THE STORY OF TWO BAD GUYS!
I am writing this post mainly with an eye on my friends in the university who rarely look beyond the politicians while lamenting the country’s plight. Next time they talk to me about these luminaries, I’ll ask them to read this post.
Most of what I have written is widely available on the internet. Please note that I am merely quoting what is popularly available. The stories mentioned here are stale (3-4 years old) but you’ll find it very fresh and palatable if you have not heard of it before!
I have a list of people I dislike. In that, Shiv Khera, Arindam Chaudhuri and A.K. Mishra (a ’self-styled success guru’ for UPSC Civil Services Exam) jostle for the top slot. For the uninitiated, Shiv Khera is “an Indian motivational speaker, author of self-help books, business consultant, activist and politician,” to quote Wikipedia. More on him, in a minute.
“Professor Arindam Chaudhuri”
according to his own website is a “management guru, economist and philosopher.” His business school, Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM), is one of the most advertised items in India. His clarion call “dare to think beyond the IIMs” is taken not with a pinch of salt but with a handful of salt, to coin a phrase.
However, in my circle, I still find people who are not aware of how this institute was vehemently exposed in the year 2005 by its own student(s), by Rashmi Bansal (IIM-A alumnus, editor of a popular youth mag JAM, and a popular blogger) and by the blogging community!
Those who are interested in knowing the nuts and bolts of the exposé should visit this Wikipedia entry and follow all the hyperlinks there. Also, do not forget to visit this OJR story and this Desipundit link: IIPM Blog Wars Redux.
Also click here to read how in June 2009, Careers 360 an Outlook magazine venture has proved that IIPM and Arindam = Fraud!
In the year 2008 the UGC had put IIPM in its list of ‘fake universities’. IIPM’s honour was of course restored with legal intervention!
Back to Shiv Khera, the con man
To begin with, let me give the devil his due! He recently caught the public imagination as a crusader against the indiscriminate reservations, period.
I am posting here a popular critique of Shiv Khera with some of my own observations. So, don’t expect bouquets; you’ll find them aplenty on the internet.
I have not read Shiv Khera and neither do I intend to. I, however, have seen his book ‘You can win’ and it is a mosaic built from a fine cut paste job! It is a best-seller, just the same (and freely available for download on Scribd or eSnips).
I have seen his quotes with the TM (trademark) signs. He publishes his own quotes as ads in newspapers like the Indian Express and Pioneer exhorting the public to change the politicians and whatnot. In campus lingo, such self-promotion is called IC (Identity Crisis)!
In the JNU campus in the past, his quotation ads have defaced the electricity boxes near Godavari bus stop, the notice boards of Kaveri hostel and other public places.
I recall once I had even written him a letter on how his sticker ads (election campaign) were defacing the cover page of my newspapers and therefore “he was a part of the problem” for me and others!
When his ‘CountryFirst’ was launched, it was on the front page of the Hindu newspaper! Never heard of it since!
He loves to be in the limelight and does not miss any chance to grab it and is aware of his criticisms(“pompous fraud”). He uses his oratorical (demagoguery) skills to his full advantage.
He has visited the JNU campus on many occasions and addressed public gatherings thanks to his association with the popular Youth For Equality (hereafter YFE).
When he was visiting the JNU campus, I was under the impression that his infamy will reach JNU before he will and the left-wing student bodies will cover the campus with posters and quotes of his intellectual misdeeds.
I, however, was surprised to find that not many people even knew of the most popular criticism against him (discussed below). I had even suggested my friends in the YFE not to get a man like him aboard who would do more harm than good to the cause.
Once some student had even suggested YFE against inviting people who ‘charge a few hundred rupees’ from audiences in small towns to give motivational and whatnot lectures!
It is common for the critics of YFE in JNU campus to suggest that the YFE is becoming an appendage or subsidiary of Shiv Khera, his party and his overall designs! Some even say that Shiv Khera got a “ready-made” student wing for his party!
I firmly believe people like Shiv Khera believe in self-upliftment more than anything else. If such people do anything for the public, they certainly have some latent motive.
Now the most damning indictment of Shiv Khera. Shiv Khera is a plagiarist, a cheat; he used another person’s work and passed it as his own. The matter was settled in “25 Lakh Rupees” (Kaavya Vishwanathan was not so lucky!). Read below to know how the wolf in lamb’s cloth stabbed his friend in the back and decide for yourself if such a person can be a good human being!
I am quoting here from the article ‘You Can Steal And Win’ published in the Outlook magazine in July 2004 (visit the website to read the full story):
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“It was a flattering offer for the retired railway official and author of two small forgotten books when management guru and million-copies-selling author Shiv Khera invited him to work together last month.
Just what he meant by “working together” struck 70-year-old Amrit Lal only when he was out of Khera’s posh condominium in Singapore.
Flicking through the book Khera had given him as a parting gift, Freedom is Not Free, Lal discovered sentence after sentence lifted from his own book, India-Enough is Enough, published nine years ago. “It was like seeing a priest coming out of a whorehouse,” is how Lal decribes his sense of outrage at the “lift and shift robbery”….
