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TRANSCRIPT
Address by
Chie f Gues t
Yeejleer³e He´ewÐeesefiekeÀer mebmLeeve ieeBOeerveiejIndian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar
July 22, 2012
Convocation Address
by
N. R. Narayana Murthy
Chairman Emeritus
Infosys Limited, Bangalore, India
Being a Patriot
Dr. Ramesh Mashelkar, Dr. Sudhir Jain, members of the
governing board, members of the Senate, faculty, staff,
students, parents of the graduating students, guests and
most, importantly, graduating students, my sincere thanks to
you all for giving me this unique opportunity of speaking at
this first convocation. First convocation is a historic occasion
and marks the realization of dream, commitment, innovation,
and hard work of the founding fathers of this budding
institution. We must all be grateful to them for their
contribution. I feel honored to be here today with two
extraordinary individuals connected with this institution. The
Chairman is a unique individual. Even if you subtract from
him, his FRS, his scholarship and his achievements in
institution building, in my opinion, he remains a great
individual. He is a role model for me and many others for
positivity, patriotism and professionalism. He makes
everybody in his company an inch taller and a smile happier.
Your Director is an academic and educational administrator
par excellence. Most professors that I know at IIT Kanpur talk
about his excellence in scholarship. I worked with him when
he was the Dean at IIT Kanpur in fund raising from the alumni.
I believe his work at IIT Kanpur in fund raising is a model for
every professional engaged in development.
Congratulations to the passing out students. In the US, this
occasion is called Commencement because you are
commencing your journey of translating your education to the
benefit of the world. May every one of you realize your
potential fully and wholly to make this country and the world a
better place for all of us. You have received an excellent
education from your professors and staff. I am in full
agreement with that. Therefore, I will speak on another
important topic. That is, becoming a patriotic Indian.
When I left IIT Kanpur after my graduate studies and went
abroad to Paris in the early seventies, India was seen by most
foreigners as a condemned and pitiable land of dogma, empty
vanity, filth, poverty, illiteracy, low achievement and diseases.
You pass out at a time when India is the cynosure of all eyes.
The world expects India to be one of the leaders to solve
global problems of politics and economics. India sits at the
high table in most major multilateral deliberations. What
India says is heard with attention and seriousness. Unlike me
when I was young, you have that rare opportunity and
extraordinary responsibility of strengthening this new-found
respectability.
What is patriotism? To me, patriotism is not just singing our
national anthem or draping myself in our national flag. They
are important and necessary but not sufficient. To me,
patriotism is about working ethically and wholeheartedly in
our chosen sphere to enhance public good. What do I mean by
that? It means working efficiently, swiftly, effectively,
honestly and in a co-operative manner with the interfaces of
the state and central governments to make our public
governance strong, robust and enduring. It is about
conducting ourselves in a manner that enhances the
confidence of our next generation in our public institutions. It
is about making the next generation proud of our country
through our actions. It is also about enhancing the prestige of
India abroad through our performance on international
platforms.
Naturally, you will ask what you, a first-class engineer, can do
in this gigantic task of improving public governance. After all,
being engineers, there is not much interaction you would have
with the state agencies unless you are a civil servant. Let me
suggest a few things that you can do to make India stronger.
You have to develop high aspirations in matters of public
good. Aspirations build civilizations. You must aspire that
India becomes the best-administered country in the world,
and a model of fairness, transparency and accountability. You
want every Indian to have the best standard of living in the
world. You want India to be the largest exporter in the world.
You want India to have a seat on the Security Council. You
want India to have the best educational system in the world so
that every other nation must want to send their young men
and women to India for education like the US is today. You
want India to have the best defense forces in the world. I can
go on and on. You get the point, right? These may appear
impossible but it is better to aspire to plausibly impossible
stuff than convincingly possible stuff.
These things do not happen because of mere speeches and
slogans. They happen because of performance. Unless you
translate your aspirations to actions they do not mean a thing.
I want you to remember that performance leads to
recognition. Recognition leads to respect. Respect leads to
power. Therefore, my friends, there is only one way to make
India a powerful nation. That is through performance.
Aspirational performance requires that you create
aspirational targets, and work hard, fast, smart, honest and in
a disciplined manner over a long period of time to achieve
these targets. Remember that discipline, speed of decision
making, and velocity of action are necessary attributes for
high performance. You have excellent role models in such
tasks in fellow IITian like Satyendra Dubey.
