Management by Dharma

Arun Shourie

But to get back to the projects undertaken by our reform movements. As I mentioned, they are exemplary even on merely managerial criteria. And our management schools would do well to study some of the ideas and techniques they use. Several factors make the difference, but the main factor is faith -- Faith in the Guru, in the Swami: faith in the tradition he tells us to live up to: faith in his proclamation that in reviving that tradition we are performing a sacred duty: faith in his exhortation that by participating in and completing these projects and thereby helping our fellow-beings, we are truly doing Dharma-work. But this is the very faith which fifty years of secularism has taught us to be ashamed of.

As will be evident, that faith is kindled by individuals. That such individuals continue to appear from time to time has been the secret of our tradition, and that it lead us to hearken to such individuals is its strength. The Paramacharya of Kanchi -- himself one of the great exemplars of the dictum -- put the point very precisely. People do not follow a religion because of some abstract doctrine it adumbrates, he said. What happens is that from time to time persons appear whose very life personifies the principles of that religion or tradition: people see these living personifications of the teaching and get convinced that yes, the teaching and tradition are worth following.. Bengal was failing to the missionaries by the day -- the missionaries and their cohorts, the scholars had succeeded in making people ashamed of our beliefs and practices, specially of idolatory.

And then Ramakrishna Paramhamsa came, with his visions of the Mother. The people saw his veneration for the idol of the Mother, they learnt the deep meaning which was enshrined in the idols in their homes, and thence they learnt that there was no reason to be ashamed of their beliefs and practices. The way of Karma and Bhakti were similarly revived by Swami Vivekananda, by Mahatma Gandhi: vast numbers were awakened once again to the way of mysticism and Gyan by Sri Aurobindo, by Ramana Maharishi. The life and example of the Paramacharya became the great, the unanswerable argument for the teaching and tradition of the Vedas...

The true sign of renewal, of renaissance, my friend S Gurumurthy once told me, is not that one great man has appeared again, but that hundreds of persons and groups have spontaneously begun that kind of work in their own little areas. That we have today movements like Swadhyaya, like the Swaminarayan movement, and a number of other organisations all over the country: that they are all drawing inspiration from and reviving our Sanatana Dharma: that they are all reforming and reinvigorating bits and pieces of our life - these are sure signs of renewal. May these myriad efforts cohere, may they join up as rivulets into a mighty river. Part I - The Indian Way of Seeking The Almighty Part II - The Buddha's Garment The ObserverJanuary 26, 1996 The Arun Shourie Site voiceofdharma.org