Ministerial aspirants should be good

learners too

24 August 2015 00:05

Fourth Century Indian Guru Kautilya offers several pertinent
lessons for Sri Lankas new Government
The late Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew made certain that all his
ministers possessed the virtues of competence and integrity - AFP
Lessons from Kautilya and Singapore
The election is now over, a Prime Minister has been sworn in and a new
Cabinet is to be appointed shortly. Many in the government party as well as
those planning to cross over from the Opposition are aspiring to be
Ministers.
The new Government, as announced at the election, is committed to
delivering an extensive program within 60 months. The ability of the
Government to do so will depend on the competence of the Chief Managers
known as Ministers who are in charge of the program. Thus, the
knowledge, ability and willingness to learn and the width of the world
outlook of the prospective Ministers are the key factors contributing to the
success of the Government. In this connection, there are some lessons from
Kautilya, the fourth century BCE Indian Guru and from the experiences of
Singapore that would come in handy for the new Government.

Quality and integrity of ministers a must

One piece of advice which Kautilya gave to the king in his treatise on
economics, The Arthashastra, was that, when appointing ministers and high
officials, he should look for quality and integrity in them.
The essential qualities of a minister are that,
according to Kautilya: He should have been trained
in all the arts and have the logical ability to foresee
things. The ministers should be intelligent,
persevering, dexterous, eloquent, energetic, bold,
brave, able to endure adversities and firm in loyalty.
He should neither be haughty (arrogant) nor fickle
(inconsistent and wavering). He should be amicable
and not excite hatred or enmity in others.
Kautilya further recommended that those who had
the highest number of qualities out of the above
attributes should be appointed to the most important
positions.
The need for educating ministers
A king will disregard these essential requirements
when appointing ministers to the peril of both
himself and his kingdom. While the king himself
should be educated, his ministers should also be
educated, intelligent and skilled in numerous arts
and sciences.
The arts and the sciences in which a minister should
be versed differ significantly today from what was
required in ancient times. Just to get a taste of those
arts and sciences considered useful in those days,
one may refer to Chulavansa which states that the
King Parakramabahu the Great, who is said to have
been well versed in Kautilyan ways, had a civil
servants training school in which the future ministers
and top civil servants had to master skills to
command horses and elephants in war, fencing,
foreign languages, dancing and singing.
Learning foreign languages comes in handy for
ministers
In ancient times, both ministers and top civil
servants had to take up arms to defend the country
and the king from enemies, both from within and
outside their kingdom, hence the need for acquiring

skills in warfare.
The mastering of foreign languages enabled them to acquire new
knowledge and undertake cultural, religious and economic transactions with
foreigners. The skills in dancing and singing are ways of killing the stress
which such high positions naturally entailed on them. In todays context,
learning foreign languages and arts is still valid. In addition, it will behove
ministers and top civil servants to learn of international laws, global
economic and political issues and every aspect of the subject matter which
has been assigned to them.
Good counsel is far better than a whole military
The training, learning and intelligence will equip a minister or a councillor
with sound judgemental powers. Kautilya, having given the highest value to
this quality, has advised that the power of good counsel is superior to
military strength; with good judgment, a king can overwhelm even kings
who are mighty and energetic. This emphasises the superiority of the
power of the brain over the power of the muscles, money and numbers.
Hence, there is no shortcut for a person to become a minister or a top civil
servant. He has to undertake an arduous skill and capacity-building exercise
by placing him on a continuous learning program.
A selection process for ministers
One secret behind the much envied success story of Singapore is that it has
in fact seen to the appointment of qualified, competent and quality persons
as ministers. In that little city state, there is a selection process for
appointing ministers, in addition to the election process already set in
through normal elections. Any politician who desires to become a minister
has to undergo strenuous training and learning in the subject which he
plans to be in charge after being appointed as a minister.
Accordingly, if a politician desires to be the trade minister, he has to acquire
knowledge on current international trade issues, globalisation and its
impact on the country, trade theories and competitive efficiency and so on.
The chosen politician is appointed to the post only after he has shown a
good progress in his learning. According to Lee Kuan Yew, the leader
credited with Singapores miraculous achievements, even the appointment
of the Head of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) was done by
following this process. The chosen candidate had to undergo a rigorous
banking, monetary and financial training program for one full year in 1997
before he was appointed as the Managing Director of MAS in 1998. In this
manner, Lee says, the appointee was fully ready to move in the expected
liberalisation and establishing monetary and financial stability in the
country.

