I knew that in fast-developing economies,4 corporate culture has a strong and unique identity. In countries where the economy is creating opportunities for societal change, there is often a lag between corporate culture and the accepted behaviour in the rest of society. Corporate culture is not always a reflection of what people believe in and expect of others outside the workplace. We have seen this happen most recently in the post-Soviet states, where the communist societal structure was gradually transformed by the advent of capitalism in the markets. There, capitalism came first to the markets, ushering in a competitive attitude for profit-making in the corporate culture, and then social mindsets gradually began to change.
In liberalized India, where corporate governance is weak and regulations poorly implemented, the private sector has developed in a fairly independent manner, which is not entirely similar in trajectory to the change in society. For example, one of the first things I realized here was that in a country of 420 million people between the ages of fifteen and thirty-four,5 being sixty is still an essential criterion for being considered for a leadership position in business. On the other hand, while some fathers in India kill their infant girls, considering them a financial burden, corporate India is more accepting of women, even in leadership roles. Indeed, in Indian businesses, power is still associated with virility and manliness, but not with gender per se. A woman willing to be forceful and insistent on simply getting the job done with machismo is accepted in business, but not at home. My point here is that we cannot presuppose that corporate culture in India has the same values as Indian society.
Clearly, I had made a rather dramatic re-entry into India. From the Swiss Alps at Davos, I moved overnight to the sweat and grime of the factory floor. I was working at Jindal’s headquarters in Delhi on strategic issues for the company as well as those that were pan-industry, often meeting and collaborating with trade associations and other companies in relevant sectors. On most days each month, I would set out wearing my yellow hard hat and fluorescent orange safety vest to oversee several thousand employees at iron ore mines, steel factories, power plants, training centres, and schools and hospitals in the most far-flung parts of Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.
Atop the Sundargarh hills, our iron ore mines were deep craters dug into the earth—carefully engineered so as to reforest the entire area back to its natural flora once the minerals had been extracted. Our factories would cull out the extracts and process hot, molten, raw iron to manufacture large steel plates, beams and columns, among other products. These we would sell to buyers such as ship and aeroplane builders, infrastructure projects for constructing bridges, wind power projects and large turbines. I would be involved in every part of the manufacturing process as well as in sales, putting in place checks and balances to ensure the company’s holistic growth. Usually, I would be the lone woman in a group of a few thousand male employees. It was baptism by fire, quite literally, as I learnt how business is done in India. There was never a day I did not make a comparison with everything I had experienced in other countries.
Some of the new friends I became closest to were owners of other large Indian companies. I had first met many of them while working for the World Economic Forum, but it was in India that we became friends. When they shared with me their triumphs as well as woes about life and business, my mind would automatically extract significant lessons for my own self. As a friend, I would offer my affection, and as an apprentice, I would learn about why and how they made decisions, the manner in which they reacted to a crisis or challenge, and their motivation to work.
When I travelled out of Delhi to visit schools and universities that I managed on behalf of the Jindals, and at the ones in Delhi where I occasionally lectured, I would meet and speak to as many young Indians as possible. I was curious to know their interests and aspirations, and I wondered if I could help them in any way. I wanted to know how they felt about the future of their locality, city and country. Their challenges were, I discovered, a reflection of my own in the past, but their future was to shape our country’s fortunes.
The economist Amartya Sen has pointed out that in India, there is indeed an emphasis on primary education for children, even in the poorest of families. He has written that the common assumption that Indian parents are often uninterested in the schooling of their girl child is not true. He substantiates this by mentioning one of the main findings of the Public Report on Basic Education, published in 1999, and also those of more recent investigations by the Pratichi Trust—that there was no serious reluctance of parents to send their children, daughters or sons, to school, provided that affordable, effective and safe schooling opportunities were available in their neighbourhood.6
I differ from Sen’s observation on two counts.
First, the measurement of the gender gap in education—or, for that matter, at the workplace—needs to be redefined as this cannot be conclusively assessed only by data related to the headcount of those going to school. There are many other variables that need to be considered. For example, in India today, everyone is indeed likely to be enrolled for primary education, but boys are more likely than girls to be enrolled in private schools, and more likely to have more money spent on their education.7 Further, surveys do not measure what boys and girls do with their education. Are they equally empowered to understand the same life choices, effectively evaluate those choices, and implement the choice that works
