The intrinsic "asuvidha" (inconvenience) complex

Photo Credit: P.T.I./A currency exchange during India's demonetisation days

Indians are beset by a deep-rooted asuvidha (inconvenience) complex.

The complex operates on the principle of "Will do whatever is convenient for me even if it inconveniences someone else/others." The fallout of this complex are two: Firstly, it instils a strong sense of entitlement (among and regardless of rich, middle-class or poor) and secondly, it encourages an abnormal kind of tolerance which leads to submissiveness.

The asuvidha (inconvenience) complex can be seen in numerous walks of life. The greatest, cascading impact of this complex is felt from (please notice I have used the word "from" and not "by") those who are in politics. The other spheres in which this complex is most evident are public life/public servants, offices (especially corporate), riders and drivers of automotive vehicles and other citizens in neighbourhoods and on the streets. 

In politics, politicians who are unscrupulous, highly narcissistic (a type of narcissism defined by author Robert Greene as "The complete control narcissist"), have dictatorial tendencies or are blatantly despotic, or are the ones trying to push forward their perverse ideology, are the biggest perpetrators of this complex. The masses are involved in amplifying this complex in the following ways: they are either fooled and become passive participants in the agendas of these politicians or are complicit in their blatant support and become active participants. In both these cases, the masses operate on or perpetuate this complex or both.

And it is this complex which contributes in making day-to-day living a nightmare for India's 1.3 billion people and keeps the nation further away from living a more civilised life.

@tarundalayainsights

~ Bringing complex thoughts and analysis 

into a few words. ~

What was the alternative?

By 

Tarun Dalaya

Ram Bharose had had a hard day of work in the field. Earlier in the morning he had participated in the village panchayat elections.

In the night he was unable to sleep properly and kept tossing and turning.

His mind kept asking, "What was the alternative?","What was the alternative?","What was the alternative?".

His sleep broke. As he opened his eyes he saw a bright light and the God of What Was The Alternative, emerge. "Ram Bharose you kept asking a hundred times ‘What Was The Alternative?’ and I thought you were calling out to me and so I am here before you", the God said.

“You thought you voted for someone great, didn’t you?”, the God asked Ram Bharose. “Yes my Lord. I was planning to vote for the other one but he was accused by my fellow villagers of beating up his neighbour’s goat which strayed into his field”, he replied.

“You know this other one for years as well, is it not?  You know he is an animal lover? You know he is a gentle human being! And yet you did not vote for him because of what so many villagers were saying!”, the God of What Was The Alternative said angrily.

“Ram Bharose how can an animal lover hurt the goat?”, the God asked. “A handful of friends of the one you voted for were spreading a particular messaging around the village. Yes there was an alternative but you were not able to recognise Truth from Propaganda. You fell for propaganda spread by a few. You did not want to believe the Truth!”

Copyright © Tarun Dalaya, 2019

We must not forget that we are Indians first

- In his essay on the occasion of India's 68th Republic Day, Tarun Dalaya says that our aspiration for a better life is intrinsically interwoven with the desire for material things and our political choices, and we have to be cautious as both have the ability to influence us towards taking wrong decisions which throw us farther from embracing the reality that we are Indians first. -

As I write these thoughts, millions of my countrymen and countrywomen would have already formed some opinion or another, in a few seconds, on life, politics, aspirations, faith, identity and livelihood - influenced by information technology and word of mouth.

For a nation which has seen huge advancements in information technology and the varied mediums of communication that it offers, not too far behind with the developed world, there is still a sizeable part of our population which is bereft of such technology and means. Hence, for them, word of mouth continues to command attention as an expectation as well as a delivery mechanism of information and thought.

We may not realise it but as each brain processes what it sees, reads and hears; biases and divisions are being moulded and created in milliseconds.

Two subjects which are part of the communications we receive and interact with, for instance, are politics and things of a material nature, and both of them have immense power to polarise us and to further influence our thinking.

Both have an unusually common ability to influence the aspiration of the masses which is - the aspiration for a better life.

Our antennae towards material things is finely-tuned as we do not live in isolation. We observe. We constantly see who has got what we do not have. And if we forget, then we have advertisements which do not leave our side; plastered all over. We are enticed every time we look at what is advertised. While affordability is a great determining factor, need and greed are drivers for possession, with a thin line between them. And when we don't possess what we think we badly want in material things, chances are that we will feel polarised or divided into the camp of have-nots versus the haves.

And then we forget that we belong to the same nation which has a free market economy, which certainly has large swathes of inequality. Those who identify themselves passionately as the have-nots then transfer their feelings of being disenfranchised on to a leader in polity whom they perceive to be an instrument for bridging the gap of what others possess and they do not. This is increasingly becoming evident in the voting pattern of those who are not below the poverty line and are not necessarily low income group constituents. Well-educated, and middle income and primarily the salaried among them, have voted with feelings of deep disenfranchisement. The more passionate their feelings, unfortunately the greater the chances of them being fooled by false promises being made by someone desperate to reach a higher pedestal of power for oneself or one's ideology or both.

Of course a political leaning would also have other aspects of attracting one to a political party such as ideology, a history of family affiliation, a religious connotation or roots of the party or the charisma of a leader. But if we were to strip these off for a moment, then there would be little difference between politics and material objects being perceived as providers of a better life.

And hence the danger of falling prey to this enticement is ever present and real.

If we were to acknowledge this with courage and sincerity, we would realise that we need to be constantly on guard. On guard not just for ourselves, to prevent the damage we could cause to oneself and to others, but to be able to hold on to sensible moorings that could prevent others from going astray.

India does not need a reinvention of thought on its identity or those of its citizens for it has the benefit of a great footprint in civilizational legacy and in the words left behind for us by stellar souls and thinkers. Also, there is no need to be reminded, as we are nowadays, of what nationalism or patriotism means. Nearly 70 years of having obtained Independence, a Constitution and Rule of Law to live by, have been and are good enough to bind us together.

However, this does not in any way imply that we need not think for ourselves and blindly follow the exceptional voices of the past.

Our civilization possesses a great legacy of the spirit of inquiry going back thousands of years ago on just about anything related to life and living. In things spiritual it became a spiritual powerhouse due to the nurturing and practice of this spirit.

Despite the height of enlightenment that he had reached, Shakyamuni Buddha, for instance, encouraged the questioning and self-experience of his teachings by his followers through this tradition of the spirit of inquiry.

