After India’s defeat in the war with China in 1962, two army officers, Henderson Brooks and Prem Bhagat, wrote a report on what went wrong. “The Government of India has left the report classified, citing national security reasons.”
On March 17, 2014, the journalist Neville Maxwell posted part of the report on his website. In Parliament, Defence Minister A.K. Antony said its contents were “not only extremely sensitive but are of current operational value.”
Indian courts have often accepted documents from the government in a sealed cover, seen by the judges but not by the other side. On April 5, 2023, in Madhyamam Broadcasting v. Union of India, the Supreme Court held that the practice creates “a culture of secrecy and opaqueness, and places the judgment beyond the reach of challenge.”
Two weeks earlier, in a case on military pensions, Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud had refused a sealed cover from the government. “I am personally averse to sealed covers,” he said. “There cannot be secrecy in the court.”
Every Union minister in India takes two oaths. The second is an oath of secrecy, set out in the Third Schedule of the Constitution: “I will not directly or indirectly communicate or reveal to any person or persons any matter which shall be brought under my consideration or shall become known to me as a Minister for the Union except as may be required for the due discharge of my duties as such Minister.”
In the Mahabharata, Kunti bears a son before her marriage. Fearing the stigma, she abandons him. He grows up as Karna and fights against her other sons, the Pandavas. After the war Kunti tells Yudhishthira: “I tried in past times to apprise Karna of his brothership with you.”
Yudhishthira answers: “In consequence of thyself having concealed your counsels, this great affliction has overtaken me!” He then curses all women: “Henceforth no woman shall succeed in keeping a secret.”
On May 12, 2008, the Supreme Court of India ruled in Dev Dutt v. Union of India that “every entry in the ACR of a public servant must be communicated to him within a reasonable period.” This applied “whether it is a poor, fair, average, good or very good entry.” The bench was Justices H.K. Sema and Markandey Katju.
The ACR is the Annual Confidential Report on an officer. The court held that “non-communication of an entry is arbitrary.”
The Arthashastra, the ancient treatise on statecraft attributed to Kautilya, has a chapter on the king’s council meetings. It states: “The subject matter of a council shall be entirely secret.” It also states: “Whoever discloses counsels shall be torn to pieces.”
ValueNotes, an Indian research firm, gives foreign partners ten tips for doing business with Indians. One of them reads: “In a meeting, we don’t like to contradict the boss, especially if he’s wrong!”
The tip continues: “The flip side is that those in powerful positions expect deference, and consensus.”
Jaan-pehchaan means knowing people and being known by them. A study by Berger, Barnes, Konwar, Singh and colleagues surveyed managers at more than 300 companies in India.
It describes three parts of the practice: pehchaan, recognition, len-den, give and take, and bharosa, trust. Together they shaped how satisfied companies were with their business relationships and how long they planned to keep them.
In a 2008 column for The Economic Times, the mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik wrote: “Indians prefer to say things, and hear things, rather than read things or write them down.” His conclusion for managers was direct: “Verbal communication is the key to success in the Indian business environment.”
He traced the habit back to the Vedas. “Revelation came to the Rishis in the form of a divine whisper: an auditory communication.”
In one of the Akbar and Birbal tales, the emperor Akbar praises the brinjal, and his minister Birbal praises it too. Birbal even sings two songs about it. A few days later Akbar finds a brinjal dish tasteless. Birbal now says that the vegetable is unhealthy.
Asked why he changed his mind, Birbal says that he is loyal to the emperor, not to the brinjal. One retelling puts it this way: “I am beholden to you, not to the Brinjal.”