You may not always be able to add any direct value to this
effort of raising the quality of public governance. But, if you
etch such high aspirations in your mind, you will conduct
yourself as a high class citizen and do the best you can to help
and influence others around you to make these aspirational
dreams a reality. Such high aspirations build up your
character. They make you a better human being.
Better performance comes from benchmarking with people,
organizations and nations that are better than us. When
Indian companies started exporting they realized that
benchmarking with the global best was the sure way to
succeed in the global market and to compete with the global
best even in the domestic market. This brought better respect
to India abroad and better value to the domestic customers.
Therefore, please benchmark with the global best in whatever
you do.
Once you start benchmarking and competing with the global
best, the next step for you is to aim to be the leader there. You
become a leader by creating a set of next practices. Next
practices happen because of innovation. Let me demystify
innovation for you. Every day, in whatever you do, just ask
how you can make it cheaper, faster and better. I believe that
innovation must become part of the DNA of every
organization from the janitor to the Chairman.
These days, most aspirational tasks are huge and need team
work. Team work requires you to rise above gender, caste,
religion, race, regionalism and nationality. To do so, you must
subordinate your ego and eliminate bias by deciding every
issue using data and facts in an environment of courtesy and
dignity, openness, fairness, transparency, accountability and
meritocracy. You have to be generous and share credit with
other members of the team. You have to create trust and
confidence in them through your actions.
We, Indians, are not known for humility. Even the famous
Persian logician and writer, Al Barouni, has commented on it
after spending 32 years in India in the tenth century AD and
holding discussions with several Indian pundits. You must
change this lacuna in our psyche. Humility requires grace,
courtesy and generosity when you are powerful. That is the
best way to win over your critics.
We are also the most thin-skinned people. We have to learn to
take criticisms objectively. Therefore, when somebody
criticizes you or India, do not lose temper. Sit down with him
or her, ask for data and facts, and argue rationally. Hold the
argument in a courteous and agreeable manner. That is the
best way to win over your critics. If the other party has better
data than you, accept their argument, learn from them and
become a better-informed person.
Some of you will work in international teams. To be successful
in such efforts, you have to communicate what you want to
achieve clearly and unambiguously. You must learn to commit
to specific quantifiable targets. You must learn to bring bad
news to the table early and pro-actively. You have to embrace
the universal values of discipline, openness to new ideas,
meritocracy, honesty, courtesy, fairness, accountability and
respect for other cultures.
Remember that this institution has given you a passport to
better respect and prosperity for yourself. The hallmark of a
civilized individual is to show gratitude to those that have
made you more than what you were. Therefore, please
contribute generously to make this institution stronger to
serve even a larger number of smart people like you.
Remember the words of John Kennedy who said that a society,
that cannot help many who are poor, cannot save the few who
are rich. Your betterment lies in the betterment of the entire
society. Therefore, please contribute in kind and cash to bring
smile to the poorer sections of the society around you.
Let me now move to a very important responsibility of yours in
showing your patriotism. Democracy does not stop at holding
fair and free elections once in five years. It requires electing
merited candidates who will show courage and character to
make every sacrifice required to legislate and govern
honestly, smartly, swiftly and with integrity of thought and
purpose. Democracy succeeds only if we create strong and
enduring institutions of the state, and effective watchdogs of
the civil society. Therefore, please register to vote. Spend
some time in evaluating candidates, overcoming biases of
caste and religion. Chose the candidates solely based on their
performance. Please go to the polling booth on the voting day,
and cast your vote. Participate in public movements that fight
injustice, bigotry, nepotism and corruption. This is your
sacred duty, one that has to be discharged mandatorily if you
want to be a patriotic Indian and if you want a better India.
Finally, remember that a happy mind achieves bigger things
than otherwise. Therefore, have fun, be happy, and make
people around you happy. The other day, a colleague of mine
passed on a short piece on success. I do not know who the
author is. I want to share it with you.
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of
children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the
betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty and to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better whether by a good child, a
garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have
lived.
This is to have succeeded.
I am sure that every one of you will be successful.
Thank you.
Yeejleer³e He´ewÐeesefiekeÀer mebmLeeve ieeBOeerveiejIndian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar