Ashwin Sanghi on Chanakya and the Arthashastra

it is a valedictory keynote by none other than Ashwin Sankey author of bestsellers such as the Rosabelle line Chanakya chant and the krishna key he's also written a non fictional title thirteen steps to very good luck and that turned out to be a huge bestseller as well an MBA from Yale sang his first book the Rozsival line was actually rejected by 47 literary agents and publishers and that was very interesting to read when I got this information to achieve this kind of success after you know as you of setbacks is truly extraordinary ladies and gentlemen let's all welcome mr. Ashman sangee as we learn from him how to revisit conventional business wisdom and let me address here how did you persevere despite all of those failures put your hands together to welcome Ashwin Sangha so I'm delighted to be here and thank you for having me over I'd like to start by talking about my journey as an author and give you a little bit of an idea in terms of how I became a writer and then of course we will start talking about Chanakya and what Chanakya can possibly offer to us as words of wisdom in the times and ages in which we live so you know when I started out there was a you know a literary agent who told me when I asked him I said you know please tell me how do I go about writing a novel and he said well you know mr. Sangay there are three rules for writing a novel unfortunately no one knows what they are but there are three rules so I was a little taken aback but you know what I was delighted about the fact that no one knew which meant that I was pretty much free to do whatever I wanted my upbringing was an entirely banya marwari businessman upbringing so to that extent I mean when I was 14 my father would send me to his office and I would be made to learn how to keep books of accounts debit credit the basic debit credit and making a trial balance and figuring out how to post a ledger and we had a moon mg out there he was a Marwari gentleman who used to wear a copy and he said to me because you know I was very fond of my reading even in those days and I would always have a book in my hand and he would say to me he said in my world bookkeeping is more relevant than book reading so why don't you concentrate on your book keeping a little more and if you must read then read a balance sheet so this is pretty much the cultural context in which I grew up several years later I had already become successful and was running businesses and then a friend of mine he happened to tell me he said Ashwin you know you need to figure out whether you know this is what you want to do he said the problem with winning the rat race is that you're still a rat so you've won but you're still a rat so you have to figure out do you want to be a rat for the rest of your life so my grandfather who was very very fond of sending me books to read he would send me one book every week without exception during his lifetime I received about four hundred and twelve books from my grandfather and this gentleman he would tell me he would say you know you're a businessman so you already have money but Lakshmi without Saraswati is of no use and only when lakshmi and saraswathi sit together can one prosper like Ganesha which ladies and gentlemen explains my physique so I really took it to heart now the point is that I started writing I got inspired by certain events around me certain places and I started applying to publishing houses I started applying to literary agents and you know there is an old quip in the publishing world which says that your manuscript is good and original but the part that's good isn't original and the part that's original isn't too good and that was pretty much my situation when I was approaching so many people so somewhere along the way what I did was I created a chart a wonderful chart which had some of the greatest names up there and for example Harry Potter the very first book apparently was rejected twelve times so I put that up in front of my desk and then there was Jonathan Livingston Seagull which was 18 times rejected and of course there was Stephen King the very first thriller that he wrote Carrie which was rejected almost 30 times Chicken Soup for the Soul no one would believe this but the fact of the matter is that that book was rejected 33 times Gone with the Wind 38 times and of course topping the list yeah yeah yeah yeah Ashwin sangee with 47 rejections undisputed leader of the rejection game so what ended up happening was after lots of rejections I decided eventually to self publish that book and that first book was self-published by me my father had a wonderful Punjabi friend who used to come and enjoy a drink with him once every while and he was fond of hispaniola pegs and so I told him I said uncle everything is going wrong for me I am in a situation where 47 people have already said no so he said kya problem here to make all apply cut though the sword to apply cut though he said so I told him I said there is no one left to apply to there is no one left on my list so he turned around and he said listen betta just do one thing remember one thing life in life 99% is about good luck so I was in a bit of an argumentative mood so I said but uncle what about the remaining 1% that must be hard work it must be talent it must be efficiency it must be your networking skills it must be something and he picked up his glass which still contained half of the Patiala peg and he said oh that is known as bloody good luck so I consider it my bloody good luck to be here in front of all of you so that actually set off my writing journey I ended up self-publishing that first book The Rose herbal line in 2007 eventually it was picked up by a publisher Tata Westland in 2008 and published in India China Kia's chant was published in 2010 the Krishna key in 2012 and of course I'm currently writing a couple of books along with James Patterson who does some wonderful crime thrillers so we did one last year and we will end up doing probably another couple of books and finally of course my nonfiction work 13 steps to bloody good luck which was inspired by that Patiala peg story so as of today over a million books sold so that's a little far away from the fact that this was a person who was being rejected by all and sundry so we are still working on trying to get these numbers up so now let me come to my main topic revisiting conventional business wisdom with Chanakya okay it is you know Warren Buffett was famous for