On 24 July this year, the 75th birthday of Wipro’s former chairman, Azim Premji, HarperCollins India announced that it will be publishing the first authoritative biography of the business icon, also known as the czar of the Indian IT industry. Wipro, founded in 1945, also completes 75 years in December. Titled Azim Premji: The Man Beyond the Billions, this book by Sundeep Khanna and Varun Sood argues that Premji was a philanthropist at heart and a businessman by choice – a man who wanted to give away his billions but realized early enough that he would first have to earn them. It peels the layers off Premji’s life while chronicling his professional and charitable work in the context of the many facets of his personality. Based on interviews with hundreds of executives who have over the years worked closely with him as well as with competitors, analysts, family friends and industry associates, this is an account of Premji, the man, the businessman and the philanthropist. 

Recounting what moved them about Azim Premji himself, and the idea behind taking up the project of writing this book, here’s an account from the two authors sharing their respective takes. Starting with Sundeep Khanna’s note, we have one from Varun Sood following it:

Azim Premji has written the playbook of corporate behavior. Over the last 50 years, the man has weathered various shocks to his business – and done so without any hand-wringing. But what has never failed to work him up is anything to do with behavior that is even mildly unethical. It is the one issue on which he is unyielding as when he fired an executive for fudging a travel bill or when he refused to pay a bribe for power connection to the new Wipro campus in Sarjapur, choosing instead to use expensive gensets as the power source.

In that respect, as much as in his behavior and demeanor, Azim Premji has changed little since the first time I met him nearly 25 years ago for a story I was doing in Business Today. The gruff exterior hides a man who is deeply humanistic, who sees himself as a trustee of people’s wealth and who’s never let the size of his wallet influence his lifestyle. There’s much to admire in the self-made billionaire but there is also a lot to like too, including his wicked sense of humor.

It is what marks him out from among India’s many wealthy business tycoons and what served as a constant inspiration during the writing of this book. Every time we met someone and expected to find some chinks in his armor, something to suggest a supersized ego or an extravagant mogul, we came away disappointed.

Both Wipro and Azim Premji were born in 1945. In that sense he is one of Midnight’s Children, an Indian worthy of emulation but one whose lessons sadly seem lost on India’s business elite. A man of mystery, he arouses curiosity and awe in equal measure. Few question his intent any more, though through the 1990s and the early 2000s there was speculation about his obsessive need to mop up his company’s stock – at one point the Premji family held almost 80 per cent of Wipro. Subsequent events show why this was all a part of his grand plan to give it away to his foundation. 

The attempt by Premji to structurally change the way education is imparted in India is arguably the boldest and biggest social cause by a private entity. Premji looks at the work of his foundation as an integral part of the nation-building process. If in the future India’s education system sees a fundamental change, it will bear a stamp of this reclusive, large-hearted man.

Bringing his story to the world honestly, fairly and without any effort to influence in any way has been our reward.

Journalist Varun Sood shares the following about his experience:

It was sometime in late 2014 when I first heard of the town Amalner in central Maharashtra. I had relocated to Bengaluru and was reporting on the IT services sector for The Economic Times. Wipro, then the third-largest IT services company, had started as a cooking oil company from this very town when it was founded in 1945.

Around Diwali in 2019, I finally visited Amalner as part of my research and reporting for this book. What struck me most was that unlike Jamshedpur – the bustling industrial city where much of the infrastructure like access to drinking water, parks and schools has been built by the Tatas – the Premji family has steadfastly refused to allow any institutional commemoration of their association with Amalner.

But that hasn’t come in the way of people’s affection for the man – as I learnt when I met Sunil Rajaram Choudhary, a 49-year-old resident who runs a local bar in the city. In 2015, Sunil decided that people in Amalner need to give back something to Premji as Wipro had put the sleepy town on the global map. Over the last five years, Sunil has spent over Rs 1 lakh every year on donating safety gloves and face masks to municipal sewage workers and school bags and uniforms to school kids in the city.

‘I was so impressed when I read the news that Mr Premji has given over Rs 1,50,000 crore to improve primary education in the country. It made me think about how I could learn from his example and do something good … I hope more educated people in the country learn from my god, Premji,’ said Rajaram, who studied only up to standard ten.

It is debatable if Premji’s donation of $21 billion of his wealth to philanthropy has rubbed off on India’s rich, and if it has nudged them to plough their wealth to improve society. But a remarkable aspect is that Premji has always followed the underlying philosophy of charity: be discreet with your kindness.

This is unlike the current fad among many other wealthy people who make it a point to showcase even if they are constructing some toilets. 

Over my fourteen years as a journalist, I have never seen or read the Azim Premji Foundation (APF) advertising its work. My requests in the past for interviews with APF’s leaders have always been politely turned down; instead, I have been asked to speak with government officials, some of whom APF calls the real heroes.

The story of Sunil gives one hope that Premji’s act of kindness will inspire many others to learn from him that most quintessential of human traits: compassion. This is important in these times, as we try to steer through the uncertainty brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pre-order your copy of this inspiring read here: https://www.amazon.in/dp/935357983X