Nandan Nilekani, co-founder, MD and CEO of Infosys was all over the news channels yesterday and is on the front page of all the news papers today. Going by the current standards of reporting, this news is for once, truly front page matter and that too for more reasons than one.How often do we see deserving, capable and accomplished citizens of the country being handpicked by the government for key roles in programs in the subject of their expertise? Sadly, who usually end up getting handpicked are “loyalists” of the party-in-power and this practice is not limited to leading programs and committees, but also extends to the appointments for key cabinet posts, chief ministers and even head of state! This is exactly why the appointment of Nandan Nilekani as the head of UID project stands out. It reminds me of the appointment of Montek Singh as the head of the planning commission a few years back and the results are here for all of us to see.
Infosys has been an iconic and truly path-breaking institution which stands for integrity, intellect, innovation and is a face of the new, aggressive India Inc. It has almost been a movement. The founders of the company, N R Narayan Murthy aka NRN and Nandan Nilekani have been role-models for the youth of today and will continue to be for generations to come.
The legacy that they will leave behind is that with merit, intellect, vision, hard work, single minded focus, guts, sacrifice one can achieve the impossible in spite of keeping ones values and ethics intact!
We are all aware how our times have been plagued by an almost unbearable indifference and lack of political will when it comes to tackling corruption amongst other problems. Not surprising, that the educated youth of today have on more than one occasion, on huge public platforms, appealed to these technocrats to extend the culture they represent, beyond their company by making a foray into politics.
NRN as well as Nandan have shied away from the question by complimenting the kindness of the person who asked the question for thinking them of being capable for the job. They have gone on to add something to the effect of “…because we have made considerable progress in one arena, should not make us believe that we can do so in the much more complex canvas of politics”. Having said that, whenever the government has reached out to them to seek their services on key government projects and initiatives, they have always obliged.
NRN had been approached by the Karnataka government to lead a board for the development of the new International airport, which he readily accepted, only to later quit pre-maturely owing to his clashes with the then chief minister, Devegowda, whenever he was awake of course.
NRN was so right in saying that politics is a much bigger canvas. It is sad that he discovered how filthy it is as well, sadly, from personal experience.
I just pray very sincerely that Nandan is not as unfortunate as NRN in his experience with the bureaucrats and politicians. This seems more than likely as his post of the head of the UID project has been awarded the status of a Cabinet Minister.
With Nandan heading the ambitious program, needless to say that it will be scripted and planned to perfection while keeping the minutest details in mind and accounting for the smallest hurdles.
One of the objectives of UID is to enable efficient and transparent monitoring of the execution of important government programs. Well, think for a moment and your mind goes back to many such ambitious projects initiated in the past.Let’s take the voting cards for example. For the people who were fortunate to receive their voting cards, they were found to have screwed up names, photographs, and what not. Let me not even get started on the procedure to get those mistakes corrected. My pessimism about the UID stems from the fact that, at the end of the day, the execution of the entire program will be in the hands of the similar careless government personnel who were involved with the election card exercise.
I find it extremely ironical that the execution of this program itself will have to deal with the same execution level challenges which it heads out to counter which is its biggest hurdle.
What we need is a finished product that is as perfect as our passports! If we are able to achieve something that good, well, let’s just say, I will be pleasantly surprised!
