By Soma Banerjee, ET Bureau | 19 Sep, 2013, 06.46AM IST
What is not clear in Nilekani’s case—and this is not in his hands alone—is the shape this greater political participation could take.
On a hot May afternoon in the capital this year, when Nandan Nilekani walked into South Block to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, unique identity cards and cash transfers were on his mind. The ruling UPA had publicly staked its political future on these two projects, whose creator and keeper was Nilekani, and such meetings with the prime minister had become routine. That meeting turned out to be anything but routine.
Singh asked Nilekani, a rare hand in his cabinet who was not a member of either house of Parliament, to change that in the near future, says an aide of Singh privy to the meeting. Nilekani responded with his disarming smile.
The prime minister's words came out of the blue that day. But for Nilekani, that idea—to join the hurly burly of politics to try and achieve bigger things—had been swirling in his mind for close to a year. And, as always, the pull for him was the idea of being a changemaker and finding what he describes as the "next level in my story of change".
That story has seen him graduate from employee to entrepreneur, from IT industry captain to a technocrat in the government in charge of transformational projects. And now, possibly, probably, politics.
Nilekani, 58, is clear he wants to play a larger role in governance. "The choices at this stage are clear," he told ET. "Getting into the mainstream and becoming one who can initiate change for the larger public good." He also recognises the conventional and respectful road in the space he wants to operate in flows through greater political participation. "You need political energy and political support to execute any change," he adds.
What is not clear in Nilekani's case—and this is not in his hands alone—is the shape this greater political participation could take. In the space in which Nilekani wants to exist, there are, broadly speaking, three options.
One, stay a technocrat, as he has been since 2009, when he was handpicked by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi to lead a project to issue unique identity numbers to every Indian. Two, come in as a member of the Rajya Sabha, which does not require a mandate from the people, and be a minister like Jairam Ramesh or even Manmohan Singh. Three, in what will be the most challenging personally and professionally for Nilekani, a member of the Lok Sabha, elected by the people.
Nilekani, blessed with a disposition for risk and also the makeup to manage it, is said to be leaning towards elections, representing the Congress Party from a constituency in Bangalore—home to Indian IT and the city he calls home. "It is a great signal that he is willing to enter politics by contesting elections and not as a Rajya Sabha member, which is normally the route taken by entrepreneurs businessmen and professionals," says Deepak Parekh, a doyen of Indian industry. "It shows courage and conviction."
Even as he lists the many upsides of Nilekani being in the political system, TV Mohandas Pai, a former colleague at Infosys, says the Congress needs to win for Nilekani to give true expression to what he wants to do by joining politics. "Say, Nandan wins, but the Congress loses," says Pai, chairperson of the board of Manipal Global Education. "Then, what does he do except for making some good Parliament speeches for five years?"
Whichever option he chooses, Nilekani is seeing it as part of a continuum and inclined. "My journey so far has progressed from being an ideator, which I was when I wrote the book on ideas that made India and some of the anticipated ones too. Next, the doing part, with the UID database," he says. "Now, the question is of being the change initiator, doing what needs to be done."
POLITICAL DYNAMICS
Ravi Bapna, who has known Nilekani for about five years and has worked with him on UIDAI projects, is not surprised by Nilekani's likely move towards greater political participation. "His story is that of transformation," says Bapna, a professor at the University of Minnesota. "In a representative democracy, true power resides, and rightly so, with the elected, as opposed to the appointed."
Milind Deora, a young minister in the UPA cabinet, sees Nilekani make an easy transition. "He has the skills to negotiate change and build consensus, and also understands how political parties are run," he says.
Yashwant Sinha, who left the civil services to join politics, too endorses Nilekani's move. "Successful professionals can only enrich politics when they join it," says Sinha, a BJP leader and a former finance minister. "Every party should encourage more professionals to come into the political fold."
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According to Deora, the Congress has been in discussions with professionals from other fields who could cross over, including Nilekani, for some time. "We have always believed in getting different stakeholders and people from diverse backgrounds into the polity," he says, citing the example of Shashi Tharoor, a career official at the United Nations who contested on a Congress ticket in 2009 and won.
While the popular reading is that Nilekani too would choose the Congress, he is guarded in his response but reveals enough. "The party and the ideology do matter to what I believe in and my nature of work," he says. "My background speaks for my work. I come from a background that has believed in a secular, liberal, inclusive, empowered environment."
Back in 2009, when prime minister Singh asked him to join the government—which meant leaving Infosys, where he was serving as the co-chairman of its board of directors— it was an easy choice for Nilekani at that stage.
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In 2007, he finished a five-year term as CEO of Infosys, a tenure in which its revenues grew five-fold, and Nilekani cemented his reputation as a leader with a knack of getting the job done. "He has a logical mind, driven with data," says Pai. "He listens to all stakeholders, but has the capacity to take decisions."
