Arundhati’s Lucknow diary
In 2006, Arundhati Bhattacharya was posted in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, as a general manager with the State Bank of India (SBI), India’s largest bank. But she was unsure of accepting the position when first offered—her daughter’s schooling could have been disrupted. Bhattacharya reached out to one of her mentors, M.S. Verma, a former chairman of the bank.
Giving up a job takes just about 30 seconds, but building it takes a lifetime. So, don’t take it lightly, Verma told her. “It (giving up your job) should be the absolute last option after you’ve tried out everything. And if you’ve not tried out everything, then you know you’re not being fair to yourself,” she recounted the mentor telling her.
Bhattacharya is now 67. In the past decades, she has broken many barriers, seen through many institutional biases, and pushed ahead. And there were times when she didn’t know what to do—the Lucknow posting was one of them. Having good mentors help, the chairperson and CEO of Salesforce India and the former chairperson of SBI, said.
Working in a different city implies personal sacrifices and possibly, time away from family. That’s a choice many women grapple with.
“There were times when I had to prioritize work over family, but I always tell everyone that these are very personal decisions. Whatever the decision, you must be able to look yourself in the mirror and be okay with it,” Bhattacharya said. “If you prioritize family over work, that’s perfectly fine too”.
Bhattacharya accepts that women face the pressure of guilt when it comes to taking care of the children or elderly parents. This forces many to take a backseat. If they are in a middle to senior management position, it could mean a lot of travel.
Having said that, India Inc. today has better gender diversity compared to when Bhattacharya entered the workforce—in 1977. While this could mean that more women are prioritizing work, Bhattacharya feels some biases are just too ingrained. In fact, she realized that these biases are ingrained in her, too.
After a training programme at Salesforce, she had succumbed to asking men and women candidates a different slate of questions.
“For instance, I would ask women about family; I would ask how old the children were; I would ask where they were, and how would she manage in case the job required a lot of travel,” Bhattacharya said. “I was not asking men about travel, about where their children were and how old they were.”
The bottomline: Our diversity quotient is far better now but India and Indian corporates, both from the private and public sectors, have a long way to go.
“A public sector organization will only move forward (on diversity) when there is a mandate to move. In private companies, nobody needs mandates,” she said. “My concern is that there are people in the private sector who are aware. But they refuse to move because they haven’t gotten over their biases.”
(Contributed by Devina Sengupta)