It is not rare to see corporates letting the people know in no uncertain terms about how the State ought to be run. There's nothing wrong with that; it is an inalienable democratic right. It is however yet another thing to believe in democratic values. And practice what you preach. So their honchos time and again pour their hearts and anger out in books, in interviews. Among those with the holiest attitude is Infosys.
Yes, the same company that has been trending practically all day on Twitter. The company apparently has not made pots of money in the last quarter. The fragile stock indexes have shed copious tears, and the business media is responding accordingly.
It seemed to have been a rough day for the company whose bigwigs are paragons of virtue, whose exploits in corporate governance is legion. The same day co-founder K Dinesh and human resources chief TV Mohandas Pai too quit the company. Their reasons for doing so is only incidental to this article. Google News is flooded, as is Twitter. It's Infosys all over the place. It’s all money matters.
The media mileage is embarrassing; it is a company that makes news by its sheer existence. A few days back, however, it had been guilty of a gross human rights violation. Only a handful of news establishments covered the incident. Its deeds make headlines, but its misdeeds are sucked away in the news hole.
On Wednesday, a court in Jaipur directed Infosys to reinstate a senior engineer whose services had been terminated after his detention by the police in the aftermath of the 2008 Jaipur serial bomb blasts. The court directed its Jaipur office to reinstate Rashid Hussain in his former position and pay his salary for the entire period. The engineer had not even been arrested, leave alone charged.
"I was picked up by the Special Operation Group of the Rajasthan Police on June 1, 2008 from my house and released eight days later. They could not find anything to substantiate their claim that I was involved in the conspiracy relating to the Jaipur blasts," Rashid told the Press Trust of India. "I was actively helping the blast victims and their family members and held a camp outside the SMS hospital after the explosions. The police suspected me of having links with banned outfit SIMI and detained me."
Shortly afterwards, Hussian was fired by Infosys, which cited “discrepancies” in his personal data form. It is a different thing that the management could spot anomalies only after he had been questioned by the police. Believe it or not, he was even charged with remaining absent from work for nine days (the period when he was in police detention).
It must be wonderful being a Muslim in this country. Earlier, you could only blame the government for communal profiling and persecution. Corporates are fast catching up. And ruthlessly, too. But no, you can’t point fingers at them. They write paperweight quality books and are invariably foreign-educated.
Oh, one had almost forgotten this sorry computer engineer from Patna. With little alternatives at hand, the harried young man, now in his late 30s, decided to join the electronics & communications department at Gyan Vihar University in Jaipur. The People's Union for Civil Liberties came to his help with legal aid.
Today, three years of his life stand wasted, even though the court has ruled in his favour. Infosys, however, is yet to make a statement, leave alone say sorry. Maybe they are still seeking legal counsel. Maybe their egos are too bloated. Whatever, the so-called giant is yet to show any amount of humility.
So the next time you hear another Infosys luminary sermonising you about governance, remind them of what they did to Rashid Hussain.
