Diploma Engineering Sem I English (3300002) SECTION 2-A: COMPREHENSION PASSAGES What We Must Learn from the West - Narayan Murthy Prepared and Presented.

Diploma Engineering Sem I English (3300002)

SECTION 2-A: COMPREHENSION PASSAGES

What We Must Learn from the West- Narayan Murthy

Prepared and Presented by

Imran Khan Mh. Yusufzay(Asst. Prof. in English)

Om Engineering College, Junagadh.

1What We Must Learn from the West

Origin of the passage

This is actually a Lecture – “Role of Western values in

contemporary Indian society” – delivered at the Lal

Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management on October

02, 2002 by Mr. Narayan Murthy, the Chairman of the

Board, Infosys Technologies Limited, Bangalore, India

Please visit: www.lbsim.ac.in


Who is Narayan Murhty?

Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy

Commonly referred to as Narayana

Murthy,

Indian IT industrialist

The co-founder of Infosys,

(a multinational corporation

providing business consulting,

technology, engineering, and

outsourcing services.)


Who is Narayan Murhty?

Born: August 20, 1946 (age 68), Mysore

Wife: Sudha Murthy (m. 1978)

Children: Rohan Murthy, Akshata Murthy

Awards: Padma Vibhushan

Education: University of Mysore,

Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur,

National Institute of Engineering


Some of the lessons N. Murthy learnt from the West regarding values are applicable to us as a Nation. Those are as below:

1. Respect for the public Good

2. Acknowledging the Accomplishment of Others

3. Accountability

4. Dignity of Labor

5. Professionalism

6. Intellectual Independence

7. Honoring Contracts


1. Respect for the public Good

• Our attitude towards community is very different

from our attitude towards the family.

• We keep our homes spotlessly clean, when we go

out we do not think twice before littering.


We don’t treat society as our home








On the other hand, parks in the West are generally free from litter and their streets are clean.


















We are apathetic about community matters. We see serious problems around us but behave as if they are someone else’s responsibility. e.g. Drought in India

























More than thirty years ago, irrigation expert

Dr. K. L. Rao suggested solving this problem by

creating a water grid interlinking the Ganga and

Cauvery and several other rivers. Unfortunately,

nothing was done about this!


Other occasions when we were careless…

• In1983, the project of thermal power plant for the power

shortage problem in Bangalore could not be done…

• Five years ago, because of the constant foreign travel required

in his software industry, N. Murthy had suggested 240

passport facility for to eliminate the frequent visits to the

passport office but he did not hear any answer from External

Affair on this.


• Why do we believe that solving problem is a

responsibility of a foreign ruler and not ours?

• Is this all because we were ruled by the foreigners

for years?

• Even our decision makers look to somebody else to

take decision…

Narayan Murthy’s sarcastic questions


In the West

• People take responsibility to solve the societal problems..

• They are responsible to their community

• They care for their society

• They make sacrifice for their society

• They solve societal problems proactively

“Successful societies are those that harmoniously combine loyalty to family

and loyalty to community”


2. Acknowledging the Accomplishment of Others

• We are contemptuous…

• This attitude is nothing new..

• The 11th century logician and traveller, Al Biruni

referred to this trait of Indian. (He spent 20 years in

India)

• If we want to progress, we must listen to and learn

from people who have performed better than us…


Al Biruni

Al-Biruni is regarded as one of the greatest scholars of the medieval Islamic era and was well versed in physics, mathematics, astronomy, and natural sciences, and also distinguished himself as a historian, chronologist and linguist. He was conversant in Khwarezmian, Persian, Arabic, Sanskrit, and also knew Greek, Hebrew and Syriac. He spent a large part of his life in Ghazni in modern-day Afghanistan, capital of the Ghaznavid dynasty which was based in what is now central-eastern Afghanistan. In 1017 he traveled to the Indian subcontinent and became the most important interpreter of Indian science to the Islamic world. He is given the titles the "founder of Indology". He was an impartial writer on custom and creeds of various nations, and was given the title al-Ustadh ("The Master") for his remarkable description of early 11th-century India. He also made contributions to Earth sciences, and is regarded as the "father of geodesy" for his important contributions to that field, along with his significant contributions to geography.


3. Accountability

• We must learn Accountability from the West..

• It means you are responsible for what you do,

irrespective of your position…

• In India, the more ‘important’ you are, the less

answerable your become…


3. Accountability

• A senior politician once declared that, he ‘forgot’ to

file his tax returns for ten consecutive years – and got

away with it.

• There are over a hundred loss making public sector

units belonging to central government, (NM says) I

have not seen action taken place against top managers

for bad performance in any of these organizations…


4. Dignity of Labor

• Integral part of the West’s value system

• In India, we revere only intellectual work

• Fresh engineers, in India, want to do only cutting-

edge work. They avoid doing the work of

relevance to business and the Nation


4. Dignity of Labor

• To get success, everyone – from CEO to the

person who serves tea – must discharge his or her

duties in a responsible manner.

• We, therefore, need a mindset that reveres

everyone who puts in honest work, no matter

what work it is.


5. Professionalism

• In the West, people do not mix their personal

relations with their professional dealings.

• They do not hesitate to chastise a colleague for

incompetence, even if he is a friend.

• Indians tend to view even work interaction form

personal perspective (point of view)


5. Professionalism

• We are also the most thin-skinned society in

the world – we see insults where none is meant

• We are not punctual in time. We do not respect

other person’s time. Indian Standard Time

always runs late, and deadlines are not met.



• Western parents teach their children to think for

themselves from the time they are very young. So,

these children grow up to be strong, confident adults.

• Indians suffer from feudal thinking. (this means) in

India (even clever people) cannot think independently.



• Even bright people prefer to be told what to do by

their bosses.

• We need to overcome this attitude if we are to

succeed globally.



• Western value system teaches us to respect for

contractual obligation

• Example of Indian Students whom N. Murthy had

recommended to American University for higher

studies for National Scholarship on a contract to

spend five years in India after getting their degrees but

most of them did not turn back.



Right and Duty – the two sides of a same coin.

“ A people that values its privileges above its

principles soon loses both”


N Murthy thinks

“We are living in the past. No other society gloats so

much about the past as we do, with as little current

accomplishment.”

- N.R. NARAYANA MURTHY


Thank you

Imran Khan

M.A., M.Phil., B.Ed. in English

Asst. Prof. in English

Om Engineering College, Junagadh.

www.imkeng.wordpress.com

What We Must Learn from the West 49

Diploma Engineering Sem I English (3300002) SECTION 2-A: COMPREHENSION PASSAGES What We Must Learn from the West - Narayan Murthy Prepared and Presented.

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