Many of our industry leaders dream of turning India into a country, where they have American profits, Nordic egalitarian social welfare, Indian democratic freedoms and rights and a Chinese economic growth curve. A reverie one doubts will ever come to fruition.

In 2025, the annual ritual of spouting controversial statements by top Indian industry leaders has been initiated by L&T Chairman SN Subrahmanyan.

Given Subrahmanyan reportedly earned ₹51 crore in FY24, it’s easy to understand his motivation to work 90 hours, Sundays included. But demanding an ordinary employee whose salary can be a 500th of Subrahmanyan’s is not only a sign of listless leadership but also reflective of our inhuman social attitudes and disparities.

In L&T founder’s home country Denmark, the weekly work hours generally must not exceed 48 hours. The EU mandates less than 50 hours. Given that L&T employs people in the EU also, is this message meant for the EU workforce too, or are only the Indian employees the chosen ones for such ‘preferential’ treatment?

Dividing their time between young children and ageing parents, from house chores to social obligations, it’s doubtful if Indians couples can afford the preoccupation of staring at each other.

Let’s be clear, this is not something said as a joke, as it is now being claimed. Rather, it makes a mockery of not only all the hard-working people of his company but of all working Indians.

Three key words

Profits, products, people. This is how many corporate leaders think. Nothing wrong in focusing on the bottom-line and profits, but please don’t dress personal gains as nation-building and make the rest feel guilty for ‘staring’ at their partners.

And it might do good to pay heed to what Lee Iacocca, one of America’s top CEOs, once said, “In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product, and profits.

People come first. Unless you’ve got a good team, you can’t do much with the other two.” There is nothing wrong in asking people to work smart and hard, but statements like those of the L&T chief neither inspire nor incentivise people.

Why do industry leaders of the world’s largest liberal democracy want to emulate the world’s largest non-liberal country (China)? It’s doubtful whether most Indians, irrespective of the inherent dysfunctionalities and deficiencies of a democracy, will be prepared to exchange their democratic freedoms for the Chinese model.

The writers are international columnists