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Increasingly, around the time his executive duties with Infosys were tailing out, he was veering into public policy. For example, he became a member of the National Knowledge Commission, formed by the prime minister to reform higher education in India. "There was no hesitation in my mind as I had always dreamt of this," he told ET in 2011, of Singh's offer. "As a child, I had watched my father and uncle closely, and heard family conversations on public policy."
STEEP LEARNING CURVE
After a ringside view of policymaking in those panels, the last four years at the helm of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) have seen him in the ring, trying to push through change in a system, with multiple stakeholders.
At times, he's been on the offence. At times, he's been on the defence. At times, he's been collateral damage. All this in spite of being backed by the highest echelons in the government (the prime minister) and the Congress Party (Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi).
Nilekani joined UIDAI at a cabinet rank. Its mandate was to assign a unique identity number, called Aadhaar, to every Indian by 2017, and this would eventually become the reference number for all kinds of transactions. Gradually, UIDAI's remit widened to also cover financial inclusion, targeted subsidies and cash transfers to beneficiaries." It was a reflection of the faith the UPA leadership was willing to place in him. "The bonus with him is that he gets the transformative power of technology intuitively, and with a scale and scope that is unparalleled," says Bapna.
As of August 30, UIDAI had issued 420 million Aadhaar numbers, alternating between enthusiastic expression and identity crisis. The crisis stemmed from a disagreement between two government's ministries—finance and home, then led by Pranab Mukherjee and P Chidambaram, respectively—on who should do these enrolments and how.
January 2012, to forge a truce. And it took a political realisation on the UPA's part, in mid-2012, for the government to take a singular view on Aadhaar and cash transfers, and push hard, together. "His stint as UIDAI chairman and his dealings with various states have prepared him extremely well for anything that lies ahead," says Bapna.
When talking about wheels of change, a phrase that is a refrain with Nilekani is "consensus building". He feels it is more difficult to build consensus in public policy than in the corporate world, where the stakeholders are fewer. "It's on a larger scale, from government ministries to bureaucrats to think-tanks to political parties, auditors," he says. "You have to use different motivations and policies to navigate the differences among stakeholders."
Despite his corporate background, Nilekani demonstrates a nuanced understanding of the political economy, and a patient resolve to engage with it. "The first thing I did when I took over was to go to every state and meet the chief minister and the chief secretary," he says. "Having them on board was crucial and reaching out to them was important politically too."
He is willing to subscribe to its rules, but is also constantly looking for openings to subtly sell his ideas. "My three main learnings from the UIDAI project have been: keep the solution simple; design it such that it comes across with more enhancements for the stakeholder and not something that can disturb their turf; and reach out, articulate and communicate."
Professor Deepak Pathak, who taught Nilekani at IIT Bombay in the seventies, has seen early signs of that political bent of mind. "He became the general secretary of the students union at IIT, not an easy task," says Pathak. "He has always believed in the India story and I have found him to be keen to work on projects that would serve a larger good."
That desire and urgency to serve a larger good has seen Nilekani and his wife, Rohini, give away hundreds of crores of their personal wealth—which Forbes estimates at $1.3 billion (about Rs 9,000 crore), as of March 2013, largely from their Infosys shareholding—to educational institutions, and organisations that work to address some of the basic human needs. Some of this thinking is influenced by Nilekani's father, Mohan Rao, a manager in a textile company and a Nehruvian.
LARGER POLITICAL CHANGE
Embedded in Nilekani's move towards greater political participation, likely via elections, is the wider point of how accomplished leaders from other fields joining politics could change the nature of the polity.
In recent times, Meera Sanyal, former chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland India, stood in the 2009 general elections from South Mumbai. As did Captain GR Gopinath, founder of Air Deccan, from Bangalore. Both lost. "But, as of now, this (professionals entering politics) is episodic," says Yogendra Yadav, member of the Aam Aadmi Party and a political commentator. "They have not been able to make an impact on the body politics."
Compared to Sanyal and Gopinath, Nilekani is seen to have a higher public profile and represents the highest of ethics. He is also seen as a man who has earned his spurs in the government and understands its workings. "Nandan will be a symbol of the aspirational Indian, the India that wants to dream, own a house and drive a car," says Pai. "Unfortunately, the Congress worships the poor and wants to perpetuate it. They are bound to target him."
Yadav gives the highest endorsement to Nilekani's likely crossover, saying his party would readily give him a ticket as he ticks every box to be its candidate. "Politics needs people with the highest virtues," he says.
At the same time, Yadav is wary of reading this as being a catalyst for a larger shift. "Isolated entries may not be the way to change the system," he says. "Meenakshi Natarajan of the Congress is very honest person with highest credentials. But what is not known is whether her entry has made a change in the honesty quotient of the Congress Party."
Yadav would like to see Nilekani contest polls, rather than take the Rajya Sabha route. "It will speak of his commitment as this will help him soil his hands, connect with millions of people, deal with numerous issues," he says. "This will give the political legitimacy he would want to have to represent people." Adds Parekh: "He will have to forget his Saturdays and Sundays, and get down to canvassing.
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