he simply said, “ I rest my case”.

Dr. Devi Shetty, the famous children’s cardio-surgeon, remarked that India churns out the best and largest number of doctors and nurses and any number of state-of-the-art speciality hospitals across the country, yet medical care does not reach the masses that need it the most. While one reason is lack of money for treatment, the other more disturbing reason is the reluctance of doctors and nurses to serve the rural and economically backward in remote areas. Having paid lakhs of rupees for their medical/nursing degree they are in a hurry to recoup their investment.  State governments have tried from time to time to enforce a two-year mandatory service in rural India; the result: mass absenteeism, as in the case of teachers in state-run rural schools and colleges.

Some 58 of America’s wealthiest families have pledged half of their wealth to philanthropic causes; names like Carnegie, Rockefeller, Warren Buffet, Bill and Melinda Gates are familiar. So are Tata and Birla in India, and more recently, Azeem Premji of Wipro. But how many know that eight years before the endowment that established Carnegie University was created in the 19^th century, Sir J.N. Tata had created the endowment bearing his name which  later established the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru? And that he also pledged half his wealth to philanthropy?

While all these great names had the means to give, what about the rest of us contributing our time, commitment and skills to the less fortunate in society? Some schools in India have one or two periods of SUPW (Socially Useful and Productive Work) in a week; many teachers treat this period as simply a break from monotony while students consider it a euphemism for “Some Useless and Painful Work”. The general tendency is to get the students to press parents or the neighbourhood for donations to a charity or some worthy social cause. Would it not serve the student better if he were to read to the blind or spend time with lonely old people or lend a hand in some physical work in a farm or village?

Now, suppose participation in a socially relevant activity became an integral part of a complete education? Suppose grades given for such participation added to the overall score in final exams? And, just suppose, every employer asked a potential aspirant to describe in some detail any social work he has done, and his answer played an integral part in the selection process?

Imagine the benefits to the disadvantaged living among us if the country’s youth in the 15 to 35 year age group (who account for nearly half of our billion plus population) were to give just one day in one month towards  a philanthropic activity. What a profound impact it would have on the have-nots; doctors and nurses treating the poor in town and village, teachers aiding in child and adult literacy, techies guiding the uninitiated through the intricacies of the computer to assist in the daily life of a small farmer or a petty trader, housewives imparting the benefits of basic hygiene to illiterate and ignorant mothers, and the rich contributing some of their material wealth for the undertaking and completion of vital projects stuck in some bureaucratic logjam. There are already selfless people out there who have worked  with the locals to build dams for storing rain water, teach bio-waste management for enrichment of soil and crop value, and help impoverished and marginalised women become financially independent by starting small group business enterprises.

Sharing our wealth, both material and intellectual, as well as our time, not only raises the quality of life of the poor, and helps develop a better and equitable social fabric, it also gives an immense sense of self-satisfaction to the giver who expects nothing in return other than the betterment of his fellowmen, and in the process, his own. So, let it begin with social work being a mandatory subject in school and college and an important requisite in the selection process for jobs. It is time for the more fortunate among us to be the social alchemists who will use whatever power and skills we possess to become instruments of change that will make a difference to a large section of our fellowmen.

                                          

Our Elected Public Servants

No one in India would have missed reading about or watching on TV the deplorable act of one of our 'respected, elected public servants' slapping another public servant for allegedly not sanctioning government- sponsored loans toa section of the local population he allegedly represented. He then had the nerve and gall to brazenly deny the slapping though you could clearly hear the 'thwak thwak' as his palm landed on the bank manager's face even as the camera homed in on the act. Somebody at a party the other day said that the  entire incident had been filmed on a mobile phone by a customer present in the bank premises, but equally it could have been recorded on the CCTV which is installed in all branches (unless some of the smaller cooperative banks have chosen not to implement this directive) as a useful deterrent to robbery and assault by anyone else who could not be as sure of party and government protection as this believer in the law of the jungle.

Until recently I was working in a public sector bank. Any bank employee in an executive position knows that financial assistance to the deprived classes is not only the government’s objective but also his/her own national and social duty, so that a particular section of society, repressed over centuries for an accident of birth, can be helped to rise above economic and societal stigmas that his like have been subjected to, and live in dignity and reasonable financial independence. Towards this end, every branch of any public-sector bank is allotted a target as to the amount and number of beneficiaries to be financed under various government-sponsored schemes for setting up small shops, factories, dairies and allied agricultural activities, or for pursuing petty trades such as barber shops, tailoring, cobbling, servicing units, etc.

