Lal Krishna Narayana Murthy!

On the 18^th of August, just as trading in the bourses started in India, Vishal Sikka, CEO and MD of Infosys decided to extend his working day sitting in San Francisco till late hours to announce his resignation. Within minutes, his farewell note to his staff found its way to the media and a more detailed and emotional post was up on his personal blog. The “Moving On” post happens to be his first post in 15 months!!! The Infy scrip which was faring well the last few days in anticipation of the “buy back” announcement on the 19^th, took a battering and ended up 10% down by end of the day. And during the course of the day, Infy Board stood behind Sikka and sort of blamed N.R.Narayanamurthy (NRN), for his dogged, open insinuations in the last few months which it claimed eventually led to Sikka’s exit. In the end, the self-proclaimed Kshatriya warrior capitulated as conspiracy theorists would add in good measure “to Brahminical dogma”!!!

Following this, water cooler conversations in offices and WhatsApp discussions were around this story as if the whole of India is invested on Infosys. But then, why not? For long, Infy was the bellwether for the Indian IT Industry. For Indians, It was a proud success story in post liberalization India.  In the success of Infy, there were many sub texts. The arrival of India in the global scene as a software power. The rise of Bangalore as another Silicon Valley. The ascent of the Indian Middle Class. The revenge of the Brahmins post the “Mandalisation” of India and so on. Some of these sub texts – real and some just façade as time would tell later!

Those were heady days for the Indian Software Industry and Infy was its leading beacon. There was not a single day in my memory when there was no positive news about Infy in the pink papers. Infy led the way and other IT companies followed. Visit of world leaders to India were not complete without a Tee off at the Infy golf course in Bangalore. Same for head honchos of global corporations.  A visit to the impressive campus in Bangalore was part of the itinerary for the chairman of Brother Industries, Japan – my previous company on his maiden visit to India. I heard later that his positive impressions in that visit hastened Brother’s investment plans in India. As Infy basked in that glory, NRN was inseparable. Slowly and steadily, beyond his business and his association with Infy, he became the conscientious voice for the country.  So much so, when UPA was searching for a successor for Abdul Kalam as President of India, an opinion poll threw up NRN as a strong candidate.

Though Infy was a story of 6 middle class entrepreneurs, the story of NRN was most visible. As the senior most founder he ensured his imprint was ubiquitous in Infy. When he sacked the other Murthy (Phaneesh) – till then the highest paid employee in Infy and head of Global sales on grounds of sexual harassment of a female colleague, NRN’s personal stock went up. “The day flying Business class reaches me to my destination 5 minutes earlier, I will shift from Economy to Business!” – This was NRN’s response to the question on why he continued to fly Economy on business trips at the top of his career at Infy.  NRN’s decree that the founders will not hang in and will hang up their boots at 70 was seen as a revelation in India Inc, where founders seldom retire. And when he soon walked the talk by stepping down as CEO for Nandan Nilekeni, it was seen as one of a kind of move. Till this point NRN had not made one wrong move. But after yesterday’s story, most of the ire got directed on NRN.

I was skeptical to the extent of being cynical when NRN chose to return to Infy briefly that too with his son in tow. Later, after anointing Sikka as the CEO and MD after an extensive search, when NRN stepped down from Infy for the second time, one expected that he would walk into the sunset quietly. The events in the last few months where NRN almost behaved like an activist shareholder frequently venting his ire on the affairs of Infy through the media shows that he too is a mere mortal. To be fair, I am certain that NRN would have tried to represent the concerns of employees and shareholders over corporate governance at Infy privately to the board before going public. That he chose to resort to the media means that there is more to this than meets the eye.

Cut to Goa, June 2013. The BJP National Executive was meeting in what was not another routine Executive meet. In the meet, it was clear that the path will be cleared for the then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi, to become BJP’s PM candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Lal Krishna Advani, BJP’s tallest leader and architect of its growth till then, chose to skip the meeting.  He then subsequently sent in his resignation letter when Modi was chosen to lead the party’s campaign. Ironically it was the same Advani who played a stellar role in shielding Modi on his role in handling post Godhra riots in the very same Goa in 2002! Even after the spectacular victory of BJP in the 2014 polls, Advani did not have one word of wholesome praise for the chief architect of the win namely Modi but chose to credit “All party kaaryakarthas”!!! And in many public appearances along with Modi in the last 3 years, he hasn’t displayed too much benevolence in accepting Modi as “the” new leader for the BJP.  When the history of BJP is written, Advani will certainly occupy a significant space unless otherwise he chooses to become a footnote with his continued petulance.

That brings us to the point of the “Art of letting it go”!

Whether it is NRN, Advani, Mulayam or Ratan Tata it demonstrates the fact that stepping down, giving it up and walking away into oblivion doesn’t come so easy for humans.  But for forced reasons like health or regulations, can and do leaders walk into the sunset gracefully and remain there? Pranab Mukherjee, the recently retired President of India when asked what kind of legacy he would like to leave he said, “Don’t want to leave a legacy.  Will melt into the mass”!! Hope Lal Krishna Narayana Murthys of the world heard that.

The “Art of letting it go” is certainly fading and it’s time we make it a “Science”.