Appoint best men as ministers or lose

There are many lessons which a country of modern times could learn from
Kautilyas ancient wisdom and Singapores modern wisdom. Similar to The
Arthashastra which Kautilya wrote as a manual for future kings and rulers,
Lee Kuan Yew too has written his memoirs in two volumes titled The
Singapore Story and From Third World to First for the guidance of
Singapores younger generations.
A modern ruler can use these three volumes as his Bible for
attaining success for himself as well as for his nation.
In addition to having a continuously improving knowledge base,
Lee says that ministers and top civil servants should be of the
highest degree of integrity and probity. Kautilya too focuses on
these two requirements.
Competent people should be appointed to the Cabinet,
according to Lee, because no prime minister can achieve much
without an able team. Hence, his style was to appoint the best
man he had to be in charge of the most important ministry,
namely, finance.
According to Kautilya, if the Treasury is empty, that is the end of
the kingdom. Thus, if the head of the Treasury causes losses to
kings treasures deliberately, says Kautilya, he should be
whipped in public. In the past, two ministers who caused
governments to fall in Sri Lanka were the Minister of Finance and the
Minister of Education. Hence, appointing competent people with a future
vision to occupy these two critical ministries is a must today. Any failure in
this regard will be fatal to the new Government which has come to power at
the recent election.
Qualities of a great learner
With regard to knowledge, Kautilya says that the king, his ministers and top
civil servants should be good learners. Knowledge for both Kautilya and Lee
was global knowledge and not a narrow indigenous knowledge.
In Ethics of Chanakya, Kautilya praised a learners desire to acquire global
knowledge by saying that, for a scholar intent on gaining knowledge, no
country is foreign.
In the same text, Kautilya identifies six attributes of a good learner which a
ministerial aspirant has to cultivate. They are obedience to teacher (selfdiscipline and humility), ability and willingness to learn (desire for
knowledge), ability to understand what is learnt (high IQ), retaining what is
learnt (cultivating memory power), reflecting on what is learnt (keeping a
constant touch) and ability to make inferences from what is learnt
(application).
This requires all those in high positions in Government to place themselves
on a continuous learning program. Lee says that after serving as Prime

Minister for nine years, he enrolled himself in the Harvard Business School
in 1968 to brush up and update his knowledge base and during his entire
career as PM, had frequent and regular discussions with learned people and
industry leaders to acquire new knowledge. He has advised others too to
follow suit.
Sri Lankas new PM goes to school once again
Following this global trend of developing new leaders, Sri Lankas new Prime
Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe followed a similar course in 2014 at the
Centre for International Studies of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, USA.
There are at least two up-and-coming politicians in the ruling United
National Party who also have followed similar advanced courses in US
universities earning Fellowships. This has to be expanded to cover all the
new ministerial aspirants in Sri Lanka. If they are unable to attend such
courses in foreign universities for prolonged times, arrangements could be
made to have such courses in Sri Lanka with foreign collaboration. It is
essential that Ministers should have a good knowledge of macroeconomic
framework and policies, emerging global developments and how Sri Lanka
should be placed within such a framework in the future.
Remunerate ministers well to take incentives to steal away
Though integrity and probity are important aspects of public life, both
Kautilya and Lee admit that it is difficult to ensure it unless people become
self-disciplined. Lee says that in the case of the founder generation of
Singapores leaders, it was not a problem because honesty was a habit. His
colleagues were able to spurn any attempt to suborn them. They had
taken trouble to assume power not to enrich themselves but to change
society. However, he says that this group could not be replicated because
it was not possible to recreate the conditions that made them different
from others. Hence, he suggests that ministers and public servants should
be remunerated adequately to thwart greedy desires to earn undue benefits
from their positions. Kautilya too has recommended very high salaries to
ministers in order to prevent them from succumbing to the temptation of
the enemy or rising up in revolt.
Ministers being economic managers should be paid well
Lee justifies high salaries to ministers on the ground that they are the
managers of the economy charged with the duty of enhancing the wealth
base of people, just like the top officials of a private company that is
required to raise the asset value of the shareholders.
If private companies can remunerate top officials for the extraordinary
talents and skills they have brought to the company, ministers and top civil