And so it is in this tradition that we need to walk even in the 21st century to discern the authenticity of those who lead us in our polity.

All political leaders leave markers from the beginning of their careers. These markers are supposed to be studied and understood by everyone, especially the educated, before we bring them to power.

Someone or a few would rise who are capable of polarising us by influencing our opinions about them to such an extent that we would rather follow our liking for the person or the hold that she or he has over our mind, at the cost of recognising that we all belong to one land.

We all have feelings for and opinions about whom we bring to power but more importantly we need to have feelings for who we are - Indians.

That we are one people has to be a constant reminder to ourselves as we pin our hopes on those things that we think will better our lives – material things and politics.  We must cultivate the spirit of inquiry which is in our DNA and hence our ethos and also find strength to criticise those things that we think as good, when we find our conscience telling us that they are veering towards something bad. If we are unable to hear our conscience, and we must accept that this could happen, then we must be tolerant and patient with those who could play the role of conscience-keepers.

We must never forget that there is something above ideology, need, greed, power, and even the hope for a better life.

And that is that we are Indians first!

Copyright © Tarun Dalaya

 

Saints emerge from all Faiths, Or from no Faith

Saints emerge from all Faiths. Or from no Faith.

Some get the title from their followers, some from a body representing a Faith.

Some get no title at all and yet, through their stellar actions and experiences, can be identified with one.

There is no great deal in the title. But everything in their purpose and action. Even Saints have levels of evolution. Even they struggle with infallibility. But they make their mark. Who are we to criticise those who are genuine? And yes, we have that ability to discern the genuine from the not genuine. It takes herculean strides to be that particular way - life of a Saint. Among the billions, only some emerge. It is they and their actions and leadership and life-enhancing thoughts which allow life on Earth to enjoy the reassurance that there is still hope and time from annihilation. Do we have the wisdom and the grit to follow and contribute to that path, in this lifetime?

Building a nation in the 21st century

In the 21st century, you don't build a nation by brawn and bullets and, yes, a testosterone-way-of-thinking. And you don't also build it necessarily with money management skills and a "winning temperament" (business management skills).

You build it with ideas and innovative thinking, heart and mind, brain, inclusiveness and bridging the gap between the Haves and the Have Nots.

A famine of leaders

The mishandling at JNU could cost India dearly in attracting foreign investments

Recently, India and the world witnessed two important events.

One was the “Make In India” Week in Mumbai; attended by many well-known names of the country’s business community and of rest of the world.

The other was the announcement of the Government of India’s Union Budget for FY 2016-17.

Coincidentally, and starkly, a third event took place in between these two happenings. This event, as is being increasingly described by influentially disapproving voices in India and abroad, was the Centre’s mishandling of the speech-related student gathering at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

Packaged as one of the pet themes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, “Make In India” also aspires to resurrect the country’s slowing-manufacturing sector, by encouraging greater participation in production activities by foreign companies, in India.

The government has been working at various levels to introduce measures for improving ease of doing business in India. Reduced documentation, an increasing use of IT to streamline and improve the process of applications and approvals and the passing of The Companies (Amendment) Act, 2015, to remove certain impediments as well bring in other improvements, are some of the initiatives.

India’s ranking in ease of doing business continues to hover around the 130 and upwards mark since the past two years according to the World Bank rating. Even though it dropped from 134 to 130, in 2015 to 2016 respectively, the ranking is still very low.

While the regulatory aspects and paper work really do matter when one hits the ground to begin something in terms of business, it will be counter-productive to dismiss the importance that perceptions play.

The tangibles are already being worked on for a long time, with every successive government that comes to power. A December 2015 note by the Government of India’s Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) mentions a report titled “assessment of state implementation of business reforms” which covers an assessment of reforms implemented by Indian States and Union Territories (UTs), from the period of January 1 to June 30, 2015. Based on a 98-point action plan for business reforms agreed to between the DIPP and the States and UTs, the assessment reveals a large variance in the implementation with Andhra Pradesh showing a high score of 70.12% and Kerala, a State well-known for its high levels of literacy, showing a low 22.87%.

But who is working on maintaining good perceptions? Though the topic of why perceptions matter can be debated endlessly by those who think it matters and those who don’t, the reality is that perceptions make a big mark, especially among foreign investors. Even though some of them may not have any other option but to invest in India, out of economic and business necessity, the negative perception on how difficult it is to run a business in India goes hand in hand with the concept of ease of doing business as well as impinging on future investments in the country by the same companies.

What are those happenings which can negatively impact the perception of foreign companies which wish to do business in India or are looking at expanding their already-existing footprint in the country?

Among the most influential perception-impacting factors are human-related ones such as frequency of labour unrest in a particular region or location, social unrest, political unrest, among others.

While corruption in India is well-known (according to Transparency International’s 2015 ranking of 168 countries, it is placed 76^th), it may not take centre stage in comparison to current human-related happenings which would have definitely jolted the perception of foreign investors – both, invested and potential.

In terms of labour unrest, the violent protests at the factory of Maruti Suzuki Motors in Manesar in Haryana, during which a senior Human Resource official was burned to death, has been among the most frightening incidents in the recent past. Though the company may not have cited this as the reason for its move to invest in the State of Gujarat as well, it is the author’s assumption that perhaps the incident at Manesar encouraged it to look at a “safer” location for future investments.

For many years now, the two pluses that are often cited for why India has been a favourable investment destination are that it is a democracy (the world’s largest) and largely English-speaking.

Universities in most democratic countries and the students that comprise them, are seen to be the symbols of not only the freedom of inquiry, free speech and expression, but of democracy itself.

Many of India’s universities are looked at with great admiration by, for instance, the Western world. Their progress, development and nurturing and the peace within its walls are taken as a yardstick that all is well.

Make no error in judgement by denying that the world was not closely watching or following the way in which a series of so-called anti-national events at JNU were handled by the Centre and the police and the arrest of the president of the JNU Students’ Union Mr. Kanhaiya Kumar. The world was also closely watching the lawyers who displayed unprecedented brazenness and turned violent on the accused as he was brought to court, and the journalists who were doing their job of reporting there. And later when authentic reports of the so-called seditious sloganeering-related videos being doctored emerged, one can easily imagine the damage that would have been done in the eyes of those who think highly of India’s democracy and rule of law.