having said rule number one never lose money and rule number two never forget rule number one and that was Warren Buffett for you now I was thinking to myself that if I was to consider Chanakya and what would John akia say well the fact of the matter is rule number one in rule number two are very much there in China keas header but Chanakya would say rule number three be virtuous honest and upright and rule number four occasionally forget rule number three that's pretty much what Chanakya it sums up Chanakya for you so my story actually my my intimacy with the story of Chanakya starts from 1971 and all of you must be wondering what the hell happened in 1971 well in 1971 a merchant Rakata came out with a comical Chanakya and that was my first exposure to this man I ended up reading that comic probably sometime around 1980 and then by 10 or 11 years later dual darshan had just come up with this beautiful TV serial or Chanakya surprise surprise so that eventually prompted me in 2008 to do my first ever reading of the earth uh Shastra a translated version by Sharma Sastry and that eventually inspired me to write Chanakya chant in 2010 now what exactly do we know about Chanakya let's look a little bit behind the man let's look a little bit about his story Chanakya we know lived somewhere around roughly the 4th century BC around 300 BC enought we know for the fact that he lived in the kingdom of Panem which was part of the Nanda Empire and Pen Anand wasn't too great a thing so apparently as the story goes now some of it is myth some of it is real but as the story goes Canon invited a bunch of Bremen's to the court for the feast and while all of them were feasting including Chanakya he got angry with Jonica and asked him to get up and leave and Chanakya decided to get up and leave and of course he vowed to pennilyn that i will make sure that your entire dynasty is finished i will make sure that you are no longer thing and i will refuse to tie my ponytail till such time as i have actually succeeded in my efforts so all the makings of a wonderful Bollywood blockbuster that's the Chanakya story we know that after he left he ended up meeting this young lad all chandragupt and he told Chandragupta that come with me and then they ended up booing - tequila which was at that time the greatest university of its time very close to Rawalpindi and well you can in fact see these are the actual ancient ruins of tequila which still exist so he took a Chandler group there and then of course put him through training in the ancient Gurukul system and then eventually they started attacking canons Kingdom and what happened a huge amount of disastrous loss one after the other the battles were not going Chanakya and chandragupt's way and then what happened was that Jungle Book saw a old woman feeding a pot of porridge a bowl of porridge to her kid to her child and the lady said to her child she spoiled it her child she said you burnt your fingers and you burnt your fingers because you put them in the center of the porridge rather than on the edges if you had simply started from the edges and moved towards the center you wouldn't have burnt your hands and that's what structure and ribs and Chanakya and they decided that they would now attack the benefit of the kingdom rather than attempting to attack the center of the kingdom and of course Chandler group eventually ended up attacking the Gunda Empire also and if you look it was about roughly 16 different distinct kingdoms prior to Chandler group but by the time that gender group was done almost the whole of India was part of that Mauryan Empire so it's a wonderful story and then of course once this entire consolidation had happened Chanakya then sat down in order to write the earth sjostrom and the arthashastra of course besides the earth register of course he wrote the nitty Shastra which is sometimes known as jonathan ET the alpha Shastra is huge there are 15 books within the earth of Shastra each there are a hundred and fifty chapters in total each one covering a specific area a total of 180 topics and 6,000 verses it's probably a magnum opus of some sort so let's now look at Cornelius ortho Shastra what exactly is it well many people have compared the arthashastra to Machiavelli they say that well you know I mean at the end of the day what Chanakya talks about and what Machiavelli talk about is pretty much the same thing and in fact the common refrain is that Chanakya is the Indian Machiavelli but I want you to just think back for a minute that the dates of niccolo machiavelli roughly around the 15 16th century and on the other hand you have Chanakya roughly around 371 BC so to that extent I would say probably Machiavelli is the European Chanakya not the other way around okay so what exactly is the arthashastra I want you to think of it as this wonderful consulting report I am sure each one of you at some point of time has seen a McKinsey report so the cover of a McKinsey report would be something like this now let's just do one thing let's take the date which is December 2015 and make it 300 BCE and then let's take these photographs and make them more appropriate to that time now let's change the Global Institute to tequila University which is where Chanakya operated from let's take the name McKinsey & Company and let's call it go Tilia and company totally of course was the other name of Chanakya and of course some of you will ask why company well if you really think about it in the earth Shastra Chanakya talks about brhaspati Oceana's purser parecer and various other writers who came before him so to that extent he is very clear that my manuscript is work is a work of several people before me so therefore the company then let's take the map and just replace it with the Mauryan map and let's remove this title and now let's think of a good title for this a manual for effective governance yes but doesn't really say what we are talking about foreign policy internal security defense and the economy that could be another title for the arthashastra national wealth boring wealth of nations do Adam Smith right I mean for heaven's sake Adam Smith almost so late I don't Smith have it the science of wealth are now there we are getting somewhere so that's precisely what the arthashastra is Shastra meaning science and utter meaning wealth it's the science of wealth and which isn't too bad a thing because if you really go back into Hindu philosophy there are four objectives which we are supposed to live for on the