Author: Pioneer News Service
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: September 17, 2007
As the controversy over the UPA Government's
affidavit in the Supreme Court has seen Indian politicians vacillate between
bland denial to reverent assertion of Lord Ram's existence, management gurus
in the world's premier educational institutions have been telling their students
to take a lesson from Ram to succeed in the present environment of globalised
economy.
Lessons of Hindu epics Ramayana have formed
part of teaching on leadership, management and governance at prestigious institutions
like the Wharton Business School of the USA, the Indian Business School of
Hyderabad and many Indian Institutes of Management.
The recent controversy over the existence
of Ram notwithstanding, many educational institutions in India and abroad
are including Ramayana and other Hindu epics as part of their curriculum.
Professor Rajeshwar Upadhyaya, for instance,
has included examples from Ramayana and other Hindu epics in a course on "Leadership
lessons from world literature" that he has taught as a member of the
visiting faculty at the Wharton School and the Indian School of Business.
"We have designed a course on public
administration and management which is based on relevant aspects of Lord Ram's
advice to Bharat on good governance," Prof V Kutumbshastri, Vice-Chancellor
of the Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthanam - an autonomous body under the Union
Human Resource Development Ministry told agencies.
The institute has set up a committee, which
is looking into the study material and course structure. The course will be
initiated in the distant education format. The course will also contain Bheesham's
advice to Yudhishtir, described in the epic Mahabharat.
The Bodhananda Research Foundation for Management
and Leadership Studies (BRF-ML) in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, is also developing
courses to develop management theories and suggest management practices based
on Indian philosophical and mythological literature - the Mahabharata, Ramayana,
Bhagavad Gita, Panchatantra, Arthasastra etc, informs PN Subramanian, its
chief executive.
"Students of business and administration
can learn a lot from the Indian epics," says Prof C Panduranga Bhatta
of IIM, Calcutta, in his research paper on "Management of Power: Lessons
from the Ramayana", published in a book on Leadership and Power Ethical
Explorations published by the Oxford University Press.
Dr Jinesh Panchali of the Indian Institute
of Capital Markets, agrees. "In India, governance has been extensively
discussed in our epics like Ramayana, Mahabharat, and Kautilya's Artha-Shastra
highlighting the relationship between society, polity and business,"
he pointed out in a paper on 'Corporate Ownership and Performance' read at
the Seventh Capital Markets Conference held in Mumbai.
The importance of Ramayana was highlighted
by Sudhir Sharma, managing partner Chromosome advisory and consulting at a
workshop on Strategies that transform Brands" held at Indian Institute
of Technology, Roorkee this month.
"Marketing strategies and branding existed
in India way back in 7383 BC when Valmiki wrote the Ramayana," he said,
adding that 'Ram' is the biggest brand that is sold in India and will continue
to be so.
A Balakrishnan, another management guru, feels
that the lessons from Ramayana can also be applied in modern management of
organisation, especially the leadership qualities of Lord Ram in administration
of Ayodhya.
"There are many modern management concepts
such as EQ, MBO, Kaizen, strategic planning, organising principles and etc
where its origin can be traced from Valmiki Ramayana," he asserts.