servants too should be treated with the same yardstick. To be competitive

with the private sector, Lee suggests that ministerial remunerations should
be upgraded every year depending on the growth of the economy and
improvement in its productivity.
To pay well, there should be growth in the economy
For a country to remunerate its ministers and civil servants well, the
important requirement is the continuous growth and limiting the total size
of the wage bill. The first is decided by the in-built infrastructure,
investment levels and the overall efficiency of the economy for which
ministers are substantially responsible.
However, to ensure the second, it is necessary to keep the ministerial
positions to a minimum number needed to run a Government efficiently. If
there are too many ministers, then the payment of high remunerations to
ministers will soon drain all the resources of the state.
Pay a block salary to Ministers
Lee has a further recommendation that, while paying ministers high, they
should be paid a high block salary as the final payment. He criticises the
practice of many countries to mislead the public by paying a small salary to
ministers and providing them with a plethora of hidden perks.
These perks include Government-paid bungalows, servants, security
officers, vehicles, drivers, coordinators, private secretaries, telephones,
mobile phones and so on. Because of the hidden nature, they cannot be
effectively controlled by the Treasury. Since the total cost of these perks is
not known, the public too does not know how much they spend to maintain
a minister. Hence, in the name of transparency, disclosure and good
governance, Lee says that it will be better for a society to pay a high salary
which is known and fixed to ministers rather than opening a bottomless pit
for them to dig into at their will.
Apply rules to ministers too
Paying a high salary may not be sufficient to deter an extra greedy person
from abusing his powers. In this connection, both Kautilya and Lee
recommend that those who have been found guilty of corruption should be
severely dealt with.
In fact, Kautilya recommends that ministers should be subject to
unannounced corruption temptation tests and those who are found to be
susceptible, should be promptly expelled. Lee, in his From Third World to
First has given numerous instances of dealing strictly with his Cabinet
colleagues who happened to have resorted to corrupt practices.
In fact, on one occasion, when the Opposition charged that his wife and son
had an undue advantage in a real estate transaction when he was out of
office, he demanded the incumbent Prime Minister to conduct an

investigation into the charges forth with. Though the inquiry found that
there was no impropriety in the transaction, he got his wife and son to
donate the sum involved to charity as a good gesture and an example for
others.

Ministers with desire to learn will deliver

The lessons to be learnt from Kautilya and Lee Kuan Yew are the same. That
is, a country should be placed in the hands of learned and intelligent people
who have a desire and will to upgrade their knowledge base continuously
and who will not succumb to the temptation of enriching themselves out of
their public offices.
Kautilya says a king, and Lee says a modern ruler will perish, along with his
nation too, in no time, if he does not follow these principles when
appointing his ministers.

Stay hungry, stay foolish!

Perhaps the real advice to ministerial aspirants was given by Steve Jobs of
Apple fame, a high school dropout, when he delivered the commencement
speech to students of the Stanford University of USA in 2005 (available at: .
http://youtu.be/mFi4zNJ7AxQ ).
He advised the students to stay hungry, stay foolish; hungry meaning
that they should never abandon their quest for knowledge and wisdom,
foolish meaning that they should never think that they know everything.
Any minister who follows this wisdom will stand to thrive and make the
country that he is to lead thrive as well.
(W.A Wijewardena, a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank
of Sri Lanka, can be reached at: waw1949@gmail.com )
Posted by Thavam