Sri B S Raghavan joined the West Bengal cadre of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1952 and has held leadership positions in the State Governments of Bengal and Tripura, as Secretary, Commerce and Industry, Energy and Home (Constitution and Elections) and as Chief Secretary. He has held top administrative positions in the Government of India as Director, Political and Security Policy Planning Division overseeing the working of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Central Bureau of Investigation.
He has been Member/Leader, India's delegation to all International Bodies such as FAO, World Food Council, GATT, UNTAD, International Wheat Council, Economic and Social Council of the UN, etc. He was Chairman of the UN Committee on World Food Security. He is currently on the Board of Studies of The Department of Management of the University of Madras. He is the Trustee of The Satyamurti Foundation, Rajaji Centre for Public Affairs and several other Non-Governmental Organizations.
After his retirement when he came to settle down in Chennai in 1987, he became one of my very close friends. It is a matter of great joy to me and all his friends and admirers that he is completing his 80 years of fruitful and creative life dedicated to the nation and society at large tomorrow (26 August, 2007).
I have just finished reading an outstanding book titled 'The Call of the 21st Century and Other Essays' by B S Raghavan, one of the most outstanding civil servants India has produced after independence. This new book by B.S. Raghavan consists of his perceptive and incisive essays which appeared at various times in publications like 'The Hindu', 'The Hindu Business Line', 'The Praxis', and various other periodicals or which were presented as papers at Seminars and Conventions. These essays have been organized under five major sections titled 'Emerging New Challenges', 'Perspectives in Management', 'National Scene', Indian Economy' and 'General Scenario'. In the introductory 'Overview', B S Raghavan clearly defines and demarcates the framework within which all the essays in this new book can be fitted in, like coins falling into a slot.
To quote his words: 'There has been a lot of musings on globalisation, picturing it in a variety of complexions and dimensions and ascribing to it all sorts of ramifications and repercussions. Some say it has made the world flat, to some it is without a human face. There is equal alarm both at the divides it is supposed to be creating and at the one-size-fits-all prescriptions it is supposed to be spawning. Under its influence, the world, like Lord Gilpin's famous horse, is taking off simultaneously in all directions all at once. Riding such a horse is not going to be easy. All the more so because, along with globalisation, the world has to cope with five revolutions taking place all at the same time, unlike in the previous centuries when there used to be long intervals between one revolution and another.'
| What are those five revolutions, which converging together with great intensity, cataclysmic force and unprecedented speed, invading the world today? They are: a) The Knowledge Revolution: Raghavan rightly observes that till about 50 years ago, the sum total of the corpus of human knowledge doubled only once in 50 years, the doubling today is at the break-neck pace of once in five years or less. The gravest threat to which it gives rise is human obsolescence. b) The Communications Revolution: The velocity, volume, variety, volatility and versatility of transactions flashing past eight times a single second round the globe call for a degree of alertness and judgement unimagined before, simply because there is going to be no mercy for mistakes and one has to be right the first time. c) The Technological Revolution: All known laws of science in every field are on the verge of falling by the way side. The tsunamis of biotechnology, nanotechnology and genomics are sweeping away all that was considered as firmly rooted, immutable and inexorable. |
d) The Revolution in Management/Governance: Old command and control nostrums such as hierarchies, reporting systems, standard operations procedures, performance appraisals, edifice complexes and salary structures are losing ground in an era which places high premium on knowledge, innovation and creativity and on lean and flat organizations capable of complexity management and inventing�even modulating in the manner and measure required�the unknown and unknowable future.
e) The Social/Sociological Revolution: This has been brought on by the combined onslaught of the four other Revolutions detailed above. Familial, Societal and Inter-personal Relationships and Value Systems are undergoing a sea-change in uncharted directions about whose potency for good or ill there is plenty of uncertainty.