In a recent interview to senior journalist Mr. Bhupendra Chaubey of  the TV channel CNN-IBN, well-known CNN anchor Mr. Fareed Zakaria said, “I would say that the reaction of the United States and the world, to some of the things that have been happening in India on the social front or religious front, issues of communal harmony, has been negative. People have been surprised that some of these things have happened because there was a sense and a hope that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was going to represent all of India and all Indians. I think that there isn’t anything particular that Prime Minister Modi has done, but there is a feeling that his party and elements within it have done things that have been divisive. I am telling you that this is purely me reporting to you about the reaction that has taken place in the West.”

A number of articles were published in publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, among others, which have been very critical about the way the events at JNU were handled as well as the arrest of Mr. Kumar. It is inevitable that many readers from all over the world and from all walks of life, including business, would have read them.

This does not help the image of India.

The manner in which the recent events at JNU and other-related events were handled, could cost India dearly in attracting foreign investments and a repeat of it would be even more disastrous.

Copyright © Tarun Dalaya, 2016. Views expressed are personal.

Did we ask our children?

Did we ask our children if they wanted to be bombed or be maimed?

Before hatred possessed us, and we set our sights and aimed,
We took them for granted, when we built our arsenal under their homes,
And transformed them into rubble, parroting our thoughts in moralistic tones,
Tones so loud, it subdued their howling, their piercing screams,
We brandished our weapons, our armour, taking pride in our killing teams,
All that mattered was how we justified our struggle and our war,
Each child, that died, did not matter, like the offspring of a despicable whore,
Why that drama of carrying infants in our arms and rushing for their care?
When our brothers fomented terror, usurped land, did we say, “Don’t you dare!”
Our blood-thirsty minds saw them as nothing but as inconsequential fools,
“Collateral damage”, “Be warned, we had said” and they became our tools,
In a conflict with no end in sight and neither a sense of fulfilment,
All because we thought our children could do nothing for peace and contentment.

(A lament written in memory of the children who were killed and maimed in the July/August 2014 Israeli-Hamas War)

Copyright © Tarun Dalaya

Nothing can heal the way forgiveness can

Whenever anger or the now-rare feeling of retribution emerges in my mind, after I hear the news of a brutal crime being committed; my memory and better sense take over and remind me of Gladys Staines – the wife of a Christian missionary in India whose husband and two boys were burnt alive while they slept inside their vehicle. What comes to mind is not that incident, but her wisdom to forgive. Very difficult, so utopian, but a powerful act that is widely misunderstood as a sign of weakness or not understood at all.

In the spate of the vitriol that was being spewed by politicians and their coterie in the 2014 General Elections in India, a well-known politician -- who continuously presents himself to be a fount of wisdom and knowledge -- criticised the daughter of an assassinated prime minister of India for visiting her father’s accused killer in jail. He was referring to a visit she had made some time ago, arising from the desire to come face-to-face with the accused and seen, at that time by many, as a step towards forgiveness.

How easy it is for me to say “wisdom to forgive”, how easy it is to think such lofty thoughts, but so difficult to practice, the reader would think.

I have contemplated a lot on forgiveness, tried to read as much as I could about what enlightened masters have had to say about it, and some years ago, more importantly, I have forgiven a perceived wrongdoing which affected my family most adversely. Yes, I forgave the wrongdoer with great difficulty, but I forgave. Similarly, as in any ordinary life which is rarely faultless, I know I too have been forgiven by others, near and far, numerous times.

But I admit, to forgive is not easy and the willingness to forgive can also depend on the severity of the act. I suppose that it would be easier to forgive a less severe act than a most violent one.

However, the penalty for any wrongdoings are, according to the law of life, for the guilty to bear. There is no escaping. Time eventually catches up and pays. In a spiritual context it is part of “the law of karma” or is encapsulated in the words, “what ye sow, ye shall reap” or simply reflected in the saying “what goes around, comes around.”

On an evening walk some time ago, I passed by a house under construction. One of the workers was hammering a nail into a makeshift door perhaps to be used for their temporary living quarters. As he struck the nail, I wondered how it would feel if a hand accidentally came between the nail and the door. Within seconds my mind thought of the suffering of Jesus the Christ and the two men along with him, when they were crucified according to the laws of those times. In his lifetime, Jesus the Christ had performed many miracles but he chose not to perform one to save himself; nor did he use his powers to bring wrath to those who tortured him. Instead, as his life neared its end on the cross, the divinity of his wisdom made him utter those now-most-famous words, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Jesus’ enlightened mind saw the life-enhancing and healing power of forgiveness compared to hate and retribution.

Forgiveness works both ways. It is not enough for the repentant to repent and seek forgiveness but it is also very important for the repentant to forgive oneself to enable genuine repentance. For a person filled with guilt, it is equally important to heal, through acts of altruism which have a great impact in the process of one’s reformation.

The character of Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables and the Illustrated Classics’ adaptation that I read as a child, showed me how we could undo our mistakes by repenting maturely and engaging in powerful acts of kindness. Four scenes have remained vividly imprinted in my mind from what I read and re-read several times.

Jean Valjean being caught stealing silverware from his host’s house, a Bishop; the Bishop forgiving him and saying that he should have asked if he wanted the silverware; Valjean furrowing beneath a fallen horse carriage and lifting it partially with his body to rescue a person trapped below it; the suicide of Inspector Javert who is unable to come to terms with how he persecuted Valjean; and Valjean dying a fulfilled man with his adopted daughter and her husband by his death bed.

In their book The wisdom of forgiveness, written by His Holiness The Dalai Lama and Victor Chan, His Holiness says, “In my own case, in Tibet, all the destruction, death, all happened. Painful experiences. But revenge….this creates more unhappiness. So, think wider perspective: revenge no good, so forgive. Forgiveness does not mean you just forget about the past. No, you remember the past. Should be aware that these past sufferings happened because of narrow-mindedness on both sides. So now, time passed. We feel more wise, more developed. I think that’s the only way.”

Noted writer and commentator on religion, Karen Armstrong, in her book Twelve steps to a compassionate life says, “During the Vietnam war, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, performed the meditation on the Immeasurables for the soldiers of this country – but he also contemplated the plight of the American troops, who, he knew, were suffering too, and made himself desire their safety and well-being. Once you realise that your enemy is also suffering, you look into his eyes and see a mirror image of your own distress. In this way, you realise that he too deserves compassion.”

