My lifestyle in the initial years of my academic career comprised waking up early at 5 am and going for a run for an hour or so at the Gokhale Ground. After that, I went as visiting faculty to Symbiosis Law School from 7:30 am to 9 am. The honorarium being Rs.75 per hour, which was sufficient for my bar expenditure. Along with this, I used to get a pension of Ras.2,000 per month. Thus, my economic and social status had changed, thanks to the training which I got from the Army and the opportunity given to me by Symbiosis. The Gokhale Ground also gave me a good friend – eminent political leader and educationist, Dr Patangrao Kadam of Bharati Vidyapeeth. I learnt a lot from him. He too used to come for a morning walk at 5 am, escorted by two policemen. I had never met him before. So, one day I asked him, “Who are you Sir? And why are these policemen with you?’’ He replied, “I am Kadam.”
Pat came my reply, “Woh Patagrao Kadam toh nahi hai, Bharati Vidyapeeth ke?’’
He said, “Ha, ha, wohi Patangrao Kadam hai, magar tum kaun ho?’’
I replied, “I am Professor Bala from Symbiosis.’’
“Okay, so you are the man who is making so much hungama there?” he said smilingly and after his walking hour, he invited me to his home for a cup of tea. Thereafter, the tea meeting became a routine affair for us. He was a powerful Congress minister, aspiring for the position of Chief Minister of Maharashtra. Otherwise, I am an introvert – I generally don’t interact with people – my hobby has always been reading and being with the students.
How to make the HR the best in the country, is a question which used to always haunt me. I introduced a system whereby students were required to be on-the-job training for six hours every day and thereafter join the classes, which then carried on till late in the night. I had also organised a seminar for two days on the theme ‘HRD – what they preach and practice’ which was inaugurated by Mr T N Seshan, the then Chief Election Commissioner of India and the keynote address was by Dr T V Rao. Other dignitaries included Mr Arun Firodia, Mr Manob Bose, Mr V P Nathan, Mr Arun Wakhlu, Mr P M Kumar and many other top-ranking corporate leaders, whose names I am unable to recollect at this stage.
Mr Yeshwant Mudaliar, who was the Founder President of National HRDN and the then head of HR in Sandvik Asia Ltd, was one of the delegates. He was actively involved with the NHRD network in Pune. He reached out to me, to start a student wing of NHRDN. Mr Mudaliar was a humble, simple man and a symbol of humility. He had been a marketing man for his entire career and took the mantle of being the HR head, in the last leg of his career. Therefore, he was an excellent marketing man, besides being a great HR professional. Though in his 80s, he was still teaching HRD to my students.
Those were the nascent years of the NHRD. Great visionaries like Dr T V Rao and Dr Udai Pareek established this new human resource system in the corporate world. Dr T V Rao is regarded as “The Father of Indian HRD”. A new Human Resource Development system emerged in India in 1974 with Dr T V Rao and Dr Udai Pareek heading the movement. It was started as a ‘Review Exercise of the Performance Appraisal System’ for Larsen & Toubro by the duo from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) which resulted in the development of a new function – The Human Resources Development. Dr Rao and Dr Pareek were instrumental in setting up the HRD Department for L&T and making it the first company in this part of the world to have a fully dedicated HRD Department. However, I personally feel that the HRD movement in the true sense took birth in TISCO Jamshedpur when Russi Mody used to lead TISCO.
But where was the address of the NHRD movement? Though Dr T V Rao was from IIM Ahmedabad, he could not perhaps get the required support and here is where the XLRI grabbed the opportunity and provided not only the space but also all the other logistic support. The NHRD movement spread like wildfire and many companies just added ‘D’ to start the HRD Department. Those were the days when a lot of labour strikes were taking place and productivity had hit the rock bottom. HRD was considered as a response system to overcome such unrest and conflicts.
The Pune Chapter of NHRD was very active in those days, although the city had only three management institutes. Now, there are nearly a 100 of them. Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM) and the Institute of Management Development and Research (IMDR) were the two prominent ones. I was the HOD of SIBM for a few years before I conceived the idea of the first, exclusive management institute in the country “for defence personnel and their dependents’’ with the sole aim of creating a research centre and helping rehabilitation of ex-service-men and their children. That model inspired the Armed Forces to start many more colleges all over the country for the defence personnel and their dependants.
When I say I was HOD in SIBM, one should not think of an array of staff – it was a one-man army, but the chair was comfortable as my predecessor, Prof. M S Pillai had brought a lot of reputation to the chair. Compared to him, I was nowhere but as a student of his I was familiar with his style of functioning, philosophy and the importance of HR. I just tried to follow his footsteps but added the ‘military discipline’ bit to it. ‘Military discipline’ and ‘managerial fervour’ were my forte.
