Cyrus The-Not-So-Great?

Cyrus The-Not-So-Great?

It’s quite tough to comment on something which is making so much commotion in the media that it becomes difficult to differentiate between meaningful information and pure background noise.  Take the mysterious case of aapro Cyrus and the Bombay House.  A case where everyone has strong opinion one way or the other  eg our cook who uses only Tata Salt, our gardener who swears by Tata Chemicals fertilizers and the corner tea-stall owner who is worried about the future of Tata Tea, all feel that Tatas can never be wrong.  On the other hand, my neighbor who was planning to buy a Nano for Diwali has decided that Tata or no, he would rather opt for a Maruti.  Luckily my friends are a pragmatic lot and can switch over to ITC or East India Hotels if they find there is some issue with Indian Hotels.

Normally the fights in Parsi community are restricted to Bombay Parsi Punchayet and Jam-e-Jamshed and involve heavy debates and editorials about weighty issues such as “how to define a poor Parsi?” or “whether the re-development plan of Cusrow Baug  should offer 3 BHK flats or 5BHK penthouses?” BTW, a couple of years ago, if I recollect correctly, a poor Parsi household was defined (by Parsi Punchayet) as one having a monthly income of less than Rs 90,000! So next time you invite a poor Parsi friend over for a dinner, please make sure that you have enough parking space for his 1920’s Silver Ghost. Poor chap hasn't had a chance to upgrade to a Nano!  Here I must state that an overwhelmingly high fraction of Parsis I have known are jolly good fellows and some of the gentlest of gentlemen and that’s why this ongoing tussle is all the more puzzling. Parsis as a rule are not parsimonious but I guess there is lots and lots of Parsi money involved in this case and that’s what makes the difference.

Normally while analyzing any topic a 360^o  examination is sufficient to show up all the relevant factors and facilitate formation of a reasonable opinion; but even after a 4Л steRADIAians inspection by the knowledgeable industry insiders, this topic is still just as clear as a Delhi morning on a typical December day and is getting murkier by the day. So having exhausted the 2D and 3D perspectives, LazyBee decided to take a look in the 4^th dimension to see if history can throw some pointers for the present.

Cyrus the Great was a legendary king of Persia in the sixth century BC. (Yes, some other countries do have well-maintained records deeper in antiquity even surpassing ours). It will be interesting to try and find some parallels between him and the Cyrus in limelight - and some divergences as well.  

Cyrus II of Persia was the son of Cambyses I who was a vassal to the King of Media. The King of Media was also Cyrus’s grand-father.  Cyrus was made the king by his father a good eight years before his own death. Cyrus first took over the Median empire (through a battle spread over 3 years) and then proceeded to build the largest empire known to mankind till that date by conquering the Lydian and the Neo-Babylonian Empires. His kingdom, the Achaemenid Empire, extended from Balkans in east to Indus Valley in the west.  He was also an able administrator and made special efforts to integrate the new territories he had won over into his empire. He was since then called Cyrus The Great.

There are some parallels and some divergences in these two cases.

Look at the parallels : Our  Cyrus is also a prince in his own right. Shapoorji Pallonji’s holdings in Tata group companies alone have been put at Rs 81,000 crores (that is around US $ 12 billion, give and take a few millions).  Pallonjis are also the single largest private individual share-holders of Tata Sons, the majority of the rest being largely held by trusts.

In case of Cyrus the Great, his father Cambyses I was very much alive for the first 8 years of his reign just like Ratan Tata being very much there to oversee our Cyrus take over the reins of his empire.

Now the divergences : While Cyrus the Great had to take over the Median Empire by military power, our Cyrus was selected and invited to become the Chairman of the Tata Empire. His battles seem to have started after he was anointed the Emperor.  Our Cyrus has had to contend with an active past emperor who was not content with advising the new emperor from the side-lines but actively plotted to dethrone the emperor at his whim and fancy.   

The biggest difference in the two situations is that Cyrus the Great expanded his empire by adding on territories but our Cyrus wanted to consolidate his empire by knocking off a few “territories” which he found to be too much of a drain on royal treasury. The emperors of old could finance their wars by a number of ways; levying additional taxes on their populace or striking new coins or debasing their currencies. One doesn’t know how Cyrus the Great managed it but he seems to have managed it quite well. Our Cyrus didn’t have these options and hence had decided to downsize (or rightsize) his empire. The old emperor, who during his reign had kept on adding new territories whatever be the cost of acquisition, found this difficult to digest. Nay, he found it downright ungrateful of our Cyrus that he (Cyrus) could even contemplate going against his diktats and start selling the family heirlooms.

The drama which is unfolding has a surreal familiarity about it. Once the palace coup gets executed, no efforts are spared to malign the deposed emperor, all the deposed emperor’s men are (ex)terminated. All sorts of charges are levelled to paint the deposed emperor as incompetent. (It also helps that in most cases the deposed emperors were conveniently disposed off to avoid any future comebacks).  In the days to come as old emperor tries to consolidate his hold on the empire more “inside stories” will find their way to the media, of which there will be no authentication or confirmation but each will add to the weight of “evidence” against the deposed emperor.  In the meanwhile all old blunders will get swept under the royal carpet waiting for the next economic upturn which will then be used to confirm the “rightness” of decisions taken earlier. It is another thing that the world has changed inexorably over the past decade and acche din may never dawn again, certainly not for everyone.

According to some scholars the word Cyrus means “annihilator of enemies in verbal contest”. If our Cyrus runs true to his name, Tata Sons have a long fight ahead of them and the media can look forward to periodic spikes in TRP as both sides take potshots at each other.

The ultimate question, a US $ 108 billion one at that, which seems to be on everyone’s mind : “Is our Cyrus,  Cyrus The Not-So-Great or is he Cyrus The Ingrate?”  Only one person knows the correct answer to that question and he is not telling. Perhaps it is time for Ms Radia to call him!!!

LazyBee

25^th Nov 2016