In the recent course of working on this article, two thought-provoking incidents were reported by the world’s media, which brought to attention not just the fact that there are people all over the world who exercise the power of forgiveness, but more importantly, and before that, they exercise the will to forgive.

Minutes before a public hanging in an Iranian town, a mother pardoned her son’s killer in the presence of the convict’s own grieving mother, by removing the noose around his neck but slapping him. This act was captured pictorially and those photographs were widely circulated.

Earlier and in the same month that the Iranian mother’s act of forgiveness was reported; Rwanda remembered the genocide that took place there 20 years ago due to the ethnic violence between the Hutus and the Tutsis. At that time, media reported on how Alice Mukarurinda, whose daughter was killed and whose own arm was hacked in the attacks; had coincidentally met her attacker, Emmanuel Ndayisaba, after many years and during his efforts with other genocide killers to seek forgiveness from victims. Not only did she forgive him after two weeks of thinking and discussing it with her husband, but she now works with Emmanuel as a part of a group building simple brick houses for survivors of the genocide.

Quoting Martin Luther King Jr. in her book, Armstrong says, ‘Only goodness can drive out evil and only love can overcome hate.’  She continues saying, “Loving our enemies means that we have to accept ‘the necessity, over and over again, of forgiving those who inflict evil and injury on us’; King was convinced that this was ‘an absolute necessity for our survival…the key to the solution of the problems of our world’.”

The patterns of life in terms of incidents that beg forgiveness remain the same: as it was at the time of Jesus the Christ and now. Life is not faultless. Faults, horrible acts, violence, occur as life progresses in time.

But it is the power of forgiveness which continues to stand the test of time for its life-enhancing quality and its ability to heal like nothing else can.

Copyright © Tarun Dalaya, 2014

 

A growing divisiveness in India’s polity

One of the most major impediments which has not allowed India’s polity to reach greater levels of maturity and purpose, since sixty-seven years of Independence, is the growing divisiveness within.

And its rising proportions are becoming unashamedly visible in our public spaces, inside our organisations and, more importantly and sadly, among all political parties, old and new.

The slander and abuse thrown from one politician to the other during the nation’s 2014 General Elections to constitute the 16th Lok Sabha (House of People) have been visible to all, thanks to television. The flames of intolerance and opinionated views are telecast every day and suffered by right-minded and sensitive citizens across the country.

Debates have become shouting matches in Parliament and actions have become plucking and hurling of microphones in our legislative assemblies. Agreeing to disagree has become ranting caught in real-time debates on prime time news, where the anchors are either not qualified to play referees, or display helplessness to secretly keep the ruckus going in order to retain viewership, or are caught unawares by well-prepared, vitriolic personalities.

In a programme on television channel NDTV, which debated the meaning of nationalism, senior politician Jaswant Singh said, ‘…we have become so much smaller in mind, that we just simply cannot accommodate a different viewpoint. How can we construct the nation?’

While participating in a televised debate on how disruption of both houses of Parliament had become rampant, a senior professional-turned politician from the leading opposition party blatantly said that his party engaged in such protests to rouse the anger of the people of India against the ruling coalition.

If this is the dangerous emotion that a well-educated politician, in a position of great responsibility, supports to incite, then imagine what the not-so-well educated ones have been doing so far—especially those who come under the scanner of criminalisation of Indian politics.

The rioting that took place in August 2013 in the Muzaffarnagar district of the State of Uttar Pradesh, is reported to have worsened due to hate speeches given by politicians belonging to few political parties. Most of those suspected were caught on camera while making such speeches and this is scathing evidence of the potent impact of any act of divisiveness.

Some celebrate the division of a State, like in the case of Andhra Pradesh, while others decry it; but our approach towards creating a separate entity from an existing State appears more divisive than one espousing the logic of division.

New political parties being formed and new alliances forged with intertwining and almost-common agendas seem to be making it even more difficult to decide on which party or coalition to support for an already-confused electorate. Yet many functionaries of political parties engage in vitriolic behaviour to give a distinction to their organisations.

We talk of intrusions on our borders, of terrorism, of anti-social and anti-national forces within our country, but those who are doing more damage are roaming free and mingling with everyone on the streets, in institutions and reputed organisations—like tinderboxes ready to ignite the flames of intolerance the moment something divergent is heard or learnt and unknowingly or knowingly identifying themselves with divisive forces.

Is this what our freedom fighters fought for and why our soldiers keep vigilant at night so that we can sleep soundly? Do we want our young minds to absorb and mimic the divisiveness they are witnessing as they step into the world? Is this what we wish to offer on a platter to those wicked forces which want to spill the blood of our citizens and bring chaos to our much-loved, but challenged democracy?

Divisiveness, it seems, is an intimate part of Indian history and this trait perhaps remains entrenched in our psyche. If this is true, then it strongly necessitates for us to guard against falling prey to this trait in ourselves and in others.

Indian history is replete with examples of how divisiveness among rulers and the ruled led to the conquest and subjugation of parts of the Indian sub-continent. Our history also points out instances where divisiveness led to intrusions of plundering hordes and the ruin of a land which was once known as the “Golden Sparrow”.

Have we not learnt enough from our history and our past mistakes?

The trait of divisiveness could also lead to other negative behavioural patterns. Though not directly in this context, in his book Ignited Minds, renowned scientist and former president of India Dr. Abdul Kalam quotes Sir C.V. Raman from a talk that he gave to young graduates in 1969 as saying, ‘We have, I think developed an inferiority complex. I think what is needed in India is the destruction of that defeatist spirit. We need a spirit of victory, a spirit that will carry us to our rightful place under the sun, a spirit which can recognise that we, as inheritors of a proud civilisation, are entitled to our rightful place on this planet’. Dr. Kalam in his own words in the same book says, ‘The greatest danger to our sense of unity and our sense of purpose comes from those ideologists who seek to divide the people’.

Writing on another negative behavioural pattern arising from the trait of divisiveness, author Gurcharan Das says in his book India Unbound, ‘Poor teamwork is pervasive in India. Take any institution, scratch its surface and one finds factionalism. Whether it is a company, a university, a hospital, a village panchayat, or a municipal board, it is beset with dissension, and it affects national competitiveness. What is the cause of our divisiveness?’