one hand there is gamma which is pleasure desire love on the other hand there's Arthur which is wealth power material well-being there's Dharma which is Duty righteousness law and finally there's books self-realization and salvation now Chanakya does talk about each of these things but he is very clear his responsibility is to tell you how to make money it's about Arthur and nothing more so just look at the list of topics that Chanakya eventually gets into in the earthly Shastra it's incredible in fact it's a partial list what is here is a partial list so he talks about accounting and reporting systems he talks about audit and control he talks about consumer protection he talks about defense and the army and how it should be organized he talks about foreign policy intelligence judicial systems public and private sector taxation I mean for heaven's sake we are talking about someone who wrote this almost about 2,300 years ago so it was Bill Clinton the great presidential candidate who in 1992 said it's the economy stupid and apparently that line won him the general elections well I would would go as far as to say that Chanakya pretty much said the same thing it's the economy stupid let's look at what Chanakya was saying the king is advised to be ever active in the management of the economy because the route of wealth is economic activity and inactivity brings material distress without an active policy both current prosperity and future gains are destroyed in other words you need to get your hands dirty and you need to manage the economy so can anyone tell me what these names are are these places are these people what are they anyone want to hazard a guess not even one hand sorry milestones okay that's a great I heard and I heard a word somewhere at the back lovely who's that thank you so much sir it is Madeira it is alcohol so for example me the car is actually rice wine a precursor to what we called rice wine and if you take for example Prasanna it's a precursor to beer because it's made from barley a sub and marija are from jaggery again if you look at rum today it's made from the same stuff and finally there's mother which is grape wine there is a capisce of iron which is of GaN wine it was imported from Afghanistan of course I doubt whether you could import wine from Afghanistan anymore and there is hiraku raka which is our Acacio wine again an important the point I am trying to make here is if you read the earth through Shastra you will be stunned to find that there are cocktail recipes inside the earth so sastra and you will be wondering as to why are there these recipes inside a work of Finance for example he talks about quinoa which is one part rice with three parts beans Madoc which is taking the conveyor converting it into rice wine and of course multiple formulas for how to distill how to ferment and how to manufacture now the question that arises is why is he doing all of this why is China Thea doing this well as far as Chanakya was concerned he had no moral compulsion regarding alcohol what he talked about was really the fact that he would have a monopoly on the manufacture of alcohol so the state would have a manufacturing monopoly as far as alcohol is concerned so he talks about the fact that manufacture of liquor must remain a state monopoly the exception is only alcohol which is used for medicinal preparations he then talks about consumption to be done only in state-run drinking halls may not be bought for consumption elsewhere persons of good character allowed to purchase now honestly speaking difficult to figure out what he means by good character but nevertheless that is very much there in the earth Shastra certified containers of certain sizes have been specified in the earth of Shastra almost like sort of packaging guidelines then he talks about the fact that the drinking holes must have rooms which are equipped with beds and seats rooms to be a pleasant with flowers water and perfume he talks about the fact that if a person is moving around when they are intoxicated then that is to be prohibited chief controller of alcoholic beverages now we see the designation the chief controller of alcoholic beverages is meant to keep a control over this entire process the state to manufacture at specified locations may take the help of experts in brewing and fermenting liquor only to be sold against cash this will make a lot of people happy only to be sold against cash no credit allowed secret agents the people watch for those who spend lavishly what we talk about source of income identify those without known source of income agents to keep a watch on strangers agents to gather information from female attendants regarding anything revealed when the customer was intoxicated making selling or buying at an unauthorized location to attract a penalty of 600 panels panas was the currency of that time drinking hole operators to make note of ornaments clothes cash or valuables of customers any loss suffered by the customer is the responsibility of the operator operator to make good the loss in addition to a fine at the end of each day the chief controller to ascertain the quantity sold transaction tax collected revenue collected countervailing duty by the way this is specified in the oarfish aster countervailing duty and determine the net balance to be remitted to the Treasury closing stock is equal to opening stock minus quantity sold plus a 2% sticking allowance I'll explain to you what it means essentially we've we've got a situation today in India where several states are talking about prohibition and what I find is so ironic is the fact that the very state where Jonica operated the state of Bihar where the capital was Pataliputra that very place is now planning to go dry so what john Athiya says is that honestly speaking I don't need prohibition I need control and by having that control I can also get the revenue he not only does that for alcohol gambling for example he says gambling is prohibited but it is allowed within the licensed gambling holes and holes are managed by licensed masters who are responsible for providing undoctored gambling equipment in other words the dice should not be loaded and then there's a 5% tax on all winnings see where the money-making is coming in again a 5% tax on all winnings and master can be severely punished for loaded dice or cheating now of course we must keep in mind that Jonathas times were different so to a certain extent our yardstick of morality may not apply to China Theus times