A Dharma called CSR

One of the employees with Fairtrade Foundation recalls his decision of opting out of Barclays and instead choosing to work with Fair Trade. On being selected to work for the Barclays, he asked and so what are we supposed to do. To this, the Recruitment Manager replied, well, you have to sell credit cards to prospects who you would never be able to pay back. Cool! Said everyone in the room. But the protaganist of our story differed!! Rejecting the tempting offer, he murmured I definitely did not pursue an MBA from a top School to do this. Well how many of us have that protaganist in us? And for those few amongst us who have it, fewer still have the guts to do it. Fairtrade, Ethical Business, Social Responsiveness, Corporate Governance and the icing on the cake Sustainability! Interesting buzz words.... or an endemic necessity. It is essentially for our own good we need to question the way things are done, the manner in which the Corporations run, the Corporate Governance or the absence of it, is too big a question to ignored. The question essentially boils down to our survival and the survival of generations to come. Briefly put, the issue is one of Sustainability. It is not just about present, profit and progress... it is about a sustainable progress making progressive headway into the future.
Let the question begin with us. How we as individuals can contribute towards this march to Sustainability. The answer begins with a simple thougthfulness, a realization. We take our society, our environs, our work, our lives and the luxuries as given. We want to acquire more and more and more. There is nothing wrong about this desire to seek more. After all Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha are the four tenets of human aspiration in Sanatan Dharma. Literarly translated, Dharma refers to peforming one's duty; Artha refers to accumulation of wealth, Kama to fulfill the physical human desires and Moksha is attainment of Salvation.

Sanatan Dharma or sometimes we refer to it as Hinduism does not mean religion. Sanatan means that what is eternal, never ending. Dharma is often misconstrued to be Religion, but Dharma is not religion and interestingly enough Dharma is religion! However, it is Religion in the connotation to follow religiously that is what is my duty, my responsibility in other words my karma. Karma is the work that one is spiritually ordained to do. Though literally translated Karma means work in English but Karma is not just work. When we work, we do it with a certain thought. For instance if one works on an article with a desire to attain high readership, then there is a desire attached to the work one is pursuing. This desire is to be known, to attain a stature within the legal community. However, if the same action is performed with a desire for the good of the society with no expectations in return it is Nishkaam Karma .. the Karma as referred to in the aforemetioned four tenets. This Karma is then the Dharma.
Since we are all ordained to fulfill our respective responsibilities, each one of us has our own respective Dharma. As a Cardiologist, someone is ordained to treat his patients well and get them back to health. As a Lawyer, another individual's Dharma is to handle his clients well. Likewise a given individual will have different Dharma's at different points in life depending on what role is she playing. As a child, her Dharma would be to look after her parents when they need her. As an employee, her Dharma is to work well for the company and steer it towards an Ethical path. As a customer, the Dharma then is to use products that are ethical, that are good for her and her as a family. As a shareholder, her Dharma is to invest in Companies that invest ethically, that contribute to growth of the economy. Dharma then is the constant companion in each one of our lives and we have to understand in the different facets we have, different roles that we play what is our Dharma? In this ecosytem we are stakeholders, with varying shades of roles to be played in different plays. Somewhere we play the most central role, someplace sidelines, sometimes faded to the background, sometimes more, sometimes less, but we all play a role and the idea is to play the role well. This then is the Dharma.

Artha referred to as the second objective of Human life in Sanatana Dharma refers to 'money or material prosperity'. But this is not material prosperity as is commonly understood, for material prosperity does not mean a march towards materialism. Ever wondered why the richest people are not the happiest or why the most prosperous nations are not the happiest nations. Why there is no significant co-relation between wealth and happiness. The reason is that the material prosperity that we seek to attain may make us rich, but does not really make us prosperous. We are all running in the rat race to be rich to prosper, by all means fair or foul. Mostly, if not always, we do not see how our investments make money, whether we are investing in ethical companies; what work are we doing to make money … are we being robots run on power to generate endless papers called currency... are we just promoting the system... or adding a soul to the system. Is the organization we work with contributing to the growth of the society. Are we as stakeholders to our environment giving back to our society or are we only endlessly taking from it. Little acts of kindness, like a conscious decision to invest in ethical shares, work for an ethical company, taking a little share of our fortune to contribute to the growth of the society and acting ambitiously but not greedily to amass a fortune is Artha. Islam has the beautiful concept of Zakat in this direction to make one's money, one's Artha. Zakat is one of the five basic responsibilities every Muslim is ordained to perform. Zakat simply put means, that every Muslim must give two percent of his earnings in charity to the less privileged. He is encouraged to contribute more, but the minimum two percent is mandatory.

Kama is the third pillar which means fulfilling one's physical desires. In Santan Dharma, one is encouraged to enter into the Marital Bliss, referred to as the Ghrihasthaahrama to fulfill ones physical desires. Marriage is much more then that. But this is one of the important functions of Marital Bliss. Osho's critically acclaimed writing 'From Sex to Superconsciousness' provides interesting insight on the topic. Thus, it is perfectly Divine to fulfill one's physical Desires and then tread on the path to Moksha. If one's desire are fulfilled in a spiritual manner with a social sanctity, then it is easier to control one's wrong desires.

And finally the attainment of the Moksha is that one ultimate goal that is the quinteessential essence of spirituality. If one performs one's Dharma, Artha and Kama well, then the path to Moksha or salvation becomes much easier. The essence of Spirituality is not about reading scripture one after another, watching one religious channel after another to increase its TRPs(atleast this has become the trend in India of late!) or a race to engage in discussions that about the differences in religions and societies; the essence is to be spiritual, to be a good human, to fulfill one's responsibilities well, to be thoughtful, critical thinkers that we humans are ordained to be and to be a constructive stakeholder in the Sustainable development of the society.
Corporate Governace and Corporate Social Responsibilty is in essence then the modern day equivalent of Spirituality.