Kanika Datta: Corporate caste system crumbling

SWOT

Social hierarchies in emerging India's corporate world are changing like never before. While executives in established blue chips are still considered the "Brahmins", it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore those in smaller companies. After all, today's brash owner of a start-up could well be tomorrow's multinational mogul in a world in which the barriers to opportunity are crumbling. Also, the insatiable demand for talent is forcing companies to make practical shift and focus on ability rather than background and social skills, the rigid yardsticks of old.

The good thing about all of this is that it is forcing corporate India to re-examine old prejudices and, in a sense, level the playing field. A good example of this can be seen in Kolkata.

In the old days when Kolkata was Calcutta, the old sterling companies held sway over corporate life and imposed a peculiar caste system that was starkly visible in the clubs, that enduring symbol of Calcutta's social life.

Being a member of one or several of the big clubs in the city was a sign of having arrived socially. Calcutta had a Page 3 scene going long before it emerged in Delhi and Mumbai. By then, of course, the "No Indians allowed" signs had been taken down since India was no longer part of the raj. But other, more subtle social barriers were raised in their place.

Chaps who worked in the managing agencies and big British corporate houses were the Brahmins""their memberships, sponsored by other Brahmin executives, were guaranteed. It was the chaps who set up or ran their own businesses for whom the doors didn't automatically open. So you often found expats who wouldn't necessarily find a place in Page 3 circles in their home country effortlessly sailing into Calcutta's clubs, where smaller Indian businessmen inexplicably found their memberships turned down.

I recall with some amusement the consternation in a club committee when the owner of a garage applied for membership to one of the leading clubs. He was accepted because, it turned out, he'd been to one of India's more fashionable schools and, therefore, understood the unwritten rules of the social game. Besides, he was a good fast bowler, useful for the club cricket team, which tipped the scales in his favour. Those taboo reminded me forcibly of Georgette Heyer's Regency novels in which the declining nobility shuddered at the thought of socialising with a "cit" (meaning a stockbroker in the City) or the owner of a "manufactory" in Leeds or Yorkshire ("he smells of the shop," being the common phrase).

In retrospect, Calcutta's club world was curiously cocooned, but it was occasionally forced to make adjustments to the new India that was thrusting itself on the old social order. The abolition of the managing agencies (yesterday's venture capitalists), FERA and nationalisation forced many changes. It was amusing to see the nabobs sinking into genteel poverty even as arriviste local businessmen started acquiring the hoary old sterling companies after FERA took effect. The latter earned their places in Calcutta's clubs by virtue of their wealth, even as the social arbiters deplored the decline in "standards".

But it was also a decaying world, almost unconscious of the rise of local business houses in the west and north of the country, where the ability to make money was considered a more robust index of success over corporate antecedents. Of course, corporate snobbery did take root in these cities too, but in far less invidious ways than Calcutta.

Nowhere was this corporate caste system better reflected than in the Merchant's Cup sports tournaments that were part of the annual social club calendar. Open to executives only, scandals frequently erupted when clerical staff who were soccer, cricket or hockey stars on Calcutta's maidan were sneaked into teams, only to be found out and disqualified. Today, in New Economy companies, it's harder to make such distinctions.

Most of these old prejudices endured in some form or the other in parts of India until the partial liberalisation of the eighties and economic reform of the nineties saw local businesses flourish and grow. Suddenly, it became possible for juice stall owners, petrol pump attendants and garage entrepreneurs to become billionaires. Increasingly, fashionable schooling and the right social connections count for little in a world that is being forced to value ability and knowledge. This doesn't necessarily make corporate India more egalitarian, but it is a strong indicator of social change. To many, this shift may not always be attractive but it is undeniably healthy.

The views here are personal.