Humble framer

Humble framer
By targeting the Infosys chairman, Deve Gowda may end up seriously damaging Karnataka’s interests

The Indian Express

What's with H.D. Deve Gowda? Why has he made it his personal business to target Infosys Chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy? Earlier this week, Deve Gowda had expressed his dissatisfaction over a land allotment to Infosys; made it known that “elite personalities” are out of touch with ground realities, and suggested that Naryana Murthy’s role as chairman of the Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) — the consortium that is building the international airport in Bangalore — had contributed to its delay. Narayana Murthy responded in the only way available to a person of integrity — he resigned from the BIAL chairmanship.

Karnataka’s chief minister has assured all those appalled by the turn of events that he will try and get Narayana Murthy to take back his resignation. But even if the immediate crisis blows over, it seems there can be no addressing the tension between those committed to modernising Karnataka through a credible, intelligent and sustainable process of growth and those who wish to draw political mileage out of painting such a project as anti-farmer, anti-rural and anti-poor. Deve Gowda’s smear campaign is powered by a desire to appear as a champion of rural interests willing to take on the Infosys Goliath. The man, who once famously declared himself a “humble farmer”, has turned into a humble framer. He needs to frame Narayana Murthy and belittle Infosys to emerge larger in his own estimation.

But the effort to present two Karnatakas at odds with each other is not just faulty, it is patently dishonest. To pretend that the emergence of a thriving Infosys goes against rural interests, or to argue that better infrastructure for Bangalore comes at the cost of Karnataka’s development is to see such growth as a zero sum game. But that’s not the case. One Infosys has created jobs for over 40,000 people, with at least a quarter of them drawn from the state, including its hinterland. But then Deve Gowda’s is not a reasoned argument, it’s a political one. The dissimulation comes through when he accuses Narayana Murthy of delaying the international airport project. In fact, the Infosys chairman had to cut through a barrage of political opposition, lobby tirelessly with politicians, argue his case from every forum available to him, in order to get the project through. Deve Gowda’s heavy-footed and blinkered politics may end up not just alienating one man, but seriously damaging the interests of his state.