Panchjanya Article On Infosys Is Juvenile But The Company And Its Promoters Aren’t Above Genuine Criticism

An article attacking Indian software company Infosys published in Panchjanya, a weekly magazine run by members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has caused quite a kerfuffle forcing Sunil Ambekar, Akhil Bharatiya Prachar Pramukh of the RSS, to issue a clarification that ‘Panchjanya is not mouthpiece of the RSS and the said article or opinions expressed in it should not be linked with the RSS’.

“As an Indian company, Infosys has made seminal contribution in progress of the country. There might be certain issues with a portal run by Infosys, but the article published by Panchjanya in this context only reflects individual opinion of the author,” Ambekar tweeted.

Mohandas Pai, former director of Infosys and its Chief Financial Officer during important years of growth of the company from 1994-2006, has come out strongly against this attack. ”I would see this as an unnecessary, uncalled-for article by people with a narrow mindset, who have not made an objective assessment of the issue and tried seeing a conspiracy where none exists,” Pai, a supporter of the Narendra Modi government, wrote in an op-ed.

The fact that this article came from a magazine seen as an affiliate of the Sangh, has ensured the death of nuance on the issue. Those who view RSS as an adversary have panned the government and Sangh for attacking Infosys via their mouthpiece while those on the side of Sangh have been rallying against Infosys for its incompetence in executing government contracts and assigning motives to the people associated with company for funding toxic portals and individuals.

Of course, both are wrong to some extent. People like Pai, who are defending Infosys and are also the supporters of the current dispensation, are rare.

Before embarking on an honest discussion about Infosys, it’s important to analyse the Panchjanya article which everyone is talking about but few have actually read, including supporters and critics.

The article titled ‘Saakh aur aaghaat’ (Reputation and Attack/Jolt/Blow) is actually a cover story in 5 September edition, written by one Chandra Prakash which starts off with criticism of the company in designing an Income Tax returns filing portal whose contract it had won in 2019. One would be fairly justified in calling out Infosys for not providing satisfactory experience in return-filing process but the article goes overboard and wonders ‘if there is well-thought out conspiracy’ behind this.

The article then mentions Infosys’ failure in developing two other portals, of the GST and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, and referring to allegations made on social media by some users, hints that the company’s management might be doing this on purpose to destabilise the Indian economy. Again, a conjecture with no evidence.

The author then explains how Infosys wins government contracts by bidding the lowest value to carry out a project and ends up making a hash of it. It then wonders if some anti-national power is using Infosys to hurt India’s economic interests. Another conjecture with no evidence. The author admits that he has no evidence to back up this allegation but states that circumstances and company’s history do hint that this might be a possibility.

But author doesn’t provide any facts about company’s history or circumstances. He backs up allegations with further allegations like ‘Infosys has been accused of helping naxalites, communists and tukde-tukde gang’, ‘The issue of Infosys supporting disruptive activities overtly and covertly has come to light’ or ‘It is believed that Infosys is behind disinformation websites like The Wire, Scroll and Alt News’ or ‘Organisations spreading caste hatred are beneficiary of Infosys’ charity’.

Further, the article claims that the IT firm installs people of certain ideology in important positions, most of which are Marxists from Bengal but again doesn’t provide any fact for that conclusive assertion.

The piece concludes with another conjecture. The author states that ‘allegations of leaking of GST related data keep coming to light every now and then’ and one shouldn’t be surprised if Infosys is planning to do something like that with data related to IT returns. Basically, the assertion is not proved but merely presented as an allegation.

Suffice to say that a juvenile article like this does great disservice, especially to those who are levelling genuine criticism against Infosys based on solid and irrefutable facts.

There is no doubt that the company has bungled big time in executing the project of building a robust IT-filing or the GST-filing portal. But there are two issues here.

Should it be cut some slack given the complexities in the system involved and the fact that no software might be perfect as soon as it is launched given the scale in this case? After all, isn’t this the same argument furthered by the government while defending itself against allegations of devising an imperfect GST system? Such complex system can’t be perfect from the get go and the important thing is to keep revising based on the feedback, the government otherwise reasons. Shouldn’t this same criterion be applied to Infosys?

Second, there is definitely a major issue with the government’s contractual system which awards projects to those who bid the lowest. This so-called L1 setup has been the bane of India’s procurement policy in all fields but governments have been averse to change it for fear of being labelled corrupt as any contract that is rewarded to a company at a higher price when the competition was offering the same service cheaper would come under intense public scrutiny.

Then there is another whole different ballgame of putting Infosys in the dock for the acts of people associated with it or even the company itself when it comes to funding certain projects or people of certain ideologies.

Ideally, Infosys and its management is free to promote whatever or whoever they want but it’s interesting that the same people who further propaganda about 'Ambani-Adani sarkar' or accuse the Prime Minister of running his government for benefit of 10-15 of his corporate ‘friends’ are the ones having problem with people trying to raise questions against Infosys' alleged funding of a particular ideology. Would the same crowd be as supporting of India’s Inc. in general and say Ambani-Adani in particular if they start giving crores of monies to portals that the leftist crowd detests? We know the answer to this.

Hence, if Infosys or its people are funding people or causes of certain ideology, then the other side has all the right to call out Infosys as well. No one should be touchy about this. Such criticism is par for the course.