Arun Maira's book, An Upstart in Government, is, above all, highly readable. No wonder, as he mentions in the epilogue, he wrote and rewrote it again and again. If his effort was to ensure the reader should "hear the voice of the writer", he has succeeded eminently. His narrative is gripping from start to finish.
Maira came into the Planning Commission in 2009 and left in 2011. In barely a couple of years or so, he had established himself as a highly successful corporate manager and as a consultant in the years preceding 2008, when he voluntarily retired from the Boston Consulting Group as its India Chairman at the age of 65.
He is obviously highly nostalgic about his days in the Tata Administrative Service. This, as he says, was "the road less taken" in those days when the first preference of Stephanians was the Civil Services. His admiration for his first boss and mentor, the redoubtable Sumant Moolgaokar, is visible in all parts of his narrative.
Maira was born of parents who, in their early days in Lahore, were prosperous and highly regarded members of society. Come Independence, they had to relocate to India where his father had to rebuild his fortunes anew. He did this without a complaint, without bemoaning his fate, making him a role model for young Maira. Many years later, Maira visited Model Town near Lahore, where he found that two large houses, belonging to General Jehangir Khan and the Sufi singer, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, had sprung up on the property originally owned by his parents.
Maira's story on the revival of Tata's Malaysian joint venture for making trucks, Tatab, makes for fascinating reading. Tatab, in its initial years, made no headway in the Malaysian market, lost money heavily and was given a three-year ultimatum by its financiers Arab-Malaysian Bank to turn around or go under. Maira, entrusted with this well-nigh impossible task, created a dedicated team around himself without changing senior personnel. As he says, "a shared, superordinate aspiration can convert a bunch of competing and contentious individuals into a powerful united team". The team developed new and innovative marketing solutions and a willingness to put the interests of their customers above their own. Within two years, Tatab became a trusted brand in Malaysia. When Maira was recalled to India, the CEO of a Japanese firm (linked to Toyota) invited him to his office. He could not believe that Tatab had managed the revival of its fortunes with just five Indian managers. He stood up, along with his senior manager, bowed and said, "We are 20 managers in this company, Maira san. One Indian equals five Japanese."
Maira discovered in two years what the government itself has failed to unearth in almost seven decades after independence: that public administration is vastly different from corporate governance and that success in the latter does not necessarily guarantee success in the former. Maira carried out many experiments and was manifestly sincere in trying to make a difference. He understood quite correctly that the Planning Commission should be a systems reform commission and that governance will not change unless systems change. He brought in youngsters from the private sector to help him with the restructuring exercise, circumventing the rather rigid bureaucracy of the Planning Commission. While preparing the Twelfth Five Year Plan document, he sought to engage civil society. He got them to participate, but found it not too easy, as civil society organisations expressed diametrically opposing views and tended to protest vehemently when their own views were not reflected in the Approach Paper. He attempted scenario building to work out options for the Plan. He initiated a dialogue between employers and labour representatives, and started the India Backbone Initiative to bring them together and talk. He helped with the performance management initiative started by the Cabinet Secretariat.
At the end of the day, he came to realise some key aspects of governance - that there are still great examples of outstanding changes brought about by individuals in government and arms of government; that different states in the country have different philosophies of development and welfare; that any effective governmental system must take into account their varied perceptions; that nothing can be achieved at the Central level through a top-down approach and that a platform has to be created for states to progress in their own manner; that political dialogue is necessary, but it must not deteriorate into mutual recrimination; that wherever there has been good teamwork, results have been phenomenal; that no real work has taken place in public administration on systems building, except in a desultory and sporadic manner, and that the NITI Aayog, devoid of its allocation functions, would prove its worth if it could study systems and bring about true administrative reform.
Overall, this is an interesting and thought provoking book.
The reviewer is a former Cabinet Secretary and is currently Vice Chairman of Kerala State Planning Board