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Home , Ammu Swaminathan, Lakshmi Sahgal, Prem Sahgal, Subhashini Ali

BUSINESS Cases in Corporate Ethics: Contemporary Challenges and Imperatives; Strategy & General Management, Ethics and Social Justice, Organizational Behavior, Human Resource, Operations, Technology and Innovation.

Case 3.2: A Life of Struggle: Freedom Fighter, Doctor, Communist, Lakshmi, Sahgal is no more

Ozzie Mascarenhas SJ, PhD DRD Tata Chair Professor of Business Ethics, XLRI Jamshedpur,

| Published: June 2015 |

Redistribution or use without the expressed, written permission of The Global Jesuit Case Series is prohibited. For information on usage rights, contact the Global Jesuit Case Series at [email protected] ______Cases in Corporate Ethics: Contemporary Challenges and Imperatives Jesuit Series, Madden School of Business, Le Moyne College, Syracuse, NY Donated by: Ozzie Mascarenhas SJ, PhD JRD Tata Chair Professor of Business Ethics, XLRI, Jamshedpur, India June 15, 2015

The fifteen cases in Business ethics included here represent the first installment of the thirty cases promised to the Cases in Business Ethics – The Jesuit Series at the University of Le Moyne, Syracuse, NY. We have added three more. The remaining eighteen cases will follow shortly.

The thirty three cases illustrate and depend upon the content of corporate ethics outlined in Table 1. As might be clear from Table I, the Course in Corporate Ethics has three parts:

 Part One explores the ethical quality of moral agents embedded in the capitalist markets such as the human person, the fraud-prone person, the virtuous actor (virtue ethics) and the trusting executive (ethics of trust).  Part Two investigates the ethical quality of moral agencies of executive decisions, choices and actions when supported by ethics of critical thinking, moral reasoning, ethics of rights and duties, and ethics of moral leadership.  Part Three examines the ethical quality of moral executive outcomes as seen through the ethics of executive moral responsibility and ethics of corporate social responsibility.

Even as research method and methodology are determined by the specific subject matter of inquiry, so also a course method and pedagogy and business cases are dependent upon the specific subject matter of managerial ethics.

The Business ethics theoretical framework visualizes eleven chapters as indicated in Table 1. Each Chapter is illustrated by three contemporary business cases, cases that happened or that got closed during the course of the semester when the courses was taught in 2012-2015.

In general, one of the three cases is international in character, one is national (relating to the Indian economy and markets), and the third relates to industry market situations.

The ethical questions provided at the end of each chapter are best answered with the aid of the corresponding chapter content. The cases and content are part of the Book on Corporate Ethics: Contemporary Challenges and Imperatives that is prepared for publication (Sage) by the end of 2015 by the author of the Cases.

Most of the cases capture major current market events during 2012-2015, and the content of the cases is presented without much stylizing and dramatizing as is usual with formal cases. The cases pose several ethical and moral questions, responses to which welcome group dialog, debate and discussion. Some of the cases reflect “Shades of Grey Areas” in business ethics that do not necessarily require one correct answer in terms of right or wrong, good or evil, true or false, just or unjust, fair or unfair. The cases stimulate ethical and moral reasoning, deliberation, dialog, discussion, decision, choice, analysis of decision-choice consequences, and responsibilities of due compensation for harmed stakeholders. Multiple competing answers should be encouraged, and 1 the students should argue which solution alternative is better, more objective and defensible, and more socially desirable.