Identification of such beneficiaries are laid down by the sponsoring agencies themselves as also the state/central government, such as the minimum educational qualification of the candidate (which is really minimum), his place of residence (which must be within say 10 km from the branch from where the loan was proposed to be taken, and is to be certified by the concerned mandal office), minimum income of the family and routing of the loan through the sponsoring body to avoid multiple financing to the same individual’.

This recent unsavoury incident brought to mind memories of my days as chief manager of a large sized branch which, though catering to the needs of a behemoth public sector undertaking and the engineering ancillaries in the notified industrial areas surrounding it, still had to meet its quota of lending to the financially disabled living within its area of operation. What I am now about to narrate shows to what lengths unscrupulous so-called leaders will go to garner popularity and votes for themselves, without a thought to the proper spending of public money or the eventual good of the beneficiaries of the loans.

I was busy with a customer in my office when my head peon entered with a visiting card of a local (self-styled) leader. I told him to seat him outside while I finished my work with the person already with me. Not even five minutes later a self-important young man walked in, pushing my peon aside, and saying his boss is waiting outside and would I call him in please. Realising that these boorish types can make quite a nuisance of themselves I suggested he make his boss comfortable in the sofa in my office and I would attend to them once I had finished with this client. No sooner had that gentleman left both boss and aide, or ‘chamcha’, as we call them here, practically leapt into the vacant chairs before my desk. As soon as the pleasantries and introductions were over, the chamcha reverently placed a large album before me, turning the pages slowly one by one to show me photographs of his boss with various national and state level political dignitaries while the boss brought up the narrative of who the VIP was, and how close he was to him. Surprisingly, there were photographs of this man with the then President of India, with the Prime Minister, with various other ministers and with the chief minister and governor of our state. He kept saying he was close to them all and even if he had enviegled himself into some of the photographs there was no denying the fact that the photos were there.

And then followed pictures of this man with the topmost executives of any number of nationalised banks. With each turning of the page by his aide he would say,’ This is Shri X, MD of B Bank; I know him very well. I complained to him about one of his managers who wouldn’t sanction a loan to one of my candidates and that manager was immediately transferred out of the state.’ Or ‘ Here you see Shri Y, Executive Director of C Bank and a good friend of mine. One of his managers refused a loan and he too was shunted out to a faraway branch.’ Or ‘This is Shri Z, MD of D Bank, we are very close. I had a problem with one of his managers and that fellow lost his promotion.’ His message to me was loud and clear.

I knew what was coming so I suggested he tell me what he wanted from me. Immediately his aide pulled out a 9-foolscap pages list of applicants seeking loans. I checked out the list and told him that for one thing, none of the applications listed had been received by us, and secondly almost all the candidates had applied for the same line of activity, that is, setting up small grocery stores (kirana shops), or cut- piece centres (selling cloth material), or some such non-viable activity, and all in the same area therefore not at all sustainable. I added that I would go through the list and if any of the applicants fulfilled the laid down eligibility norms I would certainly be happy to help them once the applications reached us but he kept insisting I accommodate them all. I however remained firm.

Just then my head cashier, who also happened to be the employees’ trade union representative for the branch but was nevertheless very protective of me even though I was management, asked to enter my room. My visitor was notorious among the local banking fraternity and evidently word had got around that he was with me. I was at this point telling the leader that I found his remarks about the transfers he had engineered rather strange if it was meant to scare officials into releasing loans indiscriminately. I smiled as I said that no one could throw me beyond the Himalayas in the north nor beyond Kanya Kumari and into the ocean in the south. I said that when I joined the bank I knew that I could be transferred anywhere in the country. My head cashier then joined in saying, ‘Madam’s father was in the army and she has been all over the country since a baby; She has gone wherever the bank has posted her. I don’t think a transfer can scare her!’

Suddenly the man did a complete volte-face and exclaimed, ‘ If only all bank managers were like you, there would be no need for me to stage dharnas (sit-ins) for loans. Actually, all these managers I spoke of are now my very good friends…’ I stopped him mid-sentence and asked him to get in touch with me over the `phone after ten days.

Ten days later when he did call, I had by then run up an interesting dossier on him. I suggested to him that he first repay the ten-year old loan taken by his wife which he had guaranteed and for which any amount of follow-up with the wife or himself over the years had yielded no response, before my branch took up any case recommended by him. Especially since in several of the recommended cases the applicants’ bona fides were questionable such as a father earning a goodly income as a middle-level officer in a PSU, or an applicant living in another part of the city but having the Mandal office falsely certifying his place of residence, or worse still, applicants trying to wangle another loan after having defaulted on an earlier one at some other bank.

Strangely enough, I did not hear from him after that though I did learn that he had not given up trying at other banks in the city.