The NHRD Network was gaining so much ground that the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had to change the nomenclature of the Union Education Ministry to the Ministry of HRD. We too decided to start the student wing of the NHRDN and to make every student as paid member, which was accomplished. To make it a memorable event, I decided to have the student wing inaugurated at the hands of the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Mr Manohar Joshi or the then Deputy Chief Minister, Mr Gopinath Munde.
The BJP-Shiv Sena alliance had come to power for the first time in Maharashtra. On the date of oath taking ceremony, I was there, standing in the Secretariat, trying to meet the Chief Minister or the Deputy Chief Minister. I was fortunate to be the first person to enter Mr Munde’s office, after he took over as the Deputy Chief Minister, with a request letter to inaugurate the Student Wing of NHRDN. It was the then IG Police, A V Krishnan, who pointed out that the Deputy Chief Minister should make his first visit to SIMS. Gopinath Munde graciously accepted my invitation and later on, we became good friends. Whenever he used to visit Pune, whether he was in power or not, he used to exchange pleasantries with me. When he reached the institute, I had already organised a felicitation of my beloved leader, Dr S B Mujumdar at his hands. And then he inaugurated the student wing and gave a talk.
But, an NHRD Journal was not coming to us, as promised and we were wondering what to do. Dr T V Rao and Dr Udai Pareek were too big for me and so I could not reach out to them. Mr Yeshwant Mudaliar was also a busy person or was unavailable. Having paid the subscription, the students were harassing me for the journal. Finally, I was told to reach out to XLRI. From there too, the response was lukewarm. These issues made me realise that NHRDN did not have a permanent address. After this, I wrote an emotional letter to Dr T V Rao, who invited me to Hyderabad. If my memory serves me right, he took me to a land of about four acres and showed me that an academy of HRD will be built on that land and the NHRDN headquarters will be established there. With all humility, I told him that I would also contribute my might for the construction of the building .
The NHRD Network was gaining so much ground that the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had to change the nomenclature of the Union Education Ministry to the Ministry of HRD. We too decided to start the student wing of the NHRDN
By now, I had become active in Pune as I introduced a system of a weekend address, by the HRD professionals in my institute. But my question about an address for the Pune Chapter of NHRDN remained unanswered. I thought, why should I not be instrumental in solving the problem rather than being the problem? I came out with a suggestion to the Pune Chapter of the NHRDN that they should either buy some space or at least rent a permanent office for which, I, in my capacity as Director, SIMS would like to contribute concretely. I proposed, “Let us organise a convention of HR Professionals. I will get lot of students as student delegates, for a good amount of fee. You can get me industry delegates.” The proposal, as I had envisaged was accepted.
So, a committee was formed with Arun Wakhlu (who rarely attended the meetings), Yeshwant Mudaliar, Col. Pathak and Kiran Gandhi of Thermax. All the meetings were held at the Thermax House and great progress was made. NHRDN Pune reached out extensively to prospective delegates. We all were truly excited that this project that would see a permanent office for NHRDN, Pune.
One of the meetings was attended by Mrs Anu Aga, the then Chairperson of Thermax and a veteran NHRD activist herself. We very proudly told her about our efforts for raising funds through a convention for a permanent office space for NHRDN, Pune. Our proposal was instantly shot down by her, who raised the question: “Why do you need a separate place? You can always meet here at the Thermax House. Don’t think about money; with money comes politics. Politics will bring in problems which will finally destroy all the good work that you are doing in NHRDN.” With those strong words from her, everything went for a toss. Finally, only my students were there to attend the NHRD meet, organised by us.
However, I am an old-timer and I continue to feel that an office brings in a feeling of identity, although one could also argue that in this world of technology, you can be in a mobile office, anywhere. I raised the same question of an office with the present President of NHRDN, Pune Chapter recently. I even volunteered to rent out a space permanently for NHRDN in any place in Pune. What’s more, when I went to Hyderabad, I happened to meet Mr Ravikant Reddy who is the President of the NHRDN there, to extend my helping hand for construction of a building for the Hyderabad NHRDN Chapter.
‘D’ denotes knowledge, skill and attitude. NHRDN, for me, is an excellent educational entity. No wonder, as an educationist and family member, I continue in my quest to seek permanent arrangements for the NHRDN, as I am passionately involved with it.
Dr (Col.) A. BAlASUBRANANIAN
editor-in-chief
