On
hearing Ram’s cries of help, Sita insisted that Lakshman go to his rescue.
Lakshman hesitated. If he went out to help Ram, who would protect Sita? He came
up with a solution: he drew a line around their grass hut. ‘Stay within!’ he
told his sister-in-law, ‘Within is culture, where you are safe. Without is the
forest, where no one is safe.’
This
story of Lakshman Rekha, the line drawn by Lakshman around Sita’s hut, comes to
us from regional Ramayanas like the Bengali Krittivasa Ramayana and the Telugu
Ranganatha Ramayana, written about seven hundred years ago. It is not found in
the old Sanskrit Ramayana of Valmiki, written two thousand years ago, or even
the oldest regional Ramayana, written in Tamil by Kamban, a thousand years ago.
How
do we view the Lakshman Rekha? A symbol of love, created by a young man to
protect his sister-in-law? Or as a symbol of oppression, created by a man to
control the movements of a woman. In the 21st century, much of
feminist literature has conditioned us to see it as the latter. Lakshman, at
best, comes across as patronising patriarch. So it is in business.
Rules
are created to protect organisations. Some rules create efficiency while others
de-risk the company. Together they contribute to the prosperity and security of
the company. Together they ensure the organisation becomes controllable,
predictable, and manageable. Various technologies are created to ensure people
follow the rules. There are technologies to communicate the rules: the various
protocols, guidelines, regulations, procedures, and policies. There are
technologies to measure if the rules are being followed or violated. There are
technologies to flag repeat violations and escalate issues. Essentially, rules
help us domesticate and organise ourselves.
Then
come the auditors: the internal and external, who check if we have complied.
They go through our documents and our spending patterns and check if investor
wealth is safe, and if implementation aligns with agreed upon strategies and
tactics, and if the organisation fulfills its obligations of society by paying
taxes on time, and explaining all its costs and expenses that erode into
profit. The auditor is the Lakshman of the organisation, protecting the
institution for the Board of Directors and Investors.
The
analogy can upset many people for it equates Sita to the institution, and makes
her the property of Ram. It endorses patriarchy. Yet the relationship between
the Board of Directors and the institution is the same as Ram and Sita. Without
the institution (Sita), the Board of Directors (Ram) have no value or purpose,
or even meaning. Their entire existence depends on nourishing and protecting
the institution, and the institution in exchange makes them valuable, and
glamorous, worthy of respect, even worship.
It
is the auditor (Lakshman) who ensures that institution is safe. He ensures
rules are followed and even creates rules to ensure other rules are followed.
To the people in the organisation, he can seem like an oppressor. For his
actions limit movement. His demands take away freedom and agility. The larger
the company, the larger the investments, the more the rules, the more important
the auditor, the less nimble is the organisation. It takes away quick
decisions, and puts obstacles on the entrepreneurial spirit.
It is the auditor who is hauled up
when it turns out that the promoter has been misusing investor wealth to
increase personal wealth at the cost of the institution. In other words, when
the one who is supposed to be Ram turns into Ravana and gets the institution to
break rules for his own benefit. It is the auditor who has to prove his
honesty, and diligence, when there is a takeover. We often mock the auditor, or
the company secretary, as the oppressor who forces us to comply with rules we
don’t want to, who retards us, makes us inflexible and not very nimble,
especially when we are a large organisation. But he is Ram’s younger brother,
loyal and determined to protect all that his brother stands for.
(Source:
Devdutt.com, reproduced with permission)
