Narayan Murthy, Founder of Infosys, recently said that India’s youth need to work 70 hours a week in order to increase the country’s overall work efficiency and economic growth. The statement by the Infosys founder caused a stir on social media, with several people, including the JSW Chairman Saajan Jindal, supporting the statement.
Others, however, questioned the long-term health effects of having an unreasonable and very long working hours schedule. Radhika Gupta, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Edelweiss Mutual Fund, a financial services conglomerate, commented on the statement saying, “Even though Indian women have worked much longer hours than 70 hours a week for many years, nobody paid much attention to it.”
Ms Gupta took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to say, “Between the office and home, hundreds of thousands of Indian women have worked more than 70 hours a week to build India (by our work) and our children (by our work). For decades and decades, with a smile on our faces and no demand for overtime. Funny that no one talks about us on Twitter.”
Since her post has been shared over 74,000 times, many people have commented on it. One user said, “Indian women are so hardworking and deserve to be recognized for it.” A second person said, “That’s true, but imagine working 70 hours a week with all the other in house work that women have to do. They don’t get a break on the weekends, so there’s no time for self-care.”
A third person said, “Even without office hours, women in India are working over 72 hours per week to feed their families. In our house, lunch is served before the last member finishes breakfast and so on.” A person said, “Well pointed, my husband did a lot to raise our son, so I’m not the only one working extra hours at home.” A fourth person said, “Work life in Mumbai is very long and we have to travel a lot to work and back.”
“Nothing will change unless the stigma of patriarchy is removed. Even in the West, Indian women who have full-time jobs are working at home while the men are out partying. I have friends who are just like that. Unless girls are treated equally with boys from the moment they are born, nothing will ever change,” wrote another.
Narayana