Shekhar Gupta’s in-house missive
HAMMER AND TONGS
ALOKE THAKORE
The Statesman (more on that tragedy or farce some other day) were the only mainstream standard-bearers for the cause of democracy, when the others, including today`s successful ones, were willing executioners and pallbearers. So what happens to Indian Express in many ways affects us all, and every citizen who has some hopes from the calling that is journalism has a stake in this newspaper. It, then, does not matter whether the person is a journalist or has ever worked or will ever work in that newspaper. So what is it that is so courageous about this missive?
Mr Gupta says that thoughts about acknowledging the weaknesses and owning to the failures crystallized "maybe…because we got locked out of our office in Delhi." Since he has been on television fairly regularly, and presumably such ill-thoughts never attended him between takes and retakes or between commercial breaks, I tried to picture him locked out of the office because the watchman decided on a sleepover and the inebriated security guards would not recognize his ubiquitous self and let him in. In that moment of being locked out, such nuggets of enlightenment as "owning to failures" came knocking. Should one blame the departmental heads, the senior colleagues who get some whack, or the leader under whose watch a move such as shifting the office that led to being locked out took place? Or may be it was force majeure and that, as we all know, is the one sure way out of any contractual obligations written by mortals. It requires courage to convey the locking out of the office as happenstance.
And when one is but a mortal, then the truth that necessarily "involves us all" even when staring at us has a peculiarly wanton habit of eluding oneself. How else would most of the areas mentioned by Mr Gupta take so long in making an impress on him? If the deficiencies are taken seriously, and there is no reason not to accept it at face value, it suggests that the Indian Express under him has been running with the same degree of efficiency and self-assured abandon as that of many wings of the Indian government, which are unfailingly, and rightly so, excoriated in the pages of that newspaper. To suggest that there will be greater accountability, there will be no islands, there will be cost-consciousness, there will be officer-like qualities, and there will be no benchmarking against the past are such obvious issues that one is wondering in what pastures were Mr Gupta and his team grazing all these years. Even Mr Gupta¿s reference to newsprint prices reaching historic highs is worrisome. Since a fourth-quarter decline in prices and strengthening of the rupee could at least have led to some covering in the last quarter. A letter such as this would make perfect sense from someone who had come in to the company, reviewed its performance, looked at the internal processes and numbers, and issued a note along these lines. It requires courage to be at the helm for quite a number of years and then to write such a note.
And even greater courage to fill it up with references to military leadership. Mr Gupta devotes a paragraph to officer like qualities, and given his stellar knowledge of matters military one was hoping for a word on taking responsibility as an officer. But the biggest quality, and he certainly knows better, that he mentioned was a big heart. The attributes needed for a big heart are "generosity of spirit and style, where you give space and opportunity to those placed under your charge, never, ever claiming the credit for their achievements", "openness", and "accessibility to people, to ideas, to dissent and disagreement". One wished there would be a word about not letting your troops down, of taking the bullet on the chest, of deciding to take responsibility.
Or may be that came earlier with, "I have requested the members of the top management team to take a wage freeze for this year. In addition, I have also decided to defer a significant part of my compensation till we see some real improvement." But let us get back to the no good armies or bad armies bit. There are, Mr Gupta agrees, only good generals or bad generals. There is an interesting story told about Sun Tzu, considered to be among the earliest military tacticians to have set down a code that is now also used in management training. When asked whether the principles he had suggested could work for women as well as men, he answered in the affirmative. At which time the king suggested that he prove it with the women in his retinue. The women were divided in to two, and two favourite concubines were put in charge. He gave them instructions. When asked to follow, they all laughed. He repeated the instructions, and the next time, too, they laughed. At which point he ordered the two favourite concubines to be beheaded. This alarmed the king. But Sun Tzu told the king that when he had been asked to show whether his principles would work, his orders had to be carried out. He noted: "If the instructions are not clear, if the orders are not obeyed, it is the fault of the general. But if the instructions are clear and the soldiers still do not obey, it is the fault of their officers." A dejected king, and in the light of our present standards an honourable one, had to submit. The concubines beheaded, the two arrays worked as efficiently as Sun Tzu wanted them. There are numerous conclusions that can be deduced from this story.
First, if the team does not perform it is the general who has to be beheaded. Second, if one believes in the principles then it does not matter if the general is a favourite or not. Lastly, and here one stretches to interpret, if one believes in the principles then it has to be applied to oneself before others.
The note talks about adherence to principles, notions of accountability, and the buck stopping somewhere. Well it should have. With Mr Gupta. He writes that some are under close watch and that the action with some others has had to be harsher. What about mea culpa? Having tried to run an institution, it would have been no shame to have admitted failure and taken the fall. Let someone with fresh ideas come and lead the team, editorially and otherwise. One wonders why the owners, Mr Viveck Goenka and family, did not ask for such an action, if it were not voluntarily coming. Instead the letter points to all the ills in the organization and their discovery when he was "able to talk with many of you [employees], get to know you, put faces to many names." One wonders what was he doing till now as the paper went from hill to lower hill, also called a retreat in military parlance; but no strategic retreat this. What a comedown from a man who once brought home to us the Nellie massacres and with it held up the faith that good reporting is about making the powerful accountable. The letter, however his team takes it, finally reads like the call of a limpet, not that of a leader.