Who’s Afraid of Change?

All perfectly logical questions. Questions that almost anyone who picks up Arun Maira’s book is bound to ask. One reason could be that it belongs to that rare genre of books that is straight and simple. Or because there’s no attempt to moralise even though there is a strong moral undertone. It’s hard to say. But there’s no mistaking the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) undertone. And in a world that’s getting more complex by the day, it comes as a whiff of fresh air. There’s a certain clarity of thought, a touching faith (or is it naivete?) that seems to come straight from the heart.

The central theme is the power of dialogue. Whether in building a successful business or in nation-building, it is dialogue that holds the key, says Maira. Drawing on his extensive experience in the corporate world, in India and abroad, he shows how time and again, dialogue has overcome seemingly insurmountable problems. Provided dialogues are not posed as debates in which two opposing sides are pitted against each other to determine winners and losers, dialogues can move mountains. Well, almost, if one goes by how Maira turned around a losing joint venture of the Tatas and Tengku Arif Bendahara in Malaysia. Till here the average reader is likely to be with Maira.

It’s when he tries to extend this same argument to nation-building, that the answers seem a bit too simple, a bit too trite. After all, however diverse the interests of different stakeholders in a corporate, they know their fate is inextricably linked to that of the company. There are no, or few, outside forces trying to wreck the process. More important, the numbers are small enough to engage in meaningful dialogue. Nation-building is far more complex. Here are we battling every conceivable problem, of poverty, illiteracy, female infanticide, divisions on caste, community and religious lines and Maira seems to suggest all this can be tackled by dialogue!

He calls it the fourth D — public dialogue. It is this, in addition to the three Ds of diversity, democracy and development that characterise India, that is the answer to our problems. Does it sound idealistic? It certainly does and Maira is aware of that. But he defends it saying, “it is no more a dream than is the vision of a transformed India offered by experts if only we can implement their six, seven or eight-point solutions.” Is it feasible? Maybe not. Is it worth trying? Most emphatically yes.

“There are those who look at things the way they and ask why.I dream of things that never were and ask why not,” said Robert Kennedy almost half a century ago. In our increasingly fractious country, we need our Mairas. For, it is only when many more begin to share that common dream that it will be realised. Someday.