Ramdas Swami as a management Guru

A careful assessment of Ramdas’ thinking may leave you amazed: Many of his thoughts have a striking similarity to the thoughts of modern management gurus. Take, for example, this gem
                   

                              एके ठायी बैसोनी राहीला ।तरी मग व्यापची  बुडाला ।
                            सावध पणे ज्याला त्याला ।भेटी दयावी ।

                                ‘Be seated at a place | and (you will) lose control of all enterprise |
                                                 (instead) cautiously meet several people |
                                                  (and see your enterprise flourishing) ||’ 2



 Dasbodh prescribes socially responsible leadership, which is people oriented. Ramdas expects a good leader to reach out to people instead of staying put at one place (like the office cabin). He’d like a leader to meet as many people as possible, listen to them carefully and comprehend ground realities. This is strikingly similar to what Tom Peters suggests in his Management by Walking Around. Peters was the first management thinker who suggested that a manager should come out of his cabin and take a walk around the office/plant 2. L.R. Pangarkar, lr g_W© am_Xmg {da{MV gmW© Xmg~moY / 5 and frequently interact with his subordinates. Such convergence in the thoughts of thinkers is evident throughout the history of ideas. Indeed, great thinkers are not limited by the boundaries of language, nation or time. Human empowerment, his raison d’etre: To help us appreciate better Ramdas’ work, let us think of the times in which he lived. This was 17th century Maharashtra. In those times, several autocratic and unjust rulers ruled medieval India. The local political elite knowtowed with the invaders, who came lured by the wealth and vast tracts of our fertile land. As these invaders usurped power, the elite became their local partners or subsidiaries. Also, in the absence of any state support, droughts and floods caused tremendous strain on the population. People were burdened under heavy discriminatory taxes like jizya3 , and had to fork out huge sums to pay to the callous administration. Thus they were economically exploited and little was left for them to support their own lives. Commoners were also subject to the loot and plunder at the hands of the rulers’ mercenary forces and the members of the administration. Women were abducted and raped, and there was no state recourse available. There was widespread dissatisfaction and disillusionment about the rulers, but in the absence of organized resistance, people had no choice but to suffer these excesses. Moreover, people had lost confidence in themselves and preferred to remain sufferers. In utter desperation, ignoring ...wisdom, they leaned toward religious rituals, ignoring the core spiritual wisdom. The social elite had no time to pursue higher knowledge. Such ignorance would have crippled any society