B S Raghavan sums it up beautifully in his inimitable style: 'The collective impact of all these current revolutions has been to cut humanity adrift of its accustomed moorings and bearings... Everything is up for sceptical scrutiny under an electron microscope. The only mode of survival in this relentless race of the fittest is to become unbeatably competitive to the point of being combative. And that predicates the forging of, and equipping oneself with, mental, emotional, intellectual and professional competencies and constantly keeping them honed and supplemented. What it all adds up to is that the Twenty-First Century is going to be unlike any other era of the past. How prepared are we to face this daunting prospect?'
The paragraph I love most in this book is this: 'The world has had scientific management; management by objectives; management by exception; management by exertion; and all kinds of permutations and combinations, windows and winnows, within them. All of them put together have not made the world any better place to live in. A Revolution of Thinking heralding the era of TOTAL MANAGEMENT cannot make it any worse. '
As a brilliant and prolific writer on various things and themes ranging from cabbages to kings, Raghavan's 'Quintessence'�a four-series magnum opus gives us a refreshing outlook on a wide range of issues relating to Management, Governance, Civil Society, I.T. and the Society in general. Many do not know that he is a great scholar in Hindi and has authored a collection of Hindi poems titled 'Pagdandi'. He has also written a book of reminiscences of his life in the IAS from 1952 to 1987 in Tamil titled 'Nehru Muthal Netru Varai'. It is clear from this volume that Raghavan was fortunate to have three most precious things during his hectic years in the IAS.'opportunity, responsibility and authority.
He has had the good fortune of working closely in touch with the famous rulers of free India�Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Y.B. Chawan, Gulzarilal Nanda, B.C. Roy, Jyoti Basu and many others. Majestically sure of touch, rich in tone, his autobiography is a superb work of evocation and narration. Witty, pungent, boldly irreverent and totally absorbing, this is a book to be savoured and enjoyed.
B S Raghavan married Kausalya in May, 1952. Coming from a very distinguished family, with her own high ideals marching along with his own with equal gusto and enthusiasm, she has indeed been a tower of strength to Raghavan for 55 years.
His attitude to the great world around him is balanced and harmonious. During the last 15 years, I have had the opportunity of meeting him several times and discussing several public issues which are plaguing our nation today. His intellect, clear, formidable and with a cutting edge, has never left me in doubt of its elegance and power. With this he possesses a charm of manner, a discriminating (at times almost feminine) love for whatever that possesses style and form. No one who has heard him even once will forget the blend of original thought, caustic wit and controlled passion, expressed in short, apt and classically lucid sentences. He has been a willing and lifelong slave of self-imposed obligations.
Yet at the same time, he has never allowed himself to be dulled by this regimen of stern self-discipline. He dislikes only the idle and fraudulent. He has always fostered thoroughness, application, and the disinterested pursuit of the truth. He has a tender social conscience. He respects earnestness and public spirit. He is never solemn. He is capable of moments of marvellous gaiety and high spirits, with a strain of childlike innocence and fancy that goes oddly but delightfully with the cultivated quality of his taste and intellect.
I would conclude this memoir of my humble personal tribute to B S Raghavan by saying that great learning, tireless labours, unswerving pursuit of truth, even brilliant powers of exposition, are qualities, if not frequently, yet sufficiently often found in combination not to constitute a unique claim. What is astonishing in B S Raghavan is the union of extreme refinement of mind and heart, an intellect of the first order and rigorous self discipline, with acute perceptiveness and understanding of others, rare personal charm, an unflagging ironical pleasure in the comedy of life, and a disposition to gay and brilliant play of the imagination characteristic of a certain type of artistic talent, if not genius.
And with all this a sense of honour, simple nobility of soul, an unsullied purity of character and above all a capacity for love and devotion to several public causes�all these qualities have made his moral personality unique and his example and his influence significant and relevant in Tamilnadu in the last 20 years after his retirement, even with Raghavan yielding himself gracefully to the successively falling shades.
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