Gurcharan Das, writer, commentator and former Managing Director, Procter & Gamble Worldwide spoke to the assembled crowd about the difficulty of being good yesterday at the Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) 2015 taking place at the Expo Centre until November 14.He said, “Many of us spend our lives wrestling with day-to-day questions of right and wrong and these have no easy answer. The truth is there is no black and white, absolute right and absolute wrong. Many factors come in to the reasons why people do what they do. There are motives behind the actions, which can also be shades of good or shades of bad. It’s a complicated thing.” Das also talked about the 15th anniversary edition of his bestseller “India Unbound” which was described by the Guardian as a ‘quiet earthquake’ in the session called “The Difficulty of Being Good”. Das said, “In “India Unbound” I was the first person to predict the rise of India but when the book came out people thought I was wrong, and wondered what I was talking about. But then India obliged me by rising economically and suddenly we became the second fasted growing economy in the world and now we are the first fastest growing economy.”
However, Das says this doesn’t make him happy as he realized there were other issues of concern. The man who graduated from Harvard with honours in Philosophy, understood economic prosperity was only part of India’s solution to its problems. He says, “I realized prosperity was spreading but there was a problem of governance, corruption or futile delays. The whole issue of corruption has two dimensions. For example in schools in India, a vast number of teachers do not turn up for work and so the children have no lessons. But nothing happens to these teachers, they are not punished so the problem continues. But, if you sacked them or made them turn up, would they do a good job of teaching? No, so the second part is a moral problem.”This is something Das addressed in another of his publications, “India Grows at Night: A liberal case for a strong state”, which was on the Financial Times’ best books for 2013. Das said he was going to call it “India Grows at Night when the government is sleeping but was advised it could be too insulting and therefore problematic.
Having worked his way up the corporate ladder, Das says he started as a trainee and worked his way to becoming CEO, he said he felt, in his late forties there was more to life and retired to travel with his wife and write books. He also writes a regular column for five Indian newspapers, including The Times of India, and contributes to Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, and the New York Times.He says, “My name was changed as child by my grandmother to Gurcharan Das, which actually means to be the humble servant at the feet of the Guru. This taught me humility. I have been lucky enough to meet world leaders in both business and politics and I can tell you the three most common qualities they share. One is determination, they have a strong belief in what they do, two is humility, and three is integrity. You notice I have not said intelligence. Intelligence is over rated. Business people value intelligence and skills but this is a mistake. They should hire for attitude and train for skills instead of the other way round, we hire for skills and hope to train for attitude which doesn’t work.” For more details of the world class writers and speakers appearing at SIBF 2015 visit www.sharjahbookfair.com.