A key reason why divisiveness has penetrated many aspects of our polity and continues to rise unabatedly is because a large part of our leadership has been clinging to the notion that the end justifies the means. Those adhering to this notion will not stop at anything to achieve something. And it is no secret that many times that something desired is out of greed—greed for power, greed for authority or greed for money, or for all of these. If there was another vital thing that the father of our nation, Mahatma Gandhi, wished to teach our polity, apart from the powerful concept of ahimsa or non-violence, it was that the ends do not justify the means and that the means are as important if not more important than the ends. In fact, his adherence to non-violence showed his sensitivity to the means. Many would dismiss this as being idealistic or not possible at all times. However, not just Gandhi, but other great leaders of the world who emulated him, proved that this thought and focus forms the bedrock of right action.

It would help leaders in India’s polity to vigorously keep the following in mind: Lead by example without becoming self-righteous, be totally intolerant to any form of divisiveness even if it is from within or from the top, be a part of a movement to transform India into a meritocratic society, continuously question the means being used towards the end and flesh out the negatives that the means could give rise to or cause, and cultivate respect in oneself and others for the perpetuation of a peaceful and mature co-existence than one based on divide and rule.

Nearly every important area in the country that we look at today is in a crisis—the economy, the political landscape, national security, energy security, gender equality, equality among citizens and security at our borders. 

Whether one is in a position of power or an ordinary citizen, it is time that we focussed our attention on the rising tide of divisiveness in the country and do whatever possible to stop it.


                                                   Copyright © Tarun Dalaya, 2014

Keep the Crusades away from our millennium

The connotations of the Crusades continue to haunt and terrorise our lives and can be guarded against by exercising greater caution in our thinking and sensitivity towards our actions, says Tarun Dalaya.

So pertinent was the thought of the philosopher and poet George Santayana, that William Shirer chose to quote him among the initial pages of his monumental work, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which read: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it".  Shirer, it seems, was exhorting his readers, through this epigraph, to remember the evil perpetrated by a defeated power lest they suffered something similar again, because of their follies.

Santayana's words bear significance as people, the world over, continue to face the condemnation of re-living undesired history, especially in the form of conflicts arising out of religious strife. Take for instance the conflicts created by radicals representing the religions of Christianity and Islam.  No other religious conflict has been more severe and continuous than what these two faiths have experienced.  Can there be a more haunting example of this than the Crusades?

Historians tells us that the Crusades – a series of “holy” wars waged by the Latin Christian World against the Islamic World of the Middle-East – were fought during the period 1096–1291, and still continued in various forms throughout following centuries. Bigots, ruled by feelings of insecurity and obscure identities, sowed seeds of irreparable tension between peoples of Christian and Islamic faiths.

Man has now entered a new millennium and yet he continues to repeat the misdeeds of his ancestors -- blatantly or shrouded in subtlety.

Let us consider the daring attacks on the World Trade Centre and elsewhere in the U.S., the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, the bombings in Bali and Kenya.

Those responsible for initiating and executing these events conveyed dangerous connotations, deliberately or inadvertently, that the fires of the Crusades never died and have been transported, with advancements in travel and technology, to many parts of the world.

While learned and correct-thinking people are not vulnerable to such connotations, it is unfortunate that such minds are few and scattered.

In an essay which I read on the internet some time ago, Alfred J. Andrea, professor emeritus of medieval history at The University of Vermont, U.S.A., refutes the connotation that such events taking place bear semblance to the Crusades or are acts avenging it but says that “This is not to say that Islam's recently reconstructed memory of crusader aggression is not real and its sense of grievance is not genuine. Faced with what many cultural traditionalists, religious conservatives, and disenfranchised young people perceive as Western assaults upon Islam's values and its very existence, it is easy for them, in the midst of their anger and sense of victimhood, to believe they have discovered a continuous pattern of Western crusader hostility that extends back to nine centuries”.

While the US took it upon itself to cleanse the world of so-called weapons of mass destruction that, it claimed, were possessed by Saddam Hussein's regime; others used the invasion as an excuse to bring terror on innocent targets representing the Western world.

Devious and bigoted minds are influencing the naïve who number in millions. They are making sure that there is no respite from what took place centuries ago.

On the other hand, those who are scrupulous, have been careless in their actions and words and have added fuel to the fire that has been created by the unscrupulous. Balanced and rational persons, especially among the youth, could waver in their thoughts towards the irrational, as emotions overrule their minds.

These are intensely testing times, indeed, for sanity to assert itself. Sane minds of the world must unite and make strenuous efforts to ensure that their communities remain rational and unfazed.

The anti-war demonstrations that took place in many nations as a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, did display solidarity, but how much were they able to influence their governments? Were they able to defeat those who called for jihad in retaliation for what a handful of countries were doing in an Islamic country?

Christianity and Islam together constitute the largest religious following in the world and any turmoil between the communities of these religions have had and will continue to have global implications.

A Washington Post website report on the terrorist bombings of commuter trains in Madrid in Spain quoted an e-mail sent by an Islamic militant group to a London-based Arabic language newspaper, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, claiming responsibility for the attacks and saying "This is part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America's ally in its war against Islam".

It is imperative for peace-loving people in authority and those having the creativity or power of influencing authority, to come together with sane minds among masses to prevent a rising tide of hatred and violence and avert a foreseeable catastrophe in the world.

Religion was founded to refine man’s consciousness towards his creation and the existence of his creator, but it has sadly found its purpose challenged, over many centuries, by flames ignited and fanned by people who have distorted it for their own perverted agendas.

Let us not forget our past and remain cautious in our actions and thoughts or else be doomed to an apocalypse which no one wants.

Copyright © Tarun Dalaya

For that all-embracing brand

Corporate houses these days are into unrelated areas. How can a brand create that common thread?

Since Independence, a majority of enterprises in India continue to be family-owned businesses which began as one business, founded by one or two family members.

Over the years, many of these enterprises continued to stay in the same business and grew.

Those who could correctly feel the pulse of market dynamics, the gradual impact of globalisation and international trends, were able to build their brands effectively and sustain their market shares.

Very few deep-pocket companies took the risk of diversifying into new businesses. If they did, then most looked at a common value stream, while a few took the plunge into a non-connected or disparate business.

 

From the branding point of view, disparate businesses within a group pose a huge challenge in creating and building a common brand identity which conveys a lineage of intrinsic strengths.

 

This problem would not arise in the case of a group of companies that form part of an easily discernible value chain.

