Challenging the status quo ….

Last week was a tough week for Infosys, what with Narayan murthy coming under much criticism from the media as well as the karnataka politicians for having canceled the singing of the national anthem during President Abdul Kalam’s visit to Infosys campus. While Abdul Kalam seemed quite excited about Narayan Murthy being proposed as the next President, Not sure whether that will hold true anymore.

Anyways, lets evaluate Narayan Murthy’s reasoning for cancelling the singing of the national anthem. He believed he didn’t want to make his foreign employees uncomfortable with the singing of the national anthem of India. In his own words “singing the national anthem would have “embarrassed” company employees of foreign origin”.

This made me think of the times when I was studying & working in the US. I have personally stood and been part of many gatherings where the US national anthem was sung. I stood with the same respect and attention as I did for our national anthem. Having read and understood about U.S history, I have definitely been able to respect the anthem even more for what it meant, which was ‘all about complete freedom’. US is perhaps the only country where this freedom was protected so well. Ofcourse after Bush came along, all bets are off about what is remaining.

But anyways, the point I wanted to make how can an Indian company in India feel uncomfortable about making its foreign employees who happen to be in India feel embarrassed. If I know how much I know about these ‘foreigners’ from my own collections of friends & colleagues, my bet is they would have stood with respect and hardly have felt embarassed. Afterall I as an Indian is perfectly entitled to sing my national anthem in my own country. Even if my employees are from abroad, they will know that and will respect my right as much as I will respect their right to sing their national anthem on the occasions they will feel like doing it.

It feels strange that a company which puts out about flatworld really doesn’t understand the meaning of what a flat world means. Its not just about building technology from any part of the world, but its also about human freedom & human rights for all. Maybe the older generation of Indians have still not gotten over the worshipping of the ‘foreigners’ or may be they still have not gotten over their inferiority complex.