Implementing Indian Culture

Abstract

Mythologist and author Devdutt Pattanaik uses his deep domain knowledge and corporate experience to address the topic: Implementing Indian Culture. First, he reveals how changing corporate culture through workshops and training programmes is based on the idea of evangelism and religious conversion, which is alien to caste-based Indian society where aggregation of new ideas is preferred over replacement of old ideas. Then, using mythology as a toolkit, he elaborates what is common and what is different between Indian, Chinese and Western cultures. He argues that China and Japan’s success is not the result of ‘Westernisation’ but by their grounding in home-grown Confucian and Taoist myths. India’s progress needs a similar grounding in ideas that have originated, and continue to thrive, in India, hence the need to appreciate the Indian model of yagna (exchange), which is neither policy based and contractual, as in the West, nor authority based, as in the Far East. However, as it is relationship based, it demands maturity and empathy of the leader who functions as the head of the family business ( karta). It demands the karta’s personal transformation from self-indulgent to self-expansive as he gradually delegates and nurtures talent to create an ecosystem of success ( mangalya). Growth then is not just material (what you have) but also psychological/spiritual (who you are).