kishor Jagirdar

I have been watching the debate around   “the case against CSR”   with interest. The fundamental point where we all seem to get stuck is around “the role of business.” Economists and many CEOs argue that the role of business is to  maximize  shareholder profits, whereas the CSR community talks about contribution to society for the greater good. I believe that the essential problem about the role of business cannot be resolved within our current framework of thinking unless we add another element – “The element of Trusteeship.” The TATA group of companies is based around this principle. Trusteeship is the model of responsibility that best describes the group founder – JRD Tata’s view of himself and his role in the world. It was a view that JRD essentially derived from Gandhi. Gandhi talked frequently about the role of business as being that of a trustee or a steward for what you hold. Gandhi’s view of trusteeship was based on the belief that we do not really ‘ow...

Just like the files laid one upon each other will hold weight of the upper ones and at a given point will result in the topmost of the files falling down and thus establishing a sense of balance for the remaining ones. Likewise the mind or the psyche is able to absorb the reality around and relate to only to the extent of what the evolving has happened. The greater the evolving the greater the perception. Reality is something that is debatable as its all around us and like a microscope or telescope we have to adjust the lenses of comprehension that will automatically compute and show us the resultant reality measurable at that level to which adjustments have been made. Somehow we seem to have in the last 50 years diverted our psyche to more sense gratification and there appears more of disconnect into our inner strength which may throw a chord of confusion on this subject.Like the immense addiction to mobile phones today and other gadgets drains our ability to look within. But the trut...