 

An easy-to-discern value chain offers ease in brand building and supporting communication mediums.

 

Take, for instance, a group which began by manufacturing steel coils, went on to making sheet metal products, then diversified into bus bodies and then eventually assembling buses.

 

But if you are a group of companies which has come up in the food sector and you suddenly decide to get into building power plants, it becomes difficult to link that business to a perceived core competence related to the food sector.

 

Customers to whom one is pitching in the power sector may ask on what basis or grounds will your new business deliver, when your strengths lie in another sector or sectors.

Smart movers

It is apparent that at the turn of the millennium, to take benefit of an emerging economy and a growing market like India, an increasing number of companies or groups are responding to the temptation of foraying into disparate businesses from their eagerness to either de-risk, enhance revenues and consequently their profitability or all of these.

 

For instance, Mahindra & Mahindra began in the automotive sector, made a name for itself and some years ago, under the leadership of Anand Mahindra, took the plunge into other non-automotive sectors which today include aviation and software.

 

Another example is the North India-based Anand Group which stuck to the automotive industry for years through its myriad joint-ventures and forayed into the luxury hospitality sector in the recent past.

 

This would have been unimaginable perhaps ten or more years ago. But true today in India and obvious from the very diverse patterns of most emerging businesses.

 

A cluster of disparate businesses within a group makes it very difficult for brand-builders and corporate communicators to identify and project a common brand identity.

 

And after that common thread has been found, how does one weave it through the parent brand and then through all the other different brands under that?

 

Mahindra & Mahindra managed to do this cleverly through a unified “Rise” brand positioning for which it engaged New York-based advertising agency Strawberry Frog.

 

Anand Mahindra was quoted in a Knowledge@Wharton article as saying “We are attempting to unify different businesses that share the Mahindra brand, and offer a compelling value proposition.”

 

Once conceived and executed, everything was thrown behind “Rise” to take things forward. That this creativity had challenges once it was executed is evident from the quote of an expat employee in the same article, who said “many people internally are worried about what the new program means for them and their businesses.”

Innovation, the link

Identifying a common thread requires great thought and patience. Ideally speaking, a large chunk of the creative direction should be driven from inside the company while the nitty-gritties can be outsourced.

 

Since no one else than a person working in the company or Group can understand the DNA better, the chief brand officer or corporate communicator should be able to provide key direction to the entire process.

 

And if the common thread is found, it could still be in danger of being clichéd or confusing. There may be other key determinants which one may not think of.

 

Quality could be identified as a common thread. But one may say that in the 21st century and an emerging, extremely competitive market such as India, quality is a hygiene factor; a given. On the other hand, innovation could be accepted as a common thread which could connect all businesses.

 

Once the common thread is identified, a key methodology which would take it forward would be the messaging.

 

Messaging, if communicated intelligently, informs with clarity what binds the businesses and gives a group of companies a distinction in the mind of the market.

 

Again, high creativity is important. It could comprise a key message in the form of a slogan, tagline or a positioning statement which could be further elaborated on in different places.

Effective communication

Web sites are a crucial and effective medium for conveying the messaging of the common thread and other key components for groups possessing disparate businesses. But this requires deftness and high levels of thinking, creativity and clarity.

 

Great care has to be taken to ensure that the objective does not fail, or else the Web site will become a cause of greater confusion than the powerful tool of clarity that it is supposed to be.

 

As many Indian enterprises hurry to grab unconnected business opportunities to enlarge their basket of sustenance, it is critical to be aware of the difficulties they will face in building a common identity and projecting unity in diversity.

 

To be able to do so successfully calls for courage to take bold decisions and not pay lip service to the immense creativity that is required.

 

(My article published in the 19th August 2013 edition of The Hindu Business Line newspaper on the Op-Ed page)

 

Copyright © Tarun Dalaya

 









My destiny will be made between me and my maker and not between me and my fellow men and women.

Copyright © Tarun Dalaya

Home and the roots of murder

The potential to become a murderer develops at home and history has proved it.

The killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, could have been prevented.

A mother’s (said to have once been a teacher) fascination for guns is extraordinary but extraordinary and cautious is how the education of her children at home should have been. The perpetrator of the killings, her 20-year-old son Adam, is alleged to have been mentally challenged. If true, it would have been known to her and she should have hence exercised greater caution rather than dangerously exposing him to her collection and interest in firearms.

Debate on the enactment and enforcement of a strict law for gun control in the U.S. is another but related matter of utmost importance. The ease of buying weapons and their resultant proliferation among the civilian population has been a large contributor to gun-related violence in the country. What is even more worrying is access to weapons by those who are mentally challenged or of unsound mind. Care for mentally challenged people in a developed country like the U.S. is far ahead compared to India. Yet, how many times do we hear of a mentally challenged person here committing mass murder? On the contrary there are numerous such people who roam the streets, naked and hungry. To see a weapon in their hands is a fantasy.

It is not just the kind of parenting but our lack of proactive counselling to someone for his or her failure, or the quality of counselling itself, which determines the constructive or destructive direction a person takes in life. I once heard that Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse had aspired to join the Indian Air Force and in the process of doing so at the Air Force Selection Board in Dehradun, failed for medical reasons. Would effective counselling to overcome the negative feelings and thoughts arising from failure have helped Godse succeed in more constructive ways in another career?

History is replete with examples of mass murderers like Hitler and Stalin in whose formative years the seeds to commit murder were sown. Hitler’s genocidal mind may have also been triggered by his failure to join the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. Hitler and Stalin both came from dysfunctional families. Their fathers were cruel towards them. It is obvious that their mothers, though attached to them and vice-versa, failed to constructively influence their minds. The esoteric causes for the dictators’ bloodied future entails another study all-together.

Notable people like Dr. R. A. Mashelkar, who rose meaningfully from a challenging childhood, are rare. His poor and widowed mother is said to have struggled doing odd jobs to pay for his education. He eventually became a noted scientist and the Director General of India’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.

At the time of writing, it is still uncertain about what drove the gunman to kill his mother at home and 26 others at the school. Reports say that he was fond of violent video games and was disturbed by his parents divorce. Well, many children go through the upheaval of divorce of parents and may like video games based on violence. But in the case of Adam, there were other accumulated factors that made him into a tinder box which ignited. We may never know what finally triggered the fuse, but that his parents could have played a more effective role in preventing the formation of the tinder box is certain.

