CROSSING FRONTIERS
The Journey of Building CII
Tarun Das
236 pages; Rs 699
Any journalist assigned industry associations as a beat is bound to have filed a report on the "chamber wars": that unending fight for one-upmanship between the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (Ficci). Who got the prime minister to attend an event first, who has a direct line to the finance minister, who got more coverage in the media - these are all matters of life and death for them.
Tarun Das, who built CII almost single-handedly and led its secretariat till June 2004, chooses to give just a glimpse of this intense rivalry in his book, Crossing Frontiers. It is clear that he wants to play it down, but some hints do surface now and then. For instance, he writes that in the 1970s, one eye (of the Association of Indian Engineering Industry, a predecessor of CII) "was always on Ficci - to learn, to study, to adapt; to surpass was a distant dream".
The first signs of divergence appeared in 1975 when business leaders of Ficci came out in support of the Emergency. "AIEI received a call to join but quickly ducked the issue," Mr Das writes.
That was also the time AIEI began to study the membership of Ficci: it largely comprised leaders of the Marwari community and some other Indian entrepreneurs like the Thapars of Delhi.
AIEI was formed by the merger of Indian Engineering Association and the Engineering Association of India in 1974 (it would change its name to Confederation of Engineering Industry in 1986 and finally to CII in 1992). While the former comprised Indian entrepreneurs, the latter was made up of foreign-owned companies and non-family owned Indian companies. It was at the time a lobby of decidedly moderate influence, and a distant competitor to Ficci. But long before economic reforms kicked in, Mr Das understood that corporate India needed a more powerful but sophisticated voice on Raisina Hill.
To expand its footprint, AIEI first got on board some public-sector engineering companies, through a "partnership with the department of heavy industry". The next step was to get some leading Marwari businessmen to join. The breakthrough came in 1976 when Rahul Bajaj joined AIEI (he became its president in 1980.) Subsequently, many children of Ficci stalwarts joined CII: Chandra Kant Birla, Sanjiv Goenka, Gautam Thapar and others.
By the early 1990s, serious differences began to emerge between CII and Ficci. To present a coordinated front, a joint committee of the presidents of CII, Ficci and Assocham (the third, albeit smaller, national industry association) was proposed. Mr Das says though a draft document for this was signed by the CII and Assocham presidents, it "never emerged after it was sent to Ficci's office for its president to sign. Hearsay has it that he was not given clearance!"
Later, Mr Das says, the merger of Assocham and CII too was mooted, especially after Ficci heavyweights Hari Shankar Singhania and Lalit Mohan Thapar joined Assocham, but was dropped because there were worried that CII might lose its ""engineering focus". It was then proposed to have a common secretariat head for the two associations but that too was turned down by CII.
Mr Das's account leaves you hungry for more on the rivalry. A second, tell-all, book would be welcome.
CII's biggest crisis came in 2002. In April, at an event organised by CII, Anu Aga (of Thermax) got a standing ovation after she gave an impassioned speech on Gujarat which had seen large-scale communal violence the previous month. The allegation was that Narendra Modi, then chief minister, did little to rein in the rioters. More was to come. In February 2003, CII held a meeting with Modi in New Delhi. On the dais were Bajaj, Jamshyd Godrej and Mr Das. Bajaj was scathing in his attack, and Modi was incensed.
Soon, about 100 CII members from Gujarat threatened to resign. Some businessmen from the state set up a rival organisation called the Resurgent Group of Gujarat. And in New Delhi, CII found its access to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government curtailed.
Mr Das makes fleeting mentions of "issues with Gujarat", the "gap between the state government and CII", and the "Gujarat-CII differences" but never discloses how it played out. But he does admit that peace was brokered through Arun Jaitley. (Hari Bhartia facilitated this meeting.) CII agreed to give a letter expressing regret for the misunderstanding caused.
Mr Das was privy to what went on behind closed doors when industry met government, yet he chooses to disclose little. The book has a long list of thank-you notes: ministers, bureaucrats, businessmen and various other people associated with CII.
The book does have its candid moments. Its 35th chapter, Disappointments, lists 15 challenges that Mr Das often found himself up against. One of these was his failure to keep all past presidents "happy". One fine day, the ex-president would find himself out of the limelight, and he wouldn't take kindly to it. "The Past Presidents' Council and membership of the Steering Committee was often insufficient to make an outgoing president happy with his new and lesser role," Mr Das writes. "The (CII) secretariat was not able to manage the transition in several cases."
Still, for someone who built an institution that commanded attention from policy-makers and who got to see corporate India up close and personal while doing so, Mr Das must have many more anecdotes to relate. But for him, discretion has always been the better part of valour and this book certainly lives up to that reputation.
