Dear Shri NR Narayana Murthy,

I am able to write this letter only because I cared more for my own health than for the financial well-being of my employer. The year: 1973. I got my first job with a monthly salary of Rs 350 as an Injection Moulding Machine Operator at Kandivali in Bombay, now Mumbai.

I could have received Rs 400 as salary if I had a certificate at that time to show that I was a graduate. When I started working, I realised that even an illiterate person could do the job. The machine could be run on three modes — automatic, semi-automatic, and manual.

Productivity would decrease drastically if it was run in manual mode, though it was the safest. I ran it in semi-automatic mode, which was safer than fully automatic mode. The supervisor knew that if I could produce 10 pieces per minute in semi-automatic mode, I could produce 12-15 in full-automatic mode.

Every time he switched it to automatic mode, I would put it back on semi-automatic mode. Do you know why I did it? Being a dreamy kind of person, a little laxity on my part could have left me palm-less. A few days later, I saw a person of my age with a bandaged hand at the factory gate.

It was lunchtime. I met him and asked what had happened to him. He told me that his palm had been crushed, perhaps in the same machine I was operating at that time. He was there trying to get some compensation.

I quit the job, only to face a lot of problems getting the first month's salary, as I had not completed one month. If I had continued there, I would most probably have lost my palm. Even if I had not, I would, at best, have become a supervisor, forcing workers to put their machines on automatic mode so that the proprietor's income increased automatically.

Mine was an eight-and-a-half-hour work schedule. The eight hours would move at a snail's speed, while the half-hour lunchtime would end in a whiff. I stayed at Bassein Road, and to reach the factory, I had to first walk to the station, then catch a train to Kandivali, and from there take a BEST bus to reach the factory. I spent at least three hours commuting.

This meant I had to spend 15.5 hours a day on work, leaving only 9.5 hours to cook, wash clothes, and sleep. It was indeed a tough schedule. I still remember running to the station, clutching two dry chapattis with sugar sprinkled on them so that I was not late for work.

When you first articulated your thoughts about increasing the work time to 70 hours per week to make India "prosperous," I thought you made the suggestion without understanding the pros and cons. Your opinion elicited criticism, if not outright condemnation, from a cross-section of society. Your silence, I thought, indicated your rethinking on the subject.

Alas, I was mistaken. You have reiterated your demand for a 70-hour work schedule. It is wisely said that "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." I am sorry to say, you have also raised the demand virtually for a 12-hour work schedule for six days a week in the name of seeing India as a "prosperous" nation.

I told you how I, then a bachelor, had to struggle to do my eight-hour duty. We all work either for our satisfaction, as in your case and mine, or to meet the necessities of life, as in the case of tens of millions of people. I did not find any happiness in doing the factory work that I did. Today, I am sitting early in the morning to write this letter because I enjoy doing it, and it also fetches some money.

That is not the case with, say, womenfolk. During a train journey, I heard some women employees of the P&T Department discussing their problems. They live in Thiruvananthapuram and work in Thrissur. They get up early in the morning, cook without a pressure cooker for fear that the whistle would disturb the neighbour, and prepare both breakfast and tiffin for their husbands and children before catching the train at 6 am.

If the train is late, their bosses scold them. While returning, they buy vegetables and cut them on the train so that they can cook dinner as soon as they reach home around 9 pm. The only time they sleep comfortably is on the train.

How do you expect them to slog for 12 hours at the workplace? It will alienate the entire women workforce. They will simply not be able to work. As it is, over 53 per cent of women remain outside the labour force. This is one of the highest rates in the world. This does not mean that women do not contribute to the economy. If the work they do at home, taking care of children and managing the household, is computed, it would amount to about Rs 22.7 lakh crore, or approximately 7.5 per cent of the GDP.

Let me also provide a comparative figure. The Indian Female Labor Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) stands at 37 per cent, compared to the global average of 49 per cent. India's position is 165th among 185 countries. This figure will drastically drop if you influence the Narendra Modi government with your 70-hour week idea.

When I read the report about your suggestion, I was reminded of the condition of workers, especially child labour, as described in Charles Dickens' novels. This might have helped in the industrialisation of Britain, but it came at the cost of the people.

You can go around the country and see magnificent buildings, especially temples, towers, and forts. They are touted as signs of prosperity of the period. Were any of the workers who built these monuments, including the many palaces in your own Karnataka, happy? Did they become prosperous?

I have seen your campus, which is said to be very beautiful. Did any of the workers who built it become prosperous? No, I am not talking about the contractors but the workers.

