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Let thousand flowers bloom..!
By Professor
Gnanaharan
May 2006
You must be wondering what Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharishi has to do with
enterprise. But that is how Sri Ramanar himself described his journey when he
left his house at Madurai in the year 1896,at the tender age of 16.
Responding to the divine call of Lord Arunachala,Sri Ramanar set off to
Thiruvannamalai - to put it in his own words,"embarked on a virtuous
enterprise".An ongoing advertisement campaign of Force Motors Limited (
a Firodia Enterprise ) thoughtfully claims responsibility "for making
entrepreneurs out of enterprising men for over three generations".
It is very clear that while all business people necessarily have to be
entrepreneurial, all enterprising people need not be business-oriented.In
other words,enterprise is a common demominator of all visionary leaders.They
see a world before anybody else and commit themselves to create that
world.They take it upon themselves to resolve the unresolved issues.Fittingly
the word 'entrepreneur' in French means,"one who takes into
hand".They decide the destiny instead of leaving it to chance or
others.They are the ones who shape the destiny of the society. They take the
road less travelled or sometimes not travelled at all. And in the process
they reach new destinations and help others reach the same. To Randy Komisar
of Stanford University,"entrepreneurs are the ones who challenge and
change the status quo".
Virtuous Enterprise
This blogger has devoutly borrowed Sri Ramana Maharishi's phrase of Virtuous
Enterprise as the focal theme of this virtual platform.Virtuous enterprises
are the need of the hour.While all commercial enterprises need to adopt
virtuous practises, social enterprises of every type need to sprout all over
the country both for protecting and promoting virtuousness in the society.
Social enterprises,according to the management guru,Peter F. Drucker, are the
ones which raise "the performance capacity of the society". Role
models abound already in this sphere. Madurai, that way has the distinction
of giving birth to two shining examples.They are: Aravind Eye Hospitals and
Dhan Foundation. Dr.G.Venkataswamy,affectionately and appropriately called as
Dr V, is responsible for creating a success story in the form of Aravind Eye
Hospitals..Dr.V is a social entrepreneur par excellence as he raised the
performance capacity of the society in two distinct ways - first by
increasing the capacity of the thousands of poor people who undergo eye surgeries
free of cost every year and secondly by increasing the performance capacity
of the Aravind doctors who perform those surgeries.It is common knowledge now
that in terms of efficiency the doctors at Aravind boast an unparalled record
at the global level. No wonder, an article in Man's World (October 2002 )
described Dr.V as "the most efficient doctor" in the world.
Proliferate Virtuous Enterprises
The recent proposal of the HRD Ministry for extending the Quota and
Reservation for SC/ST and Backward Communities in institutes like IITs and
IIMs and private sector employment has generated a lot of debate,heat and
light.Everyone concerned with the societal well being is convinced about the
need to uplift the underpriveleged sections of the society. But not many -
and rightly so it appears - are in favour of quotas and reservations.The
issue is concerned with the basic equity vs. efficiency dilemma encountered
in the market driven economies.The challenge is to come out with a public
policy that would promote equity without hurting efficiency. But 'affirmative
action' as proposed and propagated by CII can go a long way in achiving this.
What we need today is social entrepreneurs like Dr.V and social enterprises
like Aravind in the area of Education. And the country needs hordes of them.
To produce few success stories of the stature of Aravind, hundreds of
experiments or business models have to evole.
Let
thousand flowers bloom..!
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