Table 1: Business Ethics Theoretical Background for Situating the Cases

Part Corporate Chapter Title Business Ethics Cases Focus: 1. Ethics of Free Enterprise Case 1.1: Worldwide Collapse of Financial Markets in 2008 Capitalism: Case 1.2: Europe’s Boat People: A Moral and Political Disgrace The Free Case 1.3: Radiation Village: The People of the Nuclear Test Market Fallout 2. Ethics of Capitalism Case 2.1: The Enron Corporate Fraud Context: Abused: Fraud and Case 2.2: Satyam Computer Services Ltd PART ONE: Corruption Case 2.3: Sherron Watkins and Whistle Blowing at Enron Ethics of 3. Ethics of the Corporate Case 3.1: Nelson Mandela and his Great Human Personhood Corporate Human Person Case 3.2: Freedom Fighter, Doctor, Communist, Business Case 3.3: Dr. Amar Gopal Bose, Acoustics Pioneer and The Inventor Inputs 4. Ethics of Corporate Case 4.1: Panama Nature Fresh Pvt. Ltd. Corporate Virtue Case 4.2: The Horrors of Chicken Farms Moral Case 4.3: Sexual Harassment at the Workplace: A Violation of Human Personhood Agent 5. Ethics of Corporate Case 5.1: Managing Trusting Relationships in Indian Organized Trusting Relations Retailing Case 5.2: Bain sues EY over $60-m loss in Lilliput Kids-wear Case 5.3: Building Indo- Trusting Business Relationships 6. Ethics of Corporate Case 6.1: GAIL Pipeline Blast Kills Critical Thinking Case 6.2: Closing of Nokia Plant at Corporate Case 6.3: POSCO: South Korean Mining Project in Odisha, India PART TWO: Agency: 7. Ethics of Corporate Case 7.1: Dassault Aviation and the Defense Ministry, India Moral Reasoning Case 7.2: , Modiy’s Chanakya Ethics of Decisions Case 7.3: Mukesh Ambani: The New Media Moghul in India! Corporate Dilemmas, 8. Ethics of Corporate Case 8.1: The Glory and Decline of Merrill Lynch: Violation of Business Acts and Moral Rights and Duties rights and Duties? toward all Stakeholders Case 8.2: The Debacle of “Paid News” Media in India Process Actions Case 8.3: Vedanta’s Rights on Bauxite Mining in Niyamgiri Hills, Odisha 9. Ethics of Moral Case 9.1: Infosys: Leadership Crisis with Top Management Corporate Leadership Case 9.2: Headhunting for CEOs Case 9.3: SBI Complies with BASEL III Reforms PART Corporate 10. Ethics of Corporate Case 10.1: The Tata House: Icon of Corporate Responsibility Justice Case 10.2: Dubious Outcomes at Starbucks Coffee Company THREE: Decision- Case 10.3: Bajaj Auto: Chakan Plant Relocation and Labor Ethics of Outcomes & Displacement Corporate Social 11. Ethics of Corporate Case 11.1: Should Reliance Industries Ltd Reform? Responsibility Case 11.2 : Maruti Plant Violence at Manesar and Thereafter Business Externalities Case 11.3: India’s Super Rich: The High Jumpers Outputs

2 ______Case 3.2: A Life of Struggle: Freedom Fighter, Doctor, Communist, Lakshmi Sahgal is no more Ozzie Mascarenhas SJ, PhD JRD Tata Chair Professor of Business Ethics, XLRI, Jamshedpur, India June 15, 2015

Life in Brief: • October 24, 1914: Lakshmi was born in Madras (Chennai), India • 1928: She first met Netaji in Calcutta • 1938: Graduated MBBS from • 1940: Went to . • 1943, December: Met again Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose • March 1943-45: INA Action & Capture by British • Up to March 1946: Capt. Lakshmi Prisoner in Burma Jungle. • March 1947: Set free in India, married INA Capt. 1971: Joined CPI(M) • 1981: founding member of All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA). • 1998: • 2002: Contested for President’s post. • Died: 23-7-2012,

1 Her Early Years

Lakshmi Sahgal was born as Lakshmi Swaminathan in Madras Presidency on 24 October 1914 to S. Swaminathan, a talented lawyer who practiced criminal law at the , and to A.V. Ammukutty, better known as , a social worker and freedom fighter (and who would later be a member of independent India’s Constituent Assembly). She was also a social worker and independence activist from the Vadakkath family of Anakkara in Palghat, . Lakshmi Sahgal was a revolutionary of the Indian independence movement, an officer of the , and the Minister of Women's Affairs in the government. Sahgal is commonly referred to in India as "Captain Lakshmi," a reference to her rank when she had been taken prisoner in Burma during the Second World War.

Capt. Lakshmi’s parents had an inter-caste marriage. Most of the servants were Dalits and they shared food with them much to the surprise of others. Lakshmi studied in vernacular Government schools. Her first rebellion as a child was against the demeaning institution of caste.

From her grandmother’s house, she would often hear the calls and hollers from the surrounding jungles and hills, of the people who in her grandmother’s words were those “whose very shadows are polluting.” The young Lakshmi one day walked up to a young tribal girl, held her hand and led her to play. Lakshmi and her grandmother were furious with each other, but Lakshmi was the one triumphant.

