Focussing on CSR whose Sense is Flawed

The Companies Act 2013 brought focus on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) using the logic - Companies take resources in the form of raw materials, human resources etc from the society. By performing the task of CSR activities, the companies are giving something back to the society.

The term CSR has been defined under the Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility Policy) Rules, 2014 that came into effect from 1 April 2014, which includes but is not limited to:

·         Projects or programs relating to activities specified in the Schedule; or

·         Projects or programs relating to activities undertaken by the Board in pursuance of recommendations of the CSR Committee as per the declared CSR policy subject to the condition that such policy covers subjects enumerated in the Schedule.

The activities that can be done by the company to achieve its CSR obligations include eradicating extreme hunger and poverty, promotion of education, promoting gender equality and empowering women, reducing child mortality and improving maternal health, combating human immunodeficiency virus, acquired, immune deficiency syndrome, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability, employment enhancing vocational skills, social business projects, contribution to the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund or any other fund set up by the Central Government or the State Governments for socio-economic development and relief and funds for the welfare of the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, other backward classes, minorities and women and such other matters as may be prescribed.

An objective analysis of the above shows that the government has attempted to transfer part of its developmental responsibility to the corporate sector; surreptitiously levied an additional corporation tax in the garb of mandatory CSR expenditure; and is simultaneously subsidising such expenditure through making CSR expenses tax deductible.

Government has no control over such haphazard expenditure of CSR funds. A parliamentary question (Lok Sabha Starred Q 373; 11 Aug 2017) proves the point.

PETER DRUCKER had explained CSR thus:

The proper social responsibility of business is to tame the dragon, that is, to turn a social problem into economic opportunity and economic benefit, into productive capacity, into human competence, into well-paid jobs, and into wealth.

CSR was thus social entrepreneurship which the great Indian polity and bureaucracy have reduced to obligatory expenditure. For business, it is turning out to be just another tax and cost of doing business in India.

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In Modi, We Trust! Why?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, nearly four years after coming to power remains "by far the most popular national figure in Indian politics." Multiple Opinion surveys (latest being survey by ABP News-Lokniti-CSDS and India Today-Karvy survey, both conducted in January 2018) say people are satisfied with the direction in which the country is being steered and the state of the economy under Modi despite the controversial decision to ban high currency notes, shoddy implementation of GST, Cow vigilantism, Doklam, Dalit agitation and a bleak employment situation.  Why are we in love with Narendra Modi?

A very simple, intuitive and rational answer to the question is because we, the citizens, believe that his ideas work or promise to do so. In the latter case, his ideas can still be evaluated subsequently and adopted more widely or discarded as inappropriate. We, the citizens, believe that Modi is working towards a purpose, is methodical in his approach and has the cognitive capabilities to understand the problems of the people. This is in spite of the ground reality that specifying the nature of the problems and objectives is difficult and the impact/success of practices or interventions by Modi are notoriously difficult to isolate.

A completely different point of view also offers an equally plausible explanation for the triumph of Modi’s discourse. Modi and his ideas epitomise the underlying anxieties and yearnings and a corresponding ‘need’ for a potentially comforting sense of order and identity and/or control of the citizens. This notwithstanding the fact that Modi’s perspective is typically associated with emotionally charged, sometimes impulsive, decisions to adopt, often simplistic and rational ideas without serious attention being given to their likely effectiveness for such a complex country.

None from his party or from any other political party is challenging Modi to be the Prime Minister of India save and except a feeble claim by Rahul Gandhi. All political parties are adopting similar practices to catch the fancy of the voters.  Practices like — dressing up, head-gears, temple-visits are being adopted for symbolic reasons — seeking electorate legitimacy— rather than, or even regardless of, efficiency or control outcomes.

Cultural (social identity) plurality and fluidity across such large and spread out country like India are both an advantage and a challenge.  In giving primacy to social context, such approaches are concerned with variety as well as homogeneity in being shaped by factors such as the ‘mentality’ of local political elites; role of local media and professional groups and religious networks. There is a distinction between the ideologies and techniques associated with individual approaches and either is adopted independently. For example, Rahul claimed being a ‘Janeu-Dhari-Shiv-Bhakt’ (technique) in Gujarat without overtly supporting Hinduism (ideology), something which did not resonate culturally with the electorate.

Modi exudes the persuasive powers of a political guru through his charisma and verbal and nonverbal presentation techniques thereby connecting with the citizens who have been starving for such relationship over the long years of UPA government. He has the key of impression management, not content, although ‘the content (i.e. packaging) is itself part of the performance.’

Modi is often active and tactical in the production and transformation of ideas into rhetoric. ‘Rhetoric’ is rarely appropriate or necessary in governance though it is an essential ingredient to politicking and politics. ‘Mere rhetoric’ should be typically contrasted with reality or truth. The underlying problem with such narratives is in ‘fight/ flight’ where survival rests on destroying or evading the ‘enemy’ (“Congress Mukt Bharat”) and ‘dependency’ on an all-powerful leader (Modi himself) who is beyond criticism.

Demand for new ideas in political discourse is shaped by a competition between ‘techno-economic forces’ and ‘socio-psychological vulnerabilities.’ Modi is successful in supplying ideas to fuel Current Political Discourse, some of which are faddish, others fashionable and few substantive.

At the risk of simplification, different factors that are making Modi successful with the citizens are — his effectiveness in the party and in the government; his relieving anxiety and securing identity for an ordinary person cutting across age, gender and religion;  his successful rhetoric; his cultural resonance or meaning; and securing legitimacy to his ideas through electoral victories. 

A lesson that Modi has scripted for all – be they journalists, opinion-makers, intellectuals, drawing-room debaters, civil-society activists, tv-hosts or the so called ‘Architects of Networked Disinformation’- rationality is necessarily political, emotional, cultural, institutional and rhetorical, but not reducible to any of them.

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