Quality of parenting is crucial and plays a big role in enabling a child with signs of saintliness to become a saint or a child showing signs of violence or a mental illness to become a criminal.

Monsters do not come out of earth or sky to commit their monstrosities. They are made somewhere amidst our lives. And the reality is that in most cases the beginnings of the potential to commit murder starts at home.

Copyright © Tarun Dalaya

The difficulty of being nice

“He was the only actor I ever knew that more often than not when fans came up to him, of any age or race or gender, they wouldn't ask for an autograph, they'd want a hug. He had a heart as big as the world,” Dan Spilo, manager to the late actor Michael Clarke Duncan was quoted as saying on his passing away on September 3, 2012.

The first time I came to know about Michael was when I saw him act in the movie The Green Mile and he made a big impression on me. Though the character he played was that of a gentle giant, it was surprising to read in obituaries that he was this way in real life too. Even more commendable, on reading further about him, was his affable nature despite the numerous hardships he faced in his early years such as making a living by digging ditches for a gas company.

Invariably, hardships turn many into bitter and ill-tempered individuals. But not Michael, it seems.

This made me think what a wonderful man he must have been and I wonder why it is so difficult for most of us, especially those who have a lot and a lot going good, to be nice to others.

With every passing day and generation, it seems the trait of being nice is becoming rare; especially in cities.

We could find a variety of reasons to justify why people are not nice to others -- a dysfunctional family life, jilted in love, a troubled marriage, a hard life.

The challenge is to achieve mental equilibrium; to cultivate good qualities. And the decisive question is -- how do we want people to behave with us? Nicely, I am sure.

It all boils down to a choice we have to make and there is so much to learn from Michael and others like him who chose to be nice when they had so many reasons for being otherwise.

Most of us are fortunate in experiencing the feeling of someone being nice to us, perhaps on a daily basis – it could be our spouse, a favourite senior at work or a peer and friend. But how many times has a stranger or a boss we do not get along with been nice to us and vice-versa?

According to a review of a book titled The meaning of nice: how compassion and civility can change your life (and your world), by Joan Duncan Oliver, the meaning of the term nice has many connotations and there are many qualities such as being generous, kind, compassionate, etc., which encompass it.

In my formative years, O’Henry’s short story The Last Leaf made a deep impression on me, taught me what it means to be nice and inspired me.

Sue and Joanna share an apartment in the Greenwich Village area of New York. Joanna falls sick and contracts pneumonia. She loses the will to live and says that when the last leaf of the dying ivy tree, which clings to the outside wall of her bedroom window, falls, she would die. Sue mentions this to their downstairs neighbour, an elderly struggling artist, Mr. Behrman; who is a failure at art and hopes to paint a masterpiece someday. He gets deeply disturbed to learn about Joanna’s illness and her fatalistic thought and plans to do something about it. Behrman decides to paint the ivy tree with one remaining leaf on it and places it outside the window of Joanna’s room in the night. When she wakes up in the morning and sees that the last leaf has not fallen, she is reassured, realises her folly and resolves to live. However, Behrman falls sick because of his exposure to the cold in the night and dies. He sacrifices his life for another by his act of being nice.

Can we be nice to a stranger by offering assistance or any form of help and can we be nice to a colleague we do not get along with? If we can, then we have succeeded in overcoming the difficulty of being nice and added a powerful trait to our character and life.

The trait of being nice is indeed a life-enhancing quality which, if practiced often, can not only be life-changing for recipients but also for those being nice.

Copyright © Tarun Dalaya

To be loved and to love are the greatest feelings that a human being can aspire for or experience. Those who have not known either, and there are many, I pray will know one of these at least,in time.
(01.11.11)

The way ahead for Indian electric vehicle manufacturers

The sky-rocketing price of oil in 2008 reminded the world that it needed to speed up work on technologies which helped its citizens reduce their dependency on fossil fuel. One area which got a boost due to the peak in oil prices that year was developmental work in electric vehicle (EV) technologies and usage. Still the pace of growth of the EV segment has been quite slow the world over. It is estimated that the EV market, globally, would stand at around 1.2 million vehicles by 2015.

Environmental friendly, mass mobility vehicles are not new to India. I remember visiting the Taj Mahal at Agra many years ago and travelling from one point to another in non-petrol, battery-driven vehicles. Similarly, EVs have been in use in the country for several years now. REVA Electric Car Company launched its first prototype car for the masses in 1996.

Chetan Maini, the deputy chairman and chief technology officer of the company, faced an uphill task finding buyers for his cars as well as getting recognition and support from government. In 2002 he was quoted in a leading business newspaper elaborating the help he wanted from the central government. Yet the response was lukewarm.

Unlike Karnataka, his home State and where he did get some support, Maini could not make much headway in a territory like Delhi for instance. Finally, after nearly six years Delhi listened and did something by announcing a 29.5 % subsidy for electric vehicles and this encouraged the company to launch its cars in the capital city! Since the launch of its first prototype, REVA has sold 3,500 cars till now.

Today, we have a variety of electric two-wheelers as well, some of which are being made by already well-known companies like TVS, Avon, Hero, etc. Their presence and product offerings have created multiple choices for consumers. Yet in the recently released vehicle statistics by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, the sales of electric two-wheelers fell by minus 88 per cent to 3,001 units in April-March 2010 against 26,445 units in April-March 2009. Assuming that these figures do not relate to all but a section of the manufacturers in this segment, still the picture of demand for these vehicles is dismal.

The Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles in India has been asking for tax incentives to boost sales besides wanting a separate policy for the EV segment in India. Subsidies and a policy will undoubtedly be helpful but there will still be several influential challenges for EV makers and their products.

It has taken nearly 125 years for internal combustion engine-based technology to get where it has today and since the invention of the first automobile in 1885 by Karl Benz, vast technological advances have been made in automobiles for the masses in all areas of an automobile. Today, consumers can demand and then buy what they need in their vehicles.

In a highly price sensitive market such as India, it would be difficult for EV makers to take large technological strides as more technology would mean higher prices and the takers would be fewer than those who have already bought EVs. As it is, without uniform benefits from different states in India, the prices of many products are still very high.

To add to this challenge are existing low volumes, deterring benefits such as economies of scale, and this is expected to continue in the near future as well.

The Western world has enjoyed itself thoroughly and travelled a full circle economically and otherwise. So it is more receptive to curbing conventional means of mobility and looking at environmentally friendlier ways.