Ammukutty (Lakshmi’s Mother) had a very constrained childhood as her father had died and her mother struggled to raise and marry off her daughters. Resultantly, when Ammu was 13, her mother arranged an alliance for her which conformed to the Sambandam system. Her consort was Dr. Subbarama Swaminadhan, an educated Tamil Brahmin gentleman who was more than twenty years older than Ammu. Both of Ammu's daughters, Capt. Lakshmi and Mrinalni, were to recount in their memoirs that while their paternal family acknowledged them (as was traditional) by including them at family events such as weddings, they would be served their food separately from other family members and subtle distinctions would be evident in the way they were treated.

Ammukutty was a socialite, nationalist, social activist, and an ardent supporter of (INC), and a freedom fighter (and who would later be a member of independent India’s Constituent Assembly). Lakshmi’s mother instilled the nationalist fervour in Lakshmi by taking her to meet Netaji, harbouring or hiding freedom fighters, burning imported clothes, etc… She instilled egalitarian values, independence of thought in Lakshmi by setting an example due to her own deprived childhood. Dr Lakshmi was another rich tomboy who had married too young, a rider of horses and driver of cars and a very good singer.

After high school in Madras, she studied at Madras Medical College, from where she obtained MBBS in 1938. The intervening years saw Lakshmi and her family drawn into the ongoing freedom struggle. She saw the transformation of her mother from a Madras socialite to an ardent congress supporter, who one day walked into her daughter’s room and took away all the child’s pretty dresses to burn in a bonfire of foreign goods. Looking back years later, Lakshmi would observe how in the south, the fight for political freedom was fought alongside the struggle for social reform. Campaigns for political independence were waged together for struggles for temple entry for dalits and against child marriage and dowry. Her first introduction to communism was through Suhasini Nambiar, Sarojini Naidu’s sister, a radical who had spent many years in Germany. Another early influence was the first book on the communist movement she read, Edgar Snow’s Red Star over China.

Lakshmi was passionate about fighting for freedom but did not respond to Gandhi’s call to students to leave their studies and join the Civil Disobedience Movement. She felt that India needed well-educated and trained professionals once freedom came. She qualified for the MBBS degree in 1938 and obtained her diploma in gynaecology and obstetrics a year later. Later she worked as a doctor in the Government Kasturba Gandhi Hospital located at , Chennai. She felt the whole freedom struggle had gone wrong. Partition had been a disaster, and the modern pursuit of money had ruined all. Her dream of free women: she hoped to abolish child marriage, dowries and the ban on remarriage of widows. She wanted women to have chances like hers: to be educated, self-supporting if they cared to be, and able to make their own choices about marriage.

2 She was married to P K N Rao, a pilot with Tata Airlines, while she was studying for the MBBS degree. Within three months she felt it was a mistake, and returned from Bombay to Madras to continue with her studies. Rao did not forgive her nor give her a divorce. So, when she fell in love with a classmate at Madras Medical College, unable to marry and live together, the couple left for Singapore. But that friend, who also joined the INA, did not like her getting involved in it, and even that relationship did not survive.

In Singapore

As a young doctor of 26, Lakshmi left for Singapore in 1940. Three years later she would meet Subhas Chandra Bose, a meeting that would change the course of her life. “In Singapore,” Lakshmi remembered, “there were a lot of nationalist Indians like K. P. Kesava Menon, S. C. Guha, N. Raghavan, and others, who formed a Council of Action. The Japanese, however, would not give any firm commitment to the Indian National Army (INA), nor would they say how the movement was to be expanded, how they would go to Burma, or how the fighting would take place. People naturally got fed up.” Subhas Chandra Bose’s arrival broke this log-jam.

Lakshmi, who had thus far been on the fringes of the INA, had heard that Bose was keen to draft women into the organization. She requested a meeting with him when he arrived in Singapore, and emerged from a five-hour interview with a mandate to set up a women’s regiment, which was to be called the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. There was a tremendous response from women to join the all-women brigade. Dr. Lakshmi Swaminathan became captain Lakshmi, a name and identity that would stay with her for life.

During her stay at Singapore, she met some members of the Indian National Army and joined them along. Lakshmi established a clinic for the poor, most of whom were migrant workers from India. She was taken prisoner in the Karen Hills (eastern Burma) in early1945. The region was in war chaos and the British commander decided to send the prisoners of war and refugees to Toungo, a 100-mile journey by foot, which took 10 days. Lakshmi's description of this walk captures the horrors of the war, how difficult it was for her Keralite blood to not bathe and change clothes for 10 days.

