This is what Narayana Murthy wants India's next PM to do

Infosys chairman Narayana Murthy may call himself ‘apolitical’, but when it comes to choosing a Prime Minister for the country, Murthy knows what he exactly wants.

In an article in The Economic Times today, Murthy lists out the qualities that he wants in the next prime minister of India. “Whoever becomes the Prime Minister will be the Prime Minister for every citizen, every resident and every visitor of India. The new PM will have to heal the secular rupture that has taken place,” he writes.

Murthy has not explained what he means by “secular rupture”. However, in the backdrop of the wide expectation that Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi may become the prime minister, one may safely interpret it as the recent riots in Uttar Pradesh and the earlier ones – right from post Babri Masjid demolition to Gujarat riots of 2002.

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The first step that the Infosys executive chairman recommends to achieve economic progress corroborates this interpretation. “No country can make stellar economic progress unless there is peace at its borders and harmony within” he says.

Commenting on the economic policies that the new PM must adopt, Murthy says that the most important task would be to create 150-200 million jobs in the next 10 years. He also said that our cities must be made more attractive not just for Indians, but also for foreigners. He says this is the best way to attract investment from abroad.

Murthy says the new PM must focus on education, healthcare, nutrition and shelter.

On the problems in the Indian economy, he said, “During 1999-2009, when China was mentioned three times in boardrooms abroad, India was mentioned at least once. Today, India is not mentioned even once when China is mentioned 30 times.”

He has also pointed out that the visa-on-arrival facility is not available for even one country that is among our top five trading partners in software.

Earlier, when asked whether he would canvas for his former colleagues Nandan Nilekani and V Balakrishnan, Murthy had said, “I am apolitical…as executive chairman of Infosys I have to treat every party with equal respect…We should be working with every government, doesn’t matter what hue, that comes into power on 17 May.

Nilekani is contesting on a Congress ticket from Bangalore South and Balakrishnan on an AAP ticket from Bangalore Central.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18 last month, Murthy had said, “As somebody who is completely apolitical, all that I would say is that I want the next government to ensure that the friction to business is reduced very heavily. That more and more taxes are collected and those taxes are used efficiently.”

At an NDTV Summit earlier, Murthy had said Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi should be allowed to show a “sense of contrition” and then move on as otherwise the debate on him in the context of the post-Godhra riots would be unending.

“Let’s also remember one thing that the courts have not indicted the gentleman. The courts have not passed any strictures, any judgement and therefore the best we can do at this point of time is to accept a sense of contrition from the individual and then move on. Because, otherwise we can go on with this time and again for the next 100 years,” he had said.

Now whether Murthy supports Modi or Rahul is not known, but he clearly wants better economic policies, peace and growth, like any other Indian citizens.