I live in Dwarka, known as a sub-city in Delhi. Thirty years ago, when I came to see the property, there was nothing here. Now, it is a concrete jungle with wide roads, shopping malls, "international" schools, and five-star hospitals. But how much does a daily wager earn here? The minimum wage declared by the government is Rs 673 per day.

They are seldom given this amount. Let's assume that a person who has to support his family gets this amount. A family of four can barely afford two meals a day with it, and that too if they live in a tent at the construction site. Do you want him to work for 12 hours a day so that his employer can earn more?

In Kerala, there are massive textile and jewellery shops that can compete with the largest in the world. They employ women in large numbers, but they cannot sit and must always stand. To avoid going to the loo, they prefer not to drink water. It is out of compulsion that they work. They are not like your wife, who travels, writes, and rubs shoulders with the rich and the powerful in Parliament House.

These women are bothered about their bread-and-butter issues, not the "prosperity" of the country. By the way, your assumption that the prosperity of a nation is related to the number of hours workers spend at their workplace is entirely wrong. Take the case of Norway or, for that matter, any Scandinavian country.

In Norway, people work only 27 hours a week. They enjoy the best social security, and it is the second most productive nation. Is there any social security for workers in the construction sector here?

Many people think companies like Infosys are doing a great job. The fact is that they write software for Western countries and multinationals. Do you know why they get business? It's because no young American or European would like to sit in a cubicle for up to 15 hours or more doing back-breaking coding work. They find it cheaper and more convenient to get it done by people in Third World countries.

In 2000, Time magazine listed 100 inventions that transformed the world during the second millennium. The list included the computer, electricity, and many other items. Unfortunately, none of them was invented by an Indian.

Why I mention this is because of a recent statement you made. You said Indian youth lost 1,000 years to conquerors from Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and the British. Your calculation assumes invaders began arriving in 1000 AD, and their rule ended in 1947. Of course, there's nothing new in what you said because Narendra Modi also claims India lost its glory due to foreigners.

India was a larger and more prosperous country than any of those countries. But first, please ask yourself: was there an "India" at that time? Please read VP Menon's book on integration, which details how he integrated over 500 princely states into the Indian Union under the leadership of Sardar Patel, who was his immediate boss.

Where was India in 1000 AD when, according to you, it came under foreign occupation? There were small states that fought among themselves. There was no unity among the people. It was easy for any foreigner to take control because neither patriotism nor nationalism was intrinsic to our character.

How else do you explain the ease with which the Portuguese took control of Goa, a Hindu-majority region ruled by a microscopic Muslim minority? Had the people thrown one stone each at the Portuguese, they would have run away. Instead, they ruled Goa for nearly 500 years.

Yes, India had great grammarians and linguists, but knowledge was the preserve of the Brahmins. They did not allow non-Brahmins to study or acquire knowledge. We celebrate the guru who asked for Eklavya's thumb by renaming Gurgaon, an IT hub, after him, but forget the great self-taught archer. Dronacharya knew that his favourite student, Arjun, was no match for the tribal boy.

We also believed that only Kshatriyas should fight. The majority Dalits simply stood and watched as the East India Company gained its foothold in India. Like it or not, it was the British who popularised education by setting up universities in Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. They also allowed Dalits to travel by trains and buses. In fact, in 1857, the British wrested power from the mutineers by using Dalit power.

A few years ago, you established a $5.2 million endowment at Harvard University to translate classical works in Sanskrit, Kannada, Telugu, Urdu, and other languages into English. Why did your son choose a foreign university for the endowment instead of a publishing house like Gita Press, Gorakhpur, which recently received a huge cash prize from the Modi government?

Does Gita Press publish the Vedas? No, they don't, because if they did, the texts would become easily accessible to women and lower-caste people. It took Max Müller to translate them into English for greater dissemination. Your son knows that no Indian university can match Harvard's capabilities. Why is that?

In UP, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath breaks his own records year after year. This year, 25 lakh diyas were lit in Ayodhya, a world record. Do you know the quantity of oil wasted? We encourage young men to walk hundreds of kilometres to collect Ganga water, which the Green Tribunal has declared unfit even for bathing.

When there was a possibility that Sonia Gandhi might become Prime Minister, a woman leader vowed publicly to sleep on the floor and live as a widow if that happened. Did any leader in Britain react similarly when your son-in-law became Prime Minister there?

And when Rishi Sunak violated a minor traffic law, a constable punished him. Imagine that happening in India. Is this disparity also because of the "wasted 1,000 years" you speak of?

Have a heart, Sir!