Sikhs are thus encouraged to have an intrinsic sensitivity to the natural world, and a belief that the fate of the planet and humanity are intertwined; destruction of one will lead to the destruction of the other.
The reputation that Sikhs have gained within India and throughout the Diaspora of being successful businessmen, industrialists and entrepreneurs can be explained by the commitment to the twin ethical principles of kirat karna and wand kay chhakna:
In the present climate where the financial sector across the globe increasingly finds itself under scrutiny, it is useful to explore what the Sikh perspective might be on ethical financial behaviour.
A major energy company honcho says emphatically that Montek must be disheartened, collecting the medals of his imminent defeats. “There is too much politics that fuels government decisions, too much voter-appeasement an economist like him must hate,” he says.
It is now Montek Singh’s eighth year as head of the planning commission and it is a measure of both the calibre of the man and the power that flows from his friendship with the PM that he has turned what was once a low-voltage job into one of the most powerful and contentious positions in the country.
So India entered a bright world of market-driven capitalism after years of socialist darkness, and was set on its current path of almost 8 percent annual growth in gross domestic product. Or so the story goes.