The march to Burma began in December 1944, and by March 1945, the decision to retreat was taken by the INA leadership, just before the entry of their armies into . Captain Lakshmi was arrested by the British army in May 1945. She remained under house arrest in the jungles of Burma until March1946, when she was sent to India – at a time when the INA trials in were intensifying the popular hatred of colonial rule.

Captain Lakshmi married Col. Prem Kumar Sahgal, whom she met at Singapore, a leading figure of the INA, in March 1947. The couple moved from to Kanpur, where she plunged into medical service, working among the flood of refugees who had come from , and earning the trust and gratitude of both Hindus and Muslims.

Upon her return to India in March 1946, she became disillusioned with the Congress and the political environment, and she decided not to be drawn into the public arena "come what may." Lakshmi was upset at the journalists who glamorized Netaji, and INA officials like her, instead of trying to understand the movement that Netaji had built. She continued her medical work and got involved with the welfare of the returning troops, and after Independence, with refugees' rehabilitation. Colonel had accepted a job as a junior executive in a textile mill in Kanpur. Lakshmi settled down in Kanpur to a non-political life. Their house was always open to progressive, non- communal people.

She opened her own clinic when after the Independence she was turned down the offer of honorary medical service at Government Hospital Kanpur by the Minister of Health, Vijay Lakshmi Pandit. She used to open and clean her clinic herself in the last 60 years of practice. Was a very good and caring medical doctor whose sole aim was to serve the poor without any prejudice, and she loved her profession. Lakshmi began her medical work to serve underprivileged women and children. She also started working in a municipal dispensary, which, for several years, had not been able to get a woman doctor. She also trained several women as medical aides and midwives. For a while she also tried her hand at farming in the foothills of Nainital, and became an expert in driving a tractor, and supervising sowing and other operations.

3 She chose to live in a working class district in Kanpur since independence. During college days Lakshmi was critical of Gandhi’s insistence of non-violence and close collaboration with Indian Capitalists. She had strong feelings on Nationality and freedom of women. She was put on house arrest after her release post Imphal, held INA meeting and hoisted the flag. She was a strong opponent of the partition and proposed India –Pakistan unity. The couple unhappily watched the INA disintegrate and became restless politically, unsatisfied with the way things were going and said, "The fruits of independence were benefiting only a few — the white rulers had been replaced by darker ones. "When her daughter Subhashini (Ali, now a prominent labour activist) joined the (Marxist), Lakshmi got involved with the Party's activities, and later opened a clinic for families of workers. She was one of the founding members of the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA), set up by the Party. The Government of India presented Col (Dr) Lakshmi Sahgal with the Padma Vibhushan in 1998, in recognition for her service to the nation. The Left parties nominated her candidacy for the Presidential election in 2002, during which time she said, "My one-point objective would be to maintain the unity and integrity of this great nation."

By the early 1970s, Captain Lakshmi’s daughter Subhashini had joined the CPI (M). She brought to her mother’s attention an appeal from for doctors and medical supplies for Bangladeshi refugee camps. Captain Lakshmi left for Calcutta, carrying clothes and medicines, to work for the next five weeks in the border areas. After her return she applied for membership in CPI (M). For the 57-year-old doctor, joining the party was “like coming home.” “My way of thinking was already communist, and I never wanted to earn a lot of money, or acquire a lot of property or wealth,” she said.

Captain Lakshmi was one of the founding members of All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), formed in 1981. She subsequently led many of its activities and campaigns. After the Bhopal gas tragedy in December 1984, she led a medical team to the city; years later she wrote a report on the long-term effects of the gas on pregnant women. During the anti-Sikh riots that followed Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984, she was out on the streets in Kanpur, confronting anti-Sikh mobs and ensuring that no Sikh or Sikh establishment in the crowded area near her clinic was attacked. She was arrested for her participation in a campaign by AIDWA against the Miss World competition held in Bangalore in 1996.

Captain Lakshmi was an atheist by religious profession. She was also an active member of the . She pledged that her body was donated for medical research at Kanpur. She was nominated as the sole opponent in 2002 for the coveted honor of President of India election against Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. Captain Lakshmi was the presidential candidate of the Left in 2002, an election that A. P .J. Abdul Kalam would win. She ran a whirlwind campaign across the country, addressing packed public meetings. While frankly admitting that she did not stand a chance of winning, she used her platform to publicly scrutinize a political system that allowed poverty and injustice to grow, and fed new irrational and divisive ideologies.

