Business

The Cultists Of Personality

His guilt is pronounced. But there are still more questions asked of the process than the man.

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The Cultists Of Personality
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The business elite in India—a bunch of whom have either worked with Rajat Gupta or watched his rise from close quarters—say they “don’t understand” the guilty verdict handed to the former McKinsey chief last Friday for insider trading. “Rajat Gupta has been made an example of. In the US, people are reeling under the financial collapse and though Rajat is neither a Wall Street guy nor a banker, he’s taking the fall for them,” says Pramath Raj Sinha, an entrepreneur who worked at McKinsey for 12 years and is Gupta’s friend.

It is a bitter ending to Gupta’s four-decade-long career during which he stood alongside the mightiest in the consulting world. The muted reaction in India to the verdict—Gupta will now serve a prison sentence besides paying hefty fines—stems from the poster boy status accorded to him as a global Indian. Thanks to a sentimental belief in Gupta’s honesty and charisma (and his donations, charity and socially responsible works), a large cross-section of Indian businessmen—some 350 top business people had signed an open letter in his support—have supported him through an online campaign since December last year.

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“I’m very surprised at the verdict. I do not know how the law works exactly, but I attended the trial and I didn’t see this coming.” Pramod Bhasin, Vice chairman, Genpact
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“People are fond of him and regard him well, but that does not absolve him of his crime. No one is sorry for Ramalinga Raju.” T.V. Mohandas Pai, Manipal Global Education

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“The Satyam case was different from Rajat Gupta’s. In that, Ramalinga Raju had actually confessed his guilt, didn’t he?” G. Ramaswamy, Former president, ICAI
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“Gupta has been made an example of. Though he is neither a banker nor a Wall Street guy, he’s taking the fall for them.” Pramath Raj Sinha, Venture capitalist

“The lesson for all professionals here is that we must be very careful,” says Pramod Bhasin, who has never worked with Gupta, but considered him a friend and mentor. “I’m very surprised at the verdict. How exactly the law works I don’t know, but I attended the trial and I really didn’t see this verdict coming.” Bhasin and Gupta have been in touch over the telephone through the years though they have not recently met.

Indian businessmen accept that the higher you rise, the more scrutiny you tend to inspire. Yet, they say they fear more will become scapegoats until the financial crisis abates. “I think the verdict shows that we professionals must be ultra-cautious. Fact is, you really don’t know whom you are gong to wind up sitting next to, and where that person will end up in some years, or if he will drag you down one day,” Bhasin says, referring obliquely to convicted Raj Rajaratnam, Gupta’s former friend.

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T.V. Mohandas Pai, a former member of the Infosys board and now an education entrepreneur, however, says Gupta had “definitely gone wrong”. “People are fond of him and regard him well, but that doesn’t absolve him of the crime.” Pai says Indian entrepreneurs are being partisan. “Nobody feels sorry for (Ramalinga) Raju,” he says, referring to the former owner of Satyam, who confessed in 2009 to having fudged the world’s second-largest outsourcing firm’s books to the extent of Rs 5,000 crore.

Raju, too, wound up in jail for a while, but in that case, not a single verdict has been handed out yet in a court of law.

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