General Arjun Ray

Lt Gen (Retd) Arjun Ray, a pioneering educationist spoke to Ujjivan employees about leadership from a very different perspective. General Ray joined the Indian Military in 1964 and guided the nations’ security force in many challenging situations. After an illustrious career in the military, Lt Gen (Retd) Ray retired to devote himself to issues of international education and 21st century leadership, and managing a group of international schools. He currently specifically focuses on empowering women’s education through the complete college education and care of Ladakhi girls in Bangalore.

Gen. Ray focused his talk on sharing with the audience an Eastern spiritual perspective of leadership based on his experiences. In June of 2000, he was given command of Northern Kashmir where he quickly realized he needed to do something different to defeat insurgency in the area. Looking to the past, he realized that from the other wars (Pakistan, Kashmir, Vietnam, and Afghanistan), no real solution had emerged. He spent much of his time re-educating his soldiers as he strived to redefine the role of the armed forces: instead of focusing on winning wars, it should focus on preventing wars. He said that when starting social change, the biggest opposition is from within: “When you pursue a higher goal in life, you have to be prepared to walk down the road armed with nothing but your vision.” He focused on four pillars of women’s empowerment; ICT, healthcare up to tertiary levels and primary schools in remote areas. Through these initiatives, Gen. Ray brought peace to the area within 8 short months.

This was a “crucible experience” for Gen. Ray – it was powerful and it changed him. He referenced the “crucible experience” throughout his speech, because simply going through an experience is meaningless unless you reflect upon it and it leads to a transformation. Leadership is about leading and transforming yourself first and then others, because, “If you don’t know yourself, how can you lead others?”

In the Indian education system, there is a focus on the left, cognitive side of the brain with no emphasis given to the emotional or spiritual side. This stems from the Western concept of ‘self’ which is based on reason, science and logic. Descartes famous quote “I think therefore I am” personifies the Western concept of self – there is no such thing as personal identity; rather, your identity is your brain/synapses. In the East, the concept of ‘self’ originated over 3,500 years ago. The belief is that man is divine because God is within man and we are searching to answer the question “Who am I?” Leadership is about knowing yourself and practicing the fundamental values of love and forgiveness.

Gen. Ray did a unique question and answer session with the audience, asking why they wanted to be leaders. Responses included ‘to know myself better, to do what I want to do, to express myself, to be happy, to be aware, to manage myself, to apply my knowledge, etc. Gen. Ray’s observation was that all of these statements were about ‘I’ or ‘Me’ – a leader should think about ‘We’ and ‘Us.’

He expounded on various Western concepts of leadership: Newtonian (life is measurable, learning from studying), Darwinian (survival of the fittest, withhold information to maintain power), and Market Driven (motivated by the bottom line). He also spoke about different approaches to motivate oneself: Freudian approach (enjoy life, individualism) and Power Principle (seeks to cover inferiority by gaining power). Ultimately, the meaning of life is something personal that fulfills certain conditions: it is transcendental (beyond immediate self), challenging, defined and a crucible experience.

Leadership requires passion: as Anthony Robbins put it, “Passion is the genesis of genius.” A leader is working 24 hours a week, 7 days a week, 365 days a year – life and work is interdisciplinary and requires constant thinking. Gen. Ray left the audience with the thought that the biggest problem in the world today is not poverty, climate change, religious fundamentalism, etc. – it is leadership. He encouraged each and every person to look for their personal answer and challenged them to find and change themselves.