Captain Lakshmi had the quality of awakening a sense of joy and possibility in all who met her-her co-workers, activists of her organization, her patients, family and friends. Her life was an inextricable part of the 20th century India- of the struggle against colonial rule, the attainment of freedom and nation-building over 65 tumultuous years. In this great historical transition, she always positioned herself firmly on the side of the poor and the underpowered. Freedom fighter, dedicated medical practitioner, and an outstanding leader of the women’s movement in India, she leaves the country and its people a fine and enduring legacy.

She had sustained her clinic for decades. She spoke of how her clinic that did not contain a surgical unit, which she wished she could have had. There was a shortage of space and she could only admit a few patients. "It is not doing so well since the last two years," she agreed. Every day of the week she would be at the clinic by 9 am. Until her death on July 23, 2012, it was reported that she saw patients until the end. At 11.20 am on July 23, Captain Lakshmi Sahgal died in Kanpur at the age of 97. She is survived by and Anisa Puri, grandchildren , Neha and Nishant Puri and Sister . Lakshmi’s sister Mrinalini Sarabhai was an eminent Indian classical dancer schooled at Switzerland and USA and also educated at Shantiniketan; she was married to .

Concluding Thoughts:

4 Great people sacrifice their life for a larger cause and their antecedents become inspiration for future generations. Lakshmi herself was influenced by Subhas Chandra Bose. Her father was a well-known lawyer. Her mother was socially active. The national movement during her formative years also had a great influence on her life. She was also influenced by her daughter Subhasini, and both had leftist leanings. Whether it was her association with INA or protesting against Miss World Pageant, we clearly see a continuation of her resolve to fight for women emancipation. Her life can be best described as a culmination of a great social career and political affiliations.

Birth, genetics, ancestry, gender, race, nationality and culture are innate and humans do not have much control on them. This domain of a person is referred to as immanence. Transcendence enables one to go beyond these constraints to exercise freedom and to create a meaningful existence. Each of us seeks respect for immanence and should not forget that respect is mutual and mostly given before received. Giving respect is not a pre-requisite, but such a behavior adds to the immanence and will command more respect in future. We are expected to respect the sociality of others as well as transcendence of others. This ensures respect for our sociality and transcendence from others.

“The fight will go on,” said Captain Lakshmi Sahgal one day in 2006, sitting in her crowded Kanpur clinic where, at 92, she still saw patients every morning. She was speaking on camera to Singeli Agnew, a young filmmaker from the graduate school of Journalism, Berkeley, who was making a documentary on her life. Each stage of the life of this extraordinary Indian lady represented a new stage of her political evolution-as a young medical student drawn to the freedom struggle; as the leader of the all-woman Rani of Jhansi regiment of the Indian National Army; as a doctor, immediately after Independence, who restarted her practice in Kanpur among refugees and the most marginalized sections of society, and finally, in Post-Independence India, her life as a member of the communist Party of India (Marxist) and the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), years that saw her in campaigns for political, economic and social justice.

“Freedom comes in three forms,” the diminutive doctor goes on to say on camera in her unadorned and direct manner. “The first is political emancipation from the conqueror, the second is economic (emancipation) and the third is social…..India has only achieved the first.” With Captain Lakshmi’s passing, India has lost an indefatigable fighter for the emancipations of which she spoke.

References:

Menon, Parwathi(2012), “A Life of Struggle: Freedom Fighter, Doctor, Communist, Lakshmi Sahgal is no more,” , – Tuesday, July 24th 2012, pp. 1, 13. www.winentrance.com. rediff.com. Laxmi Sahgal profile at www.cpim.org. sussle.org/Ravi Shankar boloji.com Counterpunch.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammu_Swaminathan http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article3644.html http://www.economist.com/node/21559891 http://www.cpim.org/elections/president/lakshmi_sehagal_profile.htm http://www.winentrance.com/general_knowledge/lakshmi-sahgal.html http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/a-fulfilling-journey-that-began-in-madras/article3675707.ece?ref=relatedNews http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/a-revolutionary-and-a-singer/article3682419.ece?ref=relatedNews

Assignment:

From this story, as well as from other updated sources:

1. Describe the unique “individuality” of Captain Lakshmi. 2. Describe the unique “immanence” of Captain Lakshmi. 3. Describe the unique “sociality,” of Captain Lakshmi. 4. Describe the unique “transcendence” of Captain Lakshmi.

5 5. Study the major leadership decisions of her life, and investigate their phenomenology. 6. Describe her life of executive freedom despite the constraints she faced. 7. Study her Theory of Action as an example of the Volitionalist Tradition 8. What do you learn from her life in being a person for others?

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