All night, Lal scoured through the 223-page book Khera had gifted him with a personal inscription “To Mr Amrit Lal-Let’s together make the country proud.” He discovered, to his rage, at least 34 instances where sentences and even paragraphs from his own book-a 177-page crusade against corruption-had been lifted almost verbatim.
What shocked Lal was Khera’s negligence about readapting the material he had pinched. References to Americanisms like prairie chicken, Hudson River, Calgary Towers, Harvard University studies pop up at regular intervals, and at one place, as Lal points out, Khera even refers to America as “our nation.”
“Even an acronym I had coined, RNI, he has stolen as a subtitle. I had used a verse by Iqbal in my book which Khushwant Singh translated specially for me into English. Khera passes it off as his own…
“Even in his bestselling You Can Win, it’s 73 per cent anectodes and jokes (82 anecdotes, almost all of them unacknowledged, in 290 pages). The rest is quotes (90) and one-liners and poems (13) of which five are not acknowledged.”
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I’ll conclude by quoting from some comments on the said Outlook article by the readers:
- “People like Khera are a shame to India. They are the wolves in a sheep’s clothing. They know how to mint money by fooling people…” M.S. Sodhi, Singapore
- Khera is a cheap type person who steals original literary works of other, lesser-known authors and presents them his own. He is best suited to be a politician in India….SKDONWEB, Bangalore
- I had the chance to listen to Khera in Bhopal once. We got in after much jostling and pushing to hear the wise man. I came back feeling cheated. He pranced on the stage all evening, repeating one-liners he had memorised to mesmerise people. He turned out to be nothing more than a conman. Manju Dhall
Phew! That was almost 1500 words!
You are free to agree or disagree with this post. Hit the comment link.
Photo courtesy: Arindam Chaudhuri’s website,Outlook Magazine, Shiv Khera’s website
Oh really! I didn’t know, Shiv Khera asks for money for what he says. Moreover more shocking is the fact that jnu community didn’t pay heed to this profesional attitude of this self styled guru. Thanks to your blog, I came to know the other side of his face.
@Sanjay Kumar
He is a motivational speaker. Making money from it is part of his job. His corporate workshops (advertised in major newspapers) are available for business executives who could pay thousands of Rupees. His motivation seminars are also held in smaller cities and towns!
Even I writing a post on Arindam and IIPM
and incidentally I too dislike Shiv khera, Robin Sharma and the league
@ Amit,
We are good people and therefore on the same wavelength!:)
Cheers!
Hey Vikas…..
To start with i would say every coin has 2 sides.
Maybe what you saying has some some amount of truth in it but thats not the complete truth.
Nice post. I despise Khera and company as well. And Arindam, well the less said about him, the better.
@Karan
Thanks for visiting Karan! Will soon frequent your blog (kinda like-minded we are).
ridiculous . this post has revealed it all
i didnt know that this person was so damn fake from top to bottom
nice you did it on your blog vikas .
honestly speaking, you wouldnt believe …..when i approached this person who copied my entire thing ( not to mention with a polite message to delete it asap ……)this as**** hurled abuses at me …i was too shocked i blocked him right then and gave his crap back to him ( with a good dose )
people can be so uncreative, i can hardly imagine
and adding you to my blogroll ……please go ahead with more exposes of plagiarists
i would love to read them all
in btw….are you studying in JNU ?
@Arpit,
Thanks Arpit. The Shiv Khera story is so old but people including in my campus are blissfully unaware of it!
Yes, I am a Ph.D. student with JNU.
good site!
shiv is best, he is a person who break the diamond without even a single touch. he is a persons who have a strong will power & i admire him very much for his valuable thought.
Thank you very much for exposing these two “worthies”.
I think our nation is in for bad times ahead, if such men are going to “lead” it intellectually. They are nothing but psuedo-intellectuals at best.
I wonder when will this massive conspiracy of silence shall end!!!!!
I DISLIKE BOTH OF THEM… THEY ARE A BLOT ON MANAGEMENT FRATERNITY…
LOVED THIS POST … (NOTHING IN COMPARISON WITH THE RTI ?NNAIRE.. tHOUGH)… BUT I JUST DESPISE BOTH THE JOKERS….
I WAS JUST KIDDING… YEAH MAY BE RANCHI KA HAWA IN MY OFFICE……….
I have read “you can win” and i should tell you that i helps one to get clear concept about success but on the same hand book is confusing& misleading.
Once it got a question why people who are actually great (corporate giants,great players )don’t write motivational books its simple because they want to hide their success receipe.Lastly i now beleive that Hardwork is only key to success.
Such authors book are like a father telling his child “Ja beta aam todke k aa!”
Mr Vikas Gupta, its easy to right such things on a blogspot but i wonder how much you know about Mr arindam chaudhari.I am not his supporter but i also firmly believe that he is the man who is the most hyped management guy in india. Even the IIMites dont stand in front of his brand value. His Indian dream foundatation is working for the masses for so long.With IIMites facing the brain drain IIPM/ICFAI has been good in maintaining the flow of management grads in india.
