Thursday, January 8, 2009

Satyam - Matters beyond the balance sheet: The larger lessons we must not forget

08-09 appears to be for the fall of the big guys. It started with Lehman brothers and has gripped the entire world in it. The latest Satyam fiasco for once has brought a very pertinent question and the question has nothing to do with balance sheet or auditing. The question is that of Indian's attitude towards corruption. You may wonder how?? Well, for too long we Indians have been attributing heaps of negatives like corruption, dishonesty & non-transparency to politics & bureaucracy. And the typical statements of people would be that they don't want to be in politics because they can't be hypocrites or tell lies. Even when the white collared people commit crimes and bury them under the carpets, we are often busy blaming the Indian bureaucracy for being corrupt.


We can no longer afford to do that. At least now we should stop blaming the politicians & bureaucrats as the sole owners of dishonesty and corruption. And this brings me to a bigger question - who is ultimately responsible for corruption & terrorism in India - is it just the usual set of politcians, babus and some resource constrained security agencies? Or is it the whole of India and all of its citizens who forget their duty after the ballot and cry when the bullet strikes? Who is responsible for the dirty roads in India - the Netas or all those citizens who don't think twice before spitting and peeing on the road?

The Satyam debacle needs to be viewed in this larger perspective lest we forget the lessons.