Hubris, greed & entitlement ruin reputations of storied professionals     

In earlier days, it used to be said that the long arms of law are bound to catch criminals. Now, it should be paraphrased as the long arms of social media are bound to expose criminals and infractors. Social Media has been a source as well as a tracking tool for the increasing and varied crimes of present day. The #MeToo campaign of social media is now resurrecting the ghosts of past crimes and misdemeanours buried long back. Twitter in India has exploded with accusations of sexual harassment committed by filmmakers, media personalities, cricket lords and corporate honchos. Among them, the most discussed about sexual predator is MJ Akbar, the famous editor of several publications and the former junior minister in the present NDA Government who ultimately quit but not before filing a defamation suit against one of his accusers.

MJ Akbar started his media career as a trainee in The Times of India in its Kolkata office in 1971 and rose to dizzying heights within a short span. He became the editor of The Sunday, a political weekly, in 1976 when he was just 25 years old. In 1982, he conceived, designed and launched as editor The Telegraph, what is considered by some to be India’s first modern newspaper. From the accusations of more than 15 women journalists exposed on #MeToo India, it seems credible to believe that he is a habitual sexual predator who has harassed or exploited three generations of women journalists who were reporting to him in his media career spanning almost half a century. Some of the second and third generation of victims have put out his misdemeanours, whereas the first generation of victims may have become too old to take to the Twitter campaign. Many of his junior women journalists, to save their budding careers, were silently bearing his exploits, Akbar, according to the accusers, became a serial predator who would harass or exploit them as an entitlement. As per the Twitter accusations, he would call his junior women journalists to 5 Star hotels with a whisky bottle and bed ready. He would knock at the doors of single women journalists at midnight with a bottle of Rum in his hands. He would stare or grab or kiss them if enters alone in his chambers.

The most poignant story of MJ Akbar’s sexual exploits was reported by The Huffington Post. As per the report, on the last day of her internship at the The Asian Age newspaper in New Delhi in the spring of 2007, Majlie de Puy Kamp walked up two flights of stairs from the news floor to the office of its editor MJ Akbar. Her task was to show Akbar options for the lead photograph for the next morning’s front page. That particular day, her last day of internship, as Akbar looked over the pictures, Majlie de Puy Kamp thanked him for letting her intern at his paper. “He got up and walked around his desk to where I was sitting, so I also got up and I extended my hand,” Majlie de Puy Kamp recalled in a conversation with the journalist of HuffingtonPost. “He grabbed me right under my shoulders, on my arms, and pulled me in and kissed me on my mouth and forced his tongue into my mouth, and I just stood there,” she added. Believe it or not, Majlie de Puy Kamp was just 18 years old then, out of High School doing her internship with 55-year-old MJ Akbar and daughter of Akbar’s American friend. Majlie de Puy Kamp is now a journalist in New York and corroborated the story by forwarding the mails exchanged between her father and MJ Akbar on the then episode. The resignation of MJ Akbar is not important. His reputation and respect can never be rebuilt.

Chanda Kochchar, the star banker who played a stellar role in transforming ICICI into a large modern private sector bank, was not content enough with the generous remuneration and stock options paid by the bank. She was heading a bank which accounts for 2 per cent of India’s market capitalisation. She got greedy and wanted more share from ICICI Bank’s wealth. Quid pro quo allegations put out by a whistle blower on his website and later picked up by mainstream media have undone her career and reputation. Videocon Group chairman Venugopal Dhoot is said to have invested in NuPower Renewables Pvt Ltd, a company founded by ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar’s husband Deepak Kochhar, by extending a loan of Rs 64 crore. Subsequently, “masked” share transfer of this firm was done to a trust called Pinnacle Energy, whose trustee is Deepak Kochhar, for just Rs 9 lakh as a quid pro quo for Videocon group securing a loan from ICICI Bank. A non-stop successful career at ICICI Bank brought such an arrogance in the mind of Chanda Kochchar that her silence and body language give an impression that she considers above quid pro quo benefit as her just entitlement rather than as an act of dishonesty. Had she exhibited some humility for her acts of omission and commission, the damage to her reputation would have been lesser.

A clear case of hubris is Ravi Parthasarathy, another star banker who started and headed the now bankrupt financial conglomerate IL&FS for three decades. Had he followed the time-tested principles of conservatism with respect to leverage, liquidity, profitability and spread of operations, IL&FS could have survived as a successful institution for a century or more. If not for his hubris, how can a CEO diversify the operations of his parent organisation into an unwieldy behemoth of 358 subsidiaries and joint ventures? Is it humanly possible for a CEO to monitor and guide the varied operations of 358 organisations? He can only leave them to the unsupervised management of his cronies. How can a CEO, a financial wizard, allow the financial institution to borrow left and right, against deceptive credit ratings and illusions of sovereign support, a mammoth 18 times of its net worth and use such borrowed funds to do joint venture road and other infrastructure projects with crony first generation capitalists to be managed by his incompetent senior management. In fact, IL&FS net worth would have been negative, had it not been for the intangible assets and disputed receivables accounted by it. The arrogance and hubris of Ravi Parthasarathy has not only cost his reputation but also brought a mini Lehman crisis to India.

Humility, conservatism and probity should be the guiding principles for star administrators in media, sports, corporate world and government. That is the clear bottomline.

(The author is an alumnus of IIM, Ahmadabad and a former MD of Ahmedabad Stock Exchange Ltd. Views expressed are personal)