Well Mr Vikas am sure you can shout and speak in blogspots, noone even recognises you in Corporate community.
Finally i would say we indians are good in pulling leg but never can appreciate if someone does good. Probably you woul have liked arindam and shiv khera if they have gone through a rat race called CAT and have passed from IIM. Might be you are a frustrated soul a trainer most probably who faces stiff competition from a non management guy called shiv khera and a intellect like arindam.
Reality,
Thank you for your comment.
I really do not know much about Arindam Chaudhauri except what is popular in the public domain (some of which is mentioned above). I do not have knowledge or expertise enough to attribute all the good things that you have to Arindam Chaudhuri.
FYI, I am not shouting here for recognition etc. I have nothing personal against him. Follow all the links and you will find that from the Outlook to other bloggers, everyone has criticised him with proof and whatnot! Feel free to call in question everybody.
I am not in competition with anybody for your information. I am just a student. You are free to like and adore both Arindam and Shiv Khera. All the best.
hello friends can u teell me the life of shiv khera
i+ mean how+ he deci+de to become a motivati++ve writer
Ankur,
I have no idea on that. You can send him an email from his website etc.
csrees 360 said that iipm degree is illegl wat do want to say on this
Priyanka,
I have read that story. Ask the IIPM maybe or read the comments on that page http://www.careers360.com/news_3832-IIPM-s-offering-of-MBA-BBA-degrees-is-illegal-and-students-using-the-titles-can-be-prosecuted
Hello Nidhi,
Every coin has two sides indeed! It is just that some people hide the darker side!
Every letter that I have written in the post in truth and nothing but the truth. I have only mentioned their critique and made in clear in the post. The internet is full of their admiration. The complete picture would definitely take both faces in account. A lot of people like these luminaries (these people probably like themselves more than anyone else) and I wrote to help people know the complete picture!
Thanks for visiting. You may like my latest post “A list of my follies” wherein I have criticised myself!
Thanks once again.
Rohit,
Sorry for the delayed reply to your comment; it had gone to the spam queue and I was away for some time. I stand by my criticism of Shiv Khera. He is only fooling everybody!
A complete picture only emerges when the same article discusses both facets of the person: the good and the bad!
Hence your article can only be termed as onesided without giving the attacked person the right to respond
It is an article on how the two frauds are cheating this country Ms Neerja and not a biography of these people. The Career 360, an Outlook venture, in its recent publications has even exposed Arindam afresh! And what is meant by giving the attacked person a right to respond! Anyone is free to read this article including the two! Feel free to argue against the article in the comments!
The debate between me and Neerja continued on email too.
Neerja: personally dont like arindam but shiv khera even if he has lifted material is trying to motivate: if he gets even some Indians(us) to change and think for the country: its a job well done
regards
neerja
Vikas: He had not lifted just “some material:” it was a major case of plagiarism and was settled out of court in 25 Lac Rupees and had ditched his close friend!
His motivation book as well is nothing but cut paste work; a motivator who wants people to do good should do some good himself for the sake for ethics.
He only thinks for his own welfare and nothing else. Public welfare is tangential to his personal aims. He needs change more than anyone else.
Smitha, Only fools can like them! I am glad there are people who do not think like Shahrukh Khan!
Smitha, I wonder what will become of you when you will see the complete 140 pages of the RTI ?nnaire!! You will probably roll in laughter! I am not getting motivation for writing or else I would finish my book in no time and then make an exhaustive blog on CSE! You know Taurus is motivated by immediate money/reward; I have written long essays in 2-3 hours when there was some monetary prize! I badly need to change myself on this!
GO TO A PUBLISHER……… BUT THAT CAN RUIN YOUR CHANCES WITH 314-323 FOR EVER…
WELL ITS NOT JUST TAURUS THAT’S MONEY MINDED.. CANCER, PISCES, CAPRICORN ARE OTHERS… HMMM…MAYBE/NOT… SOME THING SHOULD MOTIVATE FOR AN OUTCOME TO MANIFEST… GUESS YOURS IS MONEY…
I MAY DIE OF LAUGHTER MAY BE…………..READING YOUR RTI ?NNAIRE
VIRGO IS ANOTHER… EARTH SIGNS ARE MOTIVATED BY MONEY…
What is 314-323?! I am applying my brains like anything and am still clueless! My humour has abandoned me! How am I not able to decipher it?!!!
314-323… Articles of constitution pertaining to public service commissions
LOL! I was almost there! I was guessing that it means that UPSC will teach me a lesson and never give me marks in the range 314 to 323! I like euphemisms and your humour!
ohh thanks!!! ranchi ka ex-hero (now that he’s married… fuh-get him) taught me this wicked and weird ways of putting up things…
Ohkk! So this wisdom originated in my own backyard LOL!
NOW ….THAT IS NOT FAIR!!!! IT ORIGINATED A FEW YARDS AWAY FROM ME …. AT MY WORK STATION…:p
Okay , you win!
Thanks for the insightful comment Swapnil.