BENEVOLENT BEACON
The 72-year-old IT czar has donated half of his stake, worth over $7 billion, in Wipro, becoming the first Indian to sign the Giving Pledge. He was considered the most generous Indian of 2014 by the Hurun India Philanthropy List. Premji has also donated much of his wealth to the two trusts, The Azim Premji Foundation and Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives. Premji, who holds over 73 per cent stake in Wipro, worth about `99,500 crore, has given away 18 per cent shares, in addition to a 39 per cent stake that he had committed to charity in 2015.
Excerpts from his letter:
My mother was the most significant influence in my life as I was growing up. She was a strong woman, and a deeply committed person. Though she was a doctor, she did not actually practice medicine, but dedicated a large part of her life, close to 50 years, in helping to build and run a charitable hospital for children with polio and cerebral palsy in Bombay. It was not an easy task. It was very difficult to get the funding and even harder to organise everything and make it run efficiently. Yet she tackled every kind of challenge and never stepped back. “In those days, a newly independent India was abuzz with a sense of idealism and a genuine sense of nation-building; this influenced me as well. I was deeply influenced by Gandhi’s notion of holding one’s wealth in trusteeship, to be used for the betterment of society and not as if one owned it… “In these intervening three decades, I had seen India change and evolve. I became convinced that markets, public systems and philanthropic initiatives all had a significant role to play if the country was to have inclusive development, and that we needed to work purposefully towards establishing a more humane, equitable and ethical society for all our citizens. “It was this purpose that made me decide that I must focus my philanthropic initiative on trying to help improve the Public Education System in India, beginning with Primary Schools, for I strongly believe that Education is perhaps the most important social institution to empower individuals and shape a better society. And it’s the Public Education System that does (and will) best serve the disadvantaged and deprived. “I decided to set up an organisation, the Azim Premji Foundation in 2001, with the aim of working in collaboration with the government to improve the Public Education System. The Foundation currently has 800 people spread across the country and has plans to scale up to 4,000-5,000 people over the next five years. “I am committed to transferring more of my wealth to scale up the endowment of the Foundation. I strongly believe that those of us, who are privileged to have wealth, should contribute significantly to try and create a better world for the millions who are far less privileged.”
I was deeply influenced by Gandhi’s notion of holding one’s wealth in trusteeship, to be used for the betterment of society and not as if one owned it