Tata Saga – Part 14
Should the identity of the Yogi of NSE be revealed. What effect will it have on society ? Chitra has served enough hours in interrogation rooms for the govt to know who the mysterious yogi is. Even I know who the yogi is. And now we know he was controlling Chandra. And SN Subramanyam at L&T. He even had a hand in HDFC. Usually Yogis are spiritual people. But this one is not. He held a job which was higher than that of the NSE MD. Then he retired from govt service and started milking the Tatas. They call it power couple these days.
But now, what do you do with someone so dangerous. Should you retire the person or the institution.
Japan has a remarkable tradition for turning 60.
It is called Kanreki.
The person wears a red vest because 60 marks the completion of one 60-year cycle — and symbolically, a return to infancy.
60 is not the end. It is permission to begin again.
There is a lesson here for India.
We often confuse respect for institutions with preservation of institutions.
But institutions are tools. They are not sacred objects.
When the world changes, the machinery built for the old world may no longer be fit for purpose.
India has done this before.
In 2015, the Planning Commission, created in 1950, was replaced by NITI Aayog. The people, knowledge and experience accumulated over decades did not have to disappear. What changed was the institutional architecture.
That is the spirit of Kanreki.
Retire institutions — not people.
Let people carry their experience, judgement and institutional memory into the next chapter.
But don’t make the next generation inherit the architecture of the previous one.
The question for every institution should be:
“If we were creating this institution today, would we design it this way?”
If the answer is no, why are we defending it?
A Samartha Bharat cannot be a museum of inherited structures.
It must be a civilisation capable of continuous adaptation.
Every generation should inherit the wisdom of the previous generation — without being trapped by its institutional designs.
Preserve wisdom.
Question structures.
Retire what has outlived its purpose.
Build what the future requires.
Perhaps India’s own Kanreki is not about celebrating how long our institutions have survived.
It is about having the courage to ask:
What should we retire before the next generation inherits it?
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