A Better India: A Better World by N.R. Narayana MurthyMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
A collection of speeches given by N. R. Narayana Murthy on various occasions grouped by the theme of the speech.
Mr. Narayana Murthy swears by capitalism. It looks like he was highly influenced by the treatment he got in communist Hungary. (Can one say it is a bounce back like Ayn Rand who suffered in Russia?).
Nevertheless giving the speaker the benefit of doubt, some of the statements are very apt and the it will help if our leaders listened to him.
In one of the speeches he says "I believe in democracy. As Winston Churchill said, democracy may not be the best form of government, but the alternatives are worse. Democracy is about achieving the collective aspirations of a nation and not that of a few vested interests. Democracy mandates openness for discussion and debate and generally brings out the best ideas. Democracies provide the most effective platform for addressing the basic needs of every citizen - education, health care, shelter and nutrition. A democratic setup creates equal opportunities for everyone to better his life or her life. It also averts disasters, as eloquently argued by the Nobel Laureate economist Amartya Sen".
Now read the same replacing Democracy with Socialism. I don't think anyone would argue that socialism is against of the suggested encouragements provided by democracy. What went wrong was that the few who were in power twisted the essence of socialism.
He goes on to state that all the above holds true in spirit of democracy. The spirit of socialism was the same. It was again the people who interpreted it to their convenience. In a similar way the spirit of capitalism did not preclude sharing of wealth but the fact is that it is not happening today.
A decent read. Be prepared for a lot of repetition as has been warned in the foreword.
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