That will not be the case in countries like India and China where consumers are treading and will want to travel the same cycle as what the Western world travelled. In addition, peer pressure will influence mindset where a cousin or friend enjoying the speed, performance and power of a petrol-driven Bajaj “Pulsar” bike will influence someone’s buying decision between an electric or conventional fuel-driven vehicle.

To make things more difficult for EV makers, breakthrough products such as the Nano car by Tata, will make ICE-based mobility available at radically cheaper prices. Hence, instead of paying something around Rs. 40,000 for an electric two-wheeler, a consumer can stretch his or her budget and accommodate one’s whole family comfortably in a vehicle costing slightly over a lakh of rupees.

Despite these challenges and others, there is hope of gains to be had and REVA is showing the way. And that way is to look outwards -- to export. REVA expects to establish itself as a global electric vehicle brand and sell in 40 to 50 countries by 2012.

The Indian auto component industry is today a robust and technologically advanced sector primarily because it took exporting seriously. Exports brought not just earnings for companies but several other benefits. Exposure to advanced overseas markets pushed the frontiers of quality among component makers, brought in better technology and innovation into products and manufacturing and eventually also gave the desired volumes that many companies wanted.

EV makers in India, should they decide to make exports their focus as well, to my mind will benefit the same way that the Indian auto component industry did and also the way REVA will benefit once it reaches its goal of being a key exporter of electric cars.

Markets abroad, especially in the developed world, will challenge Indian EV makers on several fronts -- aesthetics, quality, technology and innovation, among other things – and these will translate into learnings. More importantly, the eagerness to buy environmentally-friendly vehicles and that too at higher prices would be greater in the Triad markets of North America, Western Europe and Japan, thus giving volumes that Indian manufacturers need. The gains could be applied in products for the domestic market eventually, as demand for electric vehicles increases in India.

However till such time demand does sizeably increase in India and with technology of EVs still being limited especially in the two-wheeler segment, a key ingredient for an EV maker to strike big in the domestic market would be the seriousness in which it takes its branding and in building and conveying the brand value of its products. And as one of India’s most respected executives and co-founder of MindTree Consulting, Subroto Bagchi, says in his book The High-Performance Entrepreneur, “without great value, you cannot build a great brand”. Value, he says, should not only be reflected in the company’s product but inside the enterprise and what it does for its external environment as well. The company will have to bear this in mind.


(Published in Auto Monitor magazine's April 16, 2010 edition)

Renault’s branding challenge in India

Two years ago, as a former automotive industry professional and a keen observer of the sector, I had made a clear diagnosis of the reason that was adversely impacting Renault’s business and visibility in India.

After carefully studying and observing the company’s entry into the market, its selection of a partner, the product, advertising campaigns and finally the performance of its Logan in terms of sales, my conclusion had been that Renault suffered from a serious branding problem in India. And so when the company’s top India official was quoted in the Financial Express newspaper in early February this year, as saying “Building brand awareness and our image in the market will be our utmost priority now”, I was not surprised. Though this realisation has been late in coming as a lot of damage has already been done, it is better late than never for the company’s survival in India.

Having had the opportunity of working closely in building Indo-French linkages in the automotive sector and being associated with the visit of a French automotive delegation in the early 1990s, which included representation from Renault to study the market; it was heartening to know in early 2005 that the company had finally announced its plans to enter the passenger car market in a joint-venture with Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M).

Peugeot, as we all know, had a bitter experience in India earlier and its exit severely impacted the huge investments made by Indian vendors to the project as well as the buyers of its 309 car. When Renault announced its plans, I thought it would have surely looked closely at the mistakes that its rival in France had made in the Indian market.

However, from the beginning itself, signs were becoming evident that Renault’s foray would not be smooth. What went wrong?

The first mistake, to my mind, was that the awareness and product advertising campaign did not consider certain realities and did not possess a strategy of foresight – and even if it did, then it was not reflected in the final outcome. The Renault name, unlike iconic ones such as BMW or VW, was not known in India. Peugeot’s failure and exit had left a poor image, in the minds of both consumers as well as the automotive industry, about French auto makers in general. M&M, on the other hand, was primarily known as a tractor and utility vehicle maker and its brand recall in no way featured cars. Its core competence as a UV maker was ably demonstrated in its Scorpio.

Instead of first creatively and strategically trying to work on these issues through an awareness campaign, the advertisements ran headlong into selling the USPs of the product.

The second mistake made was in the choice of product itself. When the Logan was finally launched, its design was disappointing. Being a wide body car was fine but the overall design of the Logan was staid and not exciting. In a market which had already tasted contemporary technology in tastefully designed cars, the Logan, I felt, would not be able to sustain long-term demand due to a lack of appeal in the product. Initially there was a lot of excitement in how well the car was selling, but after about a year its sales started falling.

The third mistake was Renault’s own lack of initiative in sitting in the driver’s seat to quickly repair its branding in India. A yardstick to the branding problem was apparent in the way people would make a brand recall of the car. When referring to the Logan, people would invariably say “Mahindra Logan”. Apart from this, the cropping up of Renault’s name in other business ventures, such as its plans with Bajaj and with Nissan, was adding to the confusion in the minds of consumers and affecting the brand recall further.

In my opinion, Renault should have articulated its mind and plans in greater detail from the beginning itself, through the media or other ways. A messaging which would, among other things,

oSpell out Renault’s business plans for India and its elements in as much detail as
possible.
oConvey specific points on how India is important for Renault in its global plans.
oElaborate on Renault’s core competencies as a global company and the value it has
created through its partnerships in other emerging economies.
oExplain in what way Renault would bring value to other businesses in India, the
Indian people and the country.

In a scenario where auto demand in Europe is expected to fall further and with Renault SA having reported an annual loss, the French auto maker’s plans in emerging markets such as India will logically get priority in the hope that such markets sustain demand for its products and add to the company’s revenues in the future. The company has announced further investments in the country as well as the introduction of other car models.

However, Renault needs to act fast and take bold decisions to repair its branding in the country while moving with its new strategies and business plans. Though all these will have to move in tandem, working on an enhanced awareness and a clearer image will be paramount for the company if it wants to benefit faster in a market which is seeing the levels of competition grow along with the number of buyers who are increasingly becoming more discerning and sensitive about brand value.

(Published in Auto Monitor magazine's April 1, 2010 edition)