so for example when we talk about all the vices of the world we talk about alcohol we talk about gambling well let's talk about the next vice prostitution and Chanakya says that it's a state activity so in other words all the revenues from prostitution are part of his Treasury and if you are an independent courtesan known as Roop jivas you had to pay one-sixth of your earnings as a tax so at the end of the day it's all about money honey and that's really the idea of giving you these three examples was to tell you where Chanakya was coming from but then that's not all what what Chanakya is about i mean he talks about consumer protection for example Mahna Mahna sabah Manas rava slava by the way means dead body shrub so - rava means an extra quantity given as a heating allowance for the loss of volume on heating so for example if you were buying he and you heated the ghee then you were going to lose a certain quantity so that had to be compensated to the customer who was buying the deal similarly he talks about the Fabia G which means that it's a sticking allowance in other words when you're measuring something using a measure a certain amount of the liquid is likely to stick to the measuring container so he says that there is an excess amount that needs to be given to the customer in order to compensate for that similarly for example he talks about the chief controller of state of trading the chief controllers job is primarily to inspect the weights and measures of traders prevent hoarding adulteration overcharging then there's a chief controller of state trading so private trading and state trading buffer stocking for crisis I mean we could take a lesson from this right before stocking for crisis we keep seeing this happening with all types of commodities but here Chanakya actually talks about the fact that what quantity should be maintained in the state go downs so that in the event of any sort of crisis that food is available so he even talks of medical malpractice so for example he says physicians undertaking medical treatment without intimating the government the dangerous nature of the disease shall if the patient dies be punished with the first financial penalty so there were different levels of financial penalty so this is the first level of financial penalty then he says in the death of a patient under treatment and is that is due to the carelessness in the treatment the physician shall be punished with the middle financial penalty and growth of disease you do negligence or indifference shall be regarded as assault and will attract criminal penalties we're talking about a man who lived two thousand three hundred years ago I'm still fascinated by the fact that this was the level of thinking at that time think about this this is applicable to all of us in our day to day lives we keep wondering how do I manage my time how do I make sure that I'm more efficient more effective well what Chanakya does is he divides the day into 16 or and each of those portions so we have 24 hours in a day in modern times you had 16 hours those hours were known as Mugaritz that's where we get the name hood ad from when we take out a mullet for a wedding we are actually saying take out the hour so he takes these 16 slots and he says well it starts at sunrise and then you reach up to noon then of course the sunset and then midnight so he divides the entire day into these four portions and then taking these 16 portions of the day he actually makes out a schedule for the thing that how is the King expected to use his time so 90 minutes after sunrise receive reports on defense revenue expenditure 19 minutes after sunrise that's going to be a 1 frazzled King starting 90 minutes after sunrise with this public audience to hear petitions of people personal time Bob will study 90 minutes before noon receive revenue tributes and a lot of tasks to your ministers write letters and dispatches for the next 90 minutes personal time bath meal study inspect and review the Armed Forces consult with the chief of Defense interviews with secret agents the espionage system of Mauryan times is remarkable remarkable probably I mean can compete with the CIA of today personal time again then the next three hours sleep which means roughly about four and a half hours meditate prepare task list after getting up consult with the counselors religious household and personal duties so effectively what he's talking about is roughly about four and a half hours of sleep for the king I think if I'm not mistaken Narendra Modi is doing somewhat like that right it's about four hours a nod for five hours and then just see the amount of time that he puts for study there are three specified times where he talks about people actually going back and revisiting their material and then when you get up you must spend time in terms of meditation and of course the task list I mean he says the moment you get up prepare your task list so that you know what you need to do during the day these are very common things which today we take for granted in management theory but it was all there in the earth Shastra then he goes on to say if the king is energetic his subjects will be equally energetic if he is slack or lazy and performing his duties his subjects will also be lacks and thereby eat into the Treasury Chanakya goes on to say even a minute of one's life cannot be obtained even for a million gold coins if it is not used purposefully what loss is bigger than that and the funny thing is that if you take most of the great gurus the business gurus Henry Ford went on to say it has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that of those wastes so in effect what Chanakya was saying 2,300 years ago is coming back in different forms governance what does he say the things duties are three raksha which is protection of the state from external aggression pollen which means maintenance of law and order within the state yoga kshema safeguarding the welfare of his people three nothing wrong that's it and then he says when in the court the king shall never caused his petitioners to wait at the door never caused his petitioners to wait at the door for when a king makes himself inaccessible to his people and entrusts his work to his immediate officers he may be short winded in in danger in gender and fusion in the business and to cause there by public disaffection and himself prey to enemies it's what we call customer feedback these days right that be in touch with your customers it's pretty much