“It’s better to be a upper caste Hindu in India,” an Indian politician once said back in the golden age of 70s. Has the mindset changed in recent times?

 Yes I think so. Again, with the benefit of looking back, I was telling someone the other day that the Tam Bram went ‘global’. All of India, at least Tamil Nadu had huge reservation issues in colleges; similarly due to naxal menace, a lot of Bengalis going to college in seventies  went out to Delhi. The reservations in non academic institutions tell you that there is an affirmative action via quotas is happening. So no, it’s no longer better to be an upper caste Hindu – even in politics (read Mayawati, Mulayam Singh, Lalu Yadav and Karunaninidhi)

How is the rural Indian consumer different from the urban consumer?  

Primarily on account of income. The top two quintiles of income in India are almost half in rural India – and the rural rich don’t pay tax on their agriculture income either. The remaining quintiles start getting more rural. So poverty  is more in rural India. Mind set and exposure wise,  in most progressive states where road, cell phone and TV connectivity is good there is little or no difference.

How is the Indian market different from the other markets. Any unique but uninspiring aspect which you like to point about the Indian market?  

Please – I wrote a whole book on it!

One is that unlike the developed markets of the world,  it has a large number of people have modest income – so more people buying a little bit of everything and this adds up to a lot. Second, we change in hybrid ‘this AND that’ ways – not this or that. Finally we are getting more heterogeneous as we get richer and not homogenous. For explanations around this people can buy books like “we are like that only “ or “winning in the Indian market”

How would you define the word  - CORPORATE?

A ‘for profit’  business activity that is organized in structure and form and is like a religious faith in terms of the rituals followed.

What does the IIM tag actually stand for you?  

It stands for everything in my life. I was 18 went I went there, 20 when I graduated – those were the formative years of my life, and that’s where I made my friends for the lifetime,  including my spouse . Today like any other brand, it stands for a set of values and expectations of academic rigour, mind training, and for a threshold level of brightness – so it gives you the benefit of the doubt  until you prove otherwise. It is a sort of ‘default’ level of automatic approval, if you like. Don’t know if this applies equally to all IIM’s but it certainly does for  the established ones.

Don’t you think that the title ‘We are like that only’ seems more suitable for a book on Indian mentality rather than the Indian market?

Yes – for the Indian politics too . The idea in it was to say “deal with it, and don’t keep waiting for the ugly duckling to become the beautiful swan”. The sub title of understanding the logic is the important part – lets understand the logic of why we do, what we do, why we are and what we are.

A hell lot of awful things have been said about the Indian mentality. Any positive aspect about it which you would specifically want to highlight?

Attitudes like ‘Never say die, always cobble together a solution, jugaad it please (compromise) – tolerance for a very high degree of ambiguity, the ability to multi task often, the level of accommodating. Nobody bitches much- they either accept with resignation or strive to jugaad (compromise) a solution. We are an open culture and hence  share knowledge and information freely.    

What’s the one thing which becomes easier for the MBA graduate and difficult for a normal graduate?  Is MBA or to be precise IIM/IIT hyped? Had you been a non IIM pass out, would be this famous and successful?

Problem solving skills and competencies – can work my way through any situation that I haven’t encountered or don’t have the knowledge of ( like audit committees of boards or social sector organization structure). It is like learning mathematics from first principles not mugging up formulae. It is training of the mind to think rigorously and with depth. To be able to work with the weapon of conceptual clarity rather than context familiarity. If I had a good education from anywhere, I would have been able to navigate the world the way I have (had I been to the national law college or to St Stephen’s and studied economics). So it is the institution and not the course so much that matters, I think. And yes, as I mentioned earlier -  it’s the confidence that comes from being given the benefit of the doubt , that helps you perform better.

What’s your take on the decline of chauvinism across India? Is the Indian woman’s success responsible for it or the Indian man’s thinking is going beyond horizons?  

India attitude to gender is a bit like “we are like that only”. There are two tracks – the repression/oppression track and the Devi ma/Shakti ma (goddess) track – worship of the powerful feminine. I think Indian men are a bit behind Indian women on social progress with respect to gender stereotypes etc. But that’s because Indian women have changed but Indian mothers have not – even if they are the same people!!

The save tiger campaign was well received through the social networking sites. Do you feel that the government can do a first in using social networking to spread important messages?  

Yes it must – spreading viral information and opinion has always worked here. We all knew about Ganpati(Elephant god)  drinking milk,  about Indira Gandhi’s assassination before the media told us. The mobiles are already being used by some districts for the health mission and  I agree totally with the thought that this can be turned into a full blown strategy.

Any 3 things the world doesn’t know about Rama Bijapurkar, the person?

I am transparent!!

What the world sees is what the world knows – but yes, I aptly hide the fact that I have a fragile sense of self esteem and can berate myself endlessly about things that I did wrong – but that too is getting better as I get older and I want to do less of most things. Also, maturity has finally set in.

Any 3 reasons which an intellectual like you can give to our people so that they could vote for the person and not for the party in the general elections?

Because a collection of good individuals is what makes up the party and by voting for good people, you send a message to the parties that they should field good candidates and when a candidate is elected on a lot of  his / her own steam, then his clout within the party increases. It is of such confluences that change waves happen. Lots of little things that are in force of each other.

Would you like to give any message to your fans, followers, the youth of India and the general people?

Let’s keep the faith and not get cynical about India – we can change things, each of us can pick our causes and do it in small ways.  Think of it as running a relay race – you don’t have to get to the finish line yourself but every little distance you run with the baton in your hand helps!

Team OKIEDOKS wishes Ramaji all the success and happiness in her future pursuits.

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