The Journey of Building CII
Tarun Das
236 pages; Rs 699
Any journalist assigned industry associations as a beat is bound to have filed a report on the "chamber wars": that unending fight for one-upmanship between the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (Ficci). Who got the prime minister to attend an event first, who has a direct line to the finance minister, who got more coverage in the media - these are all matters of life and death for them.
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Tarun Das, who built CII almost single-handedly and led its secretariat till June 2004, chooses to give just a glimpse of this intense rivalry in his book, Crossing Frontiers. It is clear that he wants to play it down, but some hints do surface now and then. For instance, he writes that in the 1970s, one eye (of the Association of Indian Engineering Industry, a predecessor of CII) "was always on Ficci - to learn, to study, to adapt; to surpass was a distant dream".
The first signs of divergence appeared in 1975 when business leaders of Ficci came out in support of the Emergency. "AIEI received a call to join but quickly ducked the issue," Mr Das writes.
That was also the time AIEI began to study the membership of Ficci: it largely comprised leaders of the Marwari community and some other Indian entrepreneurs like the Thapars of Delhi.
AIEI was formed by the merger of Indian Engineering Association and the Engineering Association of India in 1974 (it would change its name to Confederation of Engineering Industry in 1986 and finally to CII in 1992). While the former comprised Indian entrepreneurs, the latter was made up of foreign-owned companies and non-family owned Indian companies. It was at the time a lobby of decidedly moderate influence, and a distant competitor to Ficci. But long before economic reforms kicked in, Mr Das understood that corporate India needed a more powerful but sophisticated voice on Raisina Hill.
To expand its footprint, AIEI first got on board some public-sector engineering companies, through a "partnership with the department of heavy industry". The next step was to get some leading Marwari businessmen to join. The breakthrough came in 1976 when Rahul Bajaj joined AIEI (he became its president in 1980.) Subsequently, many children of Ficci stalwarts joined CII: Chandra Kant Birla, Sanjiv Goenka, Gautam Thapar and others.
By the early 1990s, serious differences began to emerge between CII and Ficci. To present a coordinated front, a joint committee of the presidents of CII, Ficci and Assocham (the third, albeit smaller, national industry association) was proposed. Mr Das says though a draft document for this was signed by the CII and Assocham presidents, it "never emerged after it was sent to Ficci's office for its president to sign. Hearsay has it that he was not given clearance!"
Later, Mr Das says, the merger of Assocham and CII too was mooted, especially after Ficci heavyweights Hari Shankar Singhania and Lalit Mohan Thapar joined Assocham, but was dropped because there were worried that CII might lose its ""engineering focus". It was then proposed to have a common secretariat head for the two associations but that too was turned down by CII.
Mr Das's account leaves you hungry for more on the rivalry. A second, tell-all, book would be welcome.
CII's biggest crisis came in 2002. In April, at an event organised by CII, Anu Aga (of Thermax) got a standing ovation after she gave an impassioned speech on Gujarat which had seen large-scale communal violence the previous month. The allegation was that Narendra Modi, then chief minister, did little to rein in the rioters. More was to come. In February 2003, CII held a meeting with Modi in New Delhi. On the dais were Bajaj, Jamshyd Godrej and Mr Das. Bajaj was scathing in his attack, and Modi was incensed.
Soon, about 100 CII members from Gujarat threatened to resign. Some businessmen from the state set up a rival organisation called the Resurgent Group of Gujarat. And in New Delhi, CII found its access to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government curtailed.
Mr Das makes fleeting mentions of "issues with Gujarat", the "gap between the state government and CII", and the "Gujarat-CII differences" but never discloses how it played out. But he does admit that peace was brokered through Arun Jaitley. (Hari Bhartia facilitated this meeting.) CII agreed to give a letter expressing regret for the misunderstanding caused.
Mr Das was privy to what went on behind closed doors when industry met government, yet he chooses to disclose little. The book has a long list of thank-you notes: ministers, bureaucrats, businessmen and various other people associated with CII.
The book does have its candid moments. Its 35th chapter, Disappointments, lists 15 challenges that Mr Das often found himself up against. One of these was his failure to keep all past presidents "happy". One fine day, the ex-president would find himself out of the limelight, and he wouldn't take kindly to it. "The Past Presidents' Council and membership of the Steering Committee was often insufficient to make an outgoing president happy with his new and lesser role," Mr Das writes. "The (CII) secretariat was not able to manage the transition in several cases."
Still, for someone who built an institution that commanded attention from policy-makers and who got to see corporate India up close and personal while doing so, Mr Das must have many more anecdotes to relate. But for him, discretion has always been the better part of valour and this book certainly lives up to that reputation.