that and all urgent calls he shall hear at once but never put off for when postponed they will prove too hard or impossible to accomplish now in India we've acquired this reputation of being a scam economy right I mean that one scam after the other keeps on happening everyone talks about the fact that he is corrupt she is corrupt well what does Chanakya do what how does he deal with corruption well it's rather interesting Chanakya says just as it is impossible to know when a fish moving in water is drinking it so it is impossible to find out when government servants in charge of undertakings miss appropriate money interesting very interesting now the question is that is an observation but what does Jonica actually do about it well in India of course we have the controller and Auditor General of India right who is supposed to be keeping a watch on everyone well you'll be surprised to know that in modern times there is a designation which is known as the chief controller and auditor the CCA the chief controller and Auditor he's responsible for construction and maintenance of the records office office to be built facing north or east vast who was an important part of that separate seats for the accountants well ordered shells for the account books maintained consolidated accounts for each department and total income received from it for a state manufacturing operation a stock register showing Rome with raw material bought or received quantities consumed the manufacturing stock changes due to transaction tax changes you to different weights and measures a separate register showing expenditure on labor employed he goes on rules rules rules this is how you will maintain your accounting closing day for the accounting year to be the full-moon day of the month of Asad the month of Assad is basically specified as June July the accounting year consists of 354 days in China Kia's welcome and those 354 days you're supposed to maintain the accounts and then there's separate records for the changeover from the Lunar to the solar calendar so he provides for that the CCA to appoint inspectors of different grades inspectors to be selected such that the king has no hesitation in punishing them CCA responsible for compilation of all fixed rules as well as accounting conventions on your closing day all accountants and officers of regions to present themselves with sealed accounts books and with net balance of revenue over the expenditure sounds like one of our accountants right one of our auditors officers to be kept separate from one another and not allowed to mingle again sounds like one of our control systems almost CCA shall have the accounts thoroughly audited checking daily entries as well as weekly fortnightly monthly blah blah blah CCA to prepare for each department estimated revenue actual revenue outstanding revenue sounds almost like a budgeting a full-blown budgeting exercise CCA - also compiled reports on the presentation of accounts by all other officials punishments to be prescribed for loss of revenue so have you all of you would be familiar with Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves let's just change that a little bit in the case of Chanakya he's prescribed 40 steals the 40 steals are basically 40 ways in which an officer could actually embezzle funds and he lists each of these in great detail for example accounting for a receipt later than the actual date accounting for a payment earlier the actual allowing a do to remain unpaid and so on and so forth in other words he literally gets into the crux of each and every situation in which money could possibly be made by a corrupt official going all the way up to number 40 okay so in modern times of course we have budgeting and then we have accounting which leads to an audit process and which eventually leads to a financial report which then again feeds back into a budgeting exercise pretty much the same thing at Chanakya Stein and this is what I'm trying to tell each one of you that I had hoped that I would come here and give you something new but the more and more you go into the other Shastra you realize that there's nothing new about it it's pretty much what we are used to doing it for example foreign policy he says every neighboring state must be considered an enemy and the enemy's enemy is a friend so taking this in a practical context for example if you take let's say China what Jonica are saying is that well china considers india to be an enemy therefore to that extent india's enemy which is pakistan becomes China's friend in effect and by running that logic further he is trying to say that well if Afghanistan has a problem with Pakistan then Afghanistan and India are natural allies so what does it mean actually in terms of war and peace well in a business sense what it means is Chanakya saying like a stone striking a northern part a superior kingpin attains a decisive victory over a weaker one and if you really think about it in the business world we don't think of things very differently so we have for example Richard Branson saying the time to go into a new business is when it's badly run by someone else so Chanakya talks about types of things and so he says for example there is an agonist the enemy the friend the enemy's ally the friend of an ally enemies allies friend I mean by the end of it he goes into multiple permutations and combinations on things and for each of them he specifies the ideal strategy to work with mattheum even the middle thing so what does he talk about in terms of strategies to deal with other things well he says you could make peace treaties Samadi you could have the grower hostilities both overt and covert assassin staying quiet Jahna preparing for a war samus ray seeking protection and very bob alliance with an enemy now if you really think about it in business terms what we are talking about is takeovers and collaborations competition confidentiality non-disclosure agreements business plans white knights and mergers and monopolies and cartels so he's pretty much about all the strategies in each of these situations within the earthís Ostrom I used to love watching Yes Minister and in Yes Minister which was a lovely BBC TV series it used to say that government is about principles and the principle is never act on principle and pretty much that's what comes across in the arthashastra so there is a massive espionage system merchant spies inside forts saints and ascetics in the suburbs of warts cultivators and recluses in the country herdsmen in the boundaries of the country in forests forest dwellers these are all people who are to be stationed in order to collect information so what Chanakya is talking about is the value of information and he is also talking about the time value of information conflict resolution what does Chanakya say well I want you to think about a couple of pictures sorry there seems to be some problem one is he talks about adopting a conciliatory attitude in other words all for example if you let's say take the situation with China and Pakistan lots of rewards lots of gifts lots of freebies so locating with rewards and gifts and then he talks about sowing dissension among enemies and finally using force now in the case of adopting a conciliatory attitude what he's talking about is sama-sama meaning be nice Donna which means buy out your enemy paid so dissension then use force so the sama of course would be using preys leveraging comment and contacts connections it could be saying oh I didn't know that you know so-and-so you know Donna is of course relinquished what is owed or continued another gift paid create mutual suspicions and of course done which is open war or secret war so Indian Fish has three we have lots and lots of passages which talk of infrastructure so for example the King shall carry on mining operations and manufacture exploit timber and elephant forests offer facilities for cattle breeding and commerce construct roads for traffic both by land and water and set up market towns he shall also construct reservoirs filled with water high the perennial or drawn from some other source or he may provide sites roads timber and other necessary things for constructing reservoirs by the private sector and finally likewise in the construction of places of pilgrimage what he is talking about is public sector facilitation infrastructure public-private partnership we nowadays talk about public-private partnership it was very much there in the earthís Ostrom you know today if you look at the average width of a road it's about 29 feet so that about roughly 4 means two lanes on one side in two lanes on the other are available and then of course you have progressively higher and higher widths in China gears time he specifies fifty four feet wide roads fifty four feet wide roads which are far more than the twenty nine foot standard and those are for royal highways roads leading to divisional headquarters he also talks about twenty seven feet wide roads for the forests and the reservoir embankments and then of course there are progressively lesser roads which are thirteen and a half seven and a half three and three quarters the idea is basically that each use has been correctly specified has been correctly encapsulated in the width I just want you to see this the width of a Roman Road at the height of the Roman Empire was about twenty one point three feet and here we have Chanakya talking about fifty four feet so urban planning what is he you know we are talking about land cities and smart cities what does the earth wish us to talk about in terms of urban planning well he says basically that this is the way Chanakya plans the towns so for example he says there should be four gates the the highest one of course has been cut off it's the Brahma gate and the Brahma Gate is what is the most sacred part of it then he talks about avenues which are linking the gates then he talks about subsidiary gates and then the city center the royal residence the chariots carriages stables teachers priests water storage the royal temple hospitals Treasury jewelry district the metalworking district all of this towards the north then the armory the storehouse the records and Audit Office the district for the traders versus the Green merchants and other merchants state these factory officials bureaucrats the restaurants entertainment and the bars and the courtesans towards the south side and then finally he talks about the guilds and the workshops the Kshatriya district which is basically an army district home where toiletries flowers perfumes all towards towards the north the Northeast the foreign merchants tailors X tiles washerman workers amps and the sugar district now this is entirely specified within the earth adjuster but this is the way you should plan a city I wish we I'm not saying that that's the right plan I just wish that we had more of this sort of planning happening and then of course he talks about a moat around the city in order to protect it from invaders we've been discussing the land bill for so long but actually the Alpha Shastra specifies a land use policy where he talks about arable land forest land reservoirs mines and others then the arable land is Crown land private land and pasture land which means some of the land belongs to the state and some of it is private then we have the forests which include productive and non-productive but he specifies what should be done with each the productive ones should be used for produce and for managing elephants because elephants are very very vital as far as battle is concerned non-productive used for aesthetics recreation wildlife reservoirs can be both public sector and private sector minds can be crown operated and they can also be private sector which are leased to private individuals and finally other land which could be used for settlement or waste so Chanakya talks about the state if we look at the definition of a state the state is a compulsory political organization with a centralized government that man if that maintains a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within a certain territory now this is the modern-day definition of the state but what does Johnny Kea say he says well if you have territory if you have people if you have 45,000 cities a king council administers an army Treasury a bureaucracy and allies well this put together is the state it's as simple as that so he says these are the elements of the state now for a minute just let's take a step back and go back into these components if I was to look at today's modern business context and read the arthashastra from the angle of what Chanakya has given in the context of a business let's look at the king as a CEO and the council of ministers is a Board of Directors the bureaucracy is the management the people as the customers the Treasury as the capital resources territory as market share production services team and bankers consultants auditors is in effect you are describing the modern-day enterprise in effect and if you start looking at what Chanakya prescribes for each of those components it's very very applicable even to the modern-day business what does he talk about taxes just as one flux fruit from a garden as they ripen so shellacking have the revenue collected as it becomes due just as one does not collect unripe fruits he shall avoid taking wealth that is not you because that will make the people angry and it will spoil the very source of revenue in general current income 1/6 of revenue transferred income by transferred income he's meaning as state duty so in other words the father dies and the son gets it then 1/4 of that goes back to the state but then there's a huge list entertainment tax agricultural produce fines and penalties revenue from the controller of temples and holy places revenue from the chief controller of making outsiders and free tax octroi is also there by the way mining royalties passport fees every citizen had a passport at the time of the earth register property tax treasure trove I mean it goes on on on speaking you realize that we are living in much better times actually when you look at the list of taxes so he says that there are three possible faults in revenue collection causing a loss to the Treasury by collecting less or causing pain to the citizens by causing by collecting more and of course causing loss by not managing expenditure and income the eight reasons for a poor revenue collection ignorant of work laziness neglect of work timidity due to fear corruption and showing favors short temper resulting in alienation of citizens arrogance greed prompting false calculation he also offers lots of tax exemptions I'm not going to get into each one but there are several tax exemptions which have been offered by Chanakya in the earthly Shastra but what is most important is he says just as elephants are needed to catch elephants so does one need wealth to capture wealth and that's pretty much what we talk about in terms of modern-day finance right we say it's not how much money you make but how much money you keep and how hard does it work for you if you take for example modern-day banking system it's entirely related to the risk and return function normal transactions in Chanakya stein fifteen percent per annum commercial transactions 60 percent per annum risky travels through forests 120 percent per annum I'm sure there must be bankers here who must be feelings so they must be salivating right now with these interest rates 120 percent per annum and risky traveled by sea 20 percent per month or 240 percent per annum in effect what you're talking about is the fact that Chanakya has added on a risk element on to each and every interest lab and the riskier it is the more it costs no one shall charge or cause to be charged a rate higher than the above what does he talk about human resources a king can reign only with the help of others one-wheel alone does not move a chariot and of course we hear the same thing from Steve Jobs he says great things in business are never done by one person they are always done by a team of people Janek we are talking about teamwork in 300 BC a king should appoint advisors as counselors and listen to their advice anyone who is appointed as a counselor must have the highest personal qualities and here we have Buffett saying it's better to hang out with people better than you pick out associates whose behavior is better than you and you'll be drifting in that direction automatically he even goes into the details of how you can acquire the best talent so for example he says there are four groups of potential recruits the angry ones the timid ones the greedy ones and the proud ones sorry on education yeah there is who's who I can't figure out who's asking the question yeah we will get to it so he talks about how to justify the anger of a person and use that anger in order to recruit him how to reinforce the insecurities of a person to get them to quit their jobs you're them with offers and massage their ego how think about this then if we take the highest pay to the median pay the average ratio we have been talking about guys like Walmart at about 1100 times Starbucks at about 700 times Microsoft at about 600 times in the Mauryan Kingdom you had roughly 800 times as the average ratio highest to lowest salary about 800 times training and development the sciences may only be studied and their precepts CC strictly observed under the authority of specialist teachers the duty of a student is devotion to his teacher even at the cost of his own life and we have of course Big Eight saying everyone needs a it doesn't matter what you're playing you need a coach and that's pretty much what Chanakya talks about so excellence the one excellent lesson that can be learned from the lion is that whatever one intends doing should be done with wholehearted and enthusiastic effort and we had the same thing from jrd tata who said one should strive for excellence even or even perfection in any dusk once you start working on something don't be afraid of failure going to bend in it people who work sincerely are the happiest world Disney said pretty much the same thing the difference between winning and losing is most often not quitting he talks about motivation for example speak sweetly to those from whom you expect favors where the hunter spots a deer he attracts it with a sweet song and we have Sam Walton saying nothing else can quite substitute for the few well-chosen very timed sincere words of praise virtuous persons and fruit-laden trees bow but fools and dry sticks break because they do not bend and our own very own theorem I am Bonnie said I'm willing to salute anyone for my work one thing you won't find in me and that's an ego so to sum up in terms of fiscal prudence we have a situation where if we look at the government of India the central government our total our total expenditure on salary is about roughly 12 lakh crores and if we take the total taxes it's about roughly 80 lakh crores if I run a simple ratio on this it's about a hundred and fifty one percent salary is account for one hundred and fifty one percent of our taxes on the other hand the arthashastra says in accordance with the requirements of his sports and country the king should fix one-fourth of the total revenue as salaries just imagine what his fiscal budget must have looked like perception even if a snake is not poisonous it should be it should pretend to be venomous that's what Chanakya says and of course you have ellen musk saying pretty much the same thing right brand is just a perception and perception will match reality over time so we've always heard this right customer is king and Chanakya also somewhat says that in the happiness of his subjects lies the King's happiness in their welfare his welfare he should not consider as good only that which eases him but treat is beneficial to him whatever pleases his subjects and of course we the closest we can come to that is probably the Google guys right we have a mantra don't be evil which is to do the best things we know how for our users for our customers for everyone he even talks about corporate social responsibility like it is essential for the bound water to have a little flow for its purity so it is important to donate a part of the owned wealth for its protection and we had the same thing by tons and tons of people who were great givers telling us pretty much the same thing so I'll end with one wonderful verse from the arthashastra which says there is no austerity equal to a balanced mind and there is no happiness equal to contentment and Alfred Nobel Fred said pretty much the same thing contentment is the only real wealth so let me end with a final quote from Yes Minister and this pretty much sums up the arthashastra it says when anybody says it's not the money but the principle they actually mean that it's the money so thank you so much for being such a wonderful audience and I don't know how we are doing for time but I'll be happy to take some questions can we have we can take a couple of questions maybe one or two do we have any questions from the audience would you like to ask one sure all right there's one gentleman there's one in front and this one at the back there's one you could just come here right in the front but obviously at that point of time in the way the 300 BC era which we are talking about probably the probably the definition of a smart city would have been very different what Chanakya was concerned with was really how do we make these cities function better so for example I mean he not only talks about what should be the width of a road but he also talks about what should be the slope in order to make sure that the water drains property similarly for example Chanakya talks about what is the ideal width so that during times of battle it is possible for one chariot to overtake another chariot on that given road when he is talking about building a Treasury he talks about what should be the depth in order to prevent the looters from being able to get to the wealth that is stored in the Kings Treasury so there's a lot of there's a lot of input from Chanakya in terms of making a city effective in terms of making it function efficiently but obviously his definition of smart would be very different to our definition of smart what has changed in the last 2,300 years in fact most states today yeah run their economy on the revenues that they earn from liquor lottery this is an economy absolutely and all the statutes that govern these businesses here are exactly the same that was talked about 2,300 years which so where I'll be moving there's nothing there's no change when to a certain extent I must tell you this was my worry when I was coming here because I was told you know revisit conventional business wisdom with Chanakya but the truth is that our conventional business wisdom actually comes from Chanakya to a certain extent the the the stuff that he tells us about his stuff that we are all familiar with it's stuff that we have experienced in some way in the business world but what I see has a remarkable change between then and now and unfortunately it's not for the better the remarkable change is that Chanakya seem to have envisaged almost every possibility where you know things that could possibly go wrong and he had worked around it in order to actually you know provide a buffer to provide a hold to provide a break I I find that at times he is thinking ten steps ahead it's almost like a game of chess where he is thinking then 10 moves ahead in terms of how for example I mean I I was very very surprised to find that for example in something like foreign policy which doesn't account for more than about 10% of the earth fascist era but the wealth of information that Chanakya provides in terms of whether you should go into battle he even talks about how a weak King can become strong so in other words what should you do so for example he tells a wee King that listen first super piece but remember one thing that when you sue for peace then that's a temporary arrangement in your mind it's a temporary arrangement and then why everyone else around you is comfortable that's the time you start preparations for war and you start building up your allies you start building up your network and he gives that in excruciating detail over some 20 odd pages so to my mind this is a person who was way way ahead of his times I wish that we had people who could at least think in terms of using some of the strategic input that Chanakya gave in those days even today that is the fundamental difference between then and now we are doing a lot of stuff but we are doing it a little half-heartedly all right you know just to connect to last evening Ashman it's interesting that the chairman of State Bank of India she spoke about the power of setting strong vision yes and when I heard you know your speech and your session it just reminds me of the arthashastra actually epitomizing that I mean China in that era absolutely but I only wonder if Chanakya was born in this era oh my god what would he be doing just be rather pulling the remaining hair that's on a lighter note bearish win yes well Chanakya would certainly want to one more thing if he had died if he had tied up his Shikha by the time that he went and acquired mothers he would probably untie it once again by the time he was back in modern day yeah absolutely well on that lighten order what a fascinating uh you know revelation of the earth the shah's through a big round of applause for us well thank you so much I would right to invite mr. Manoj Sharma who is the group is head of India today to kindly come on the stage and give a small token of our appreciation thank you so much thank you thank you my god that's a you'd make thank you

Channel: Ashwin Sanghi

Views: 15,380

Rating: 4.900929 out of 5

Keywords: ashwin sanghi, chanakya, kautilya

Id: PGm_2cWC09k

Length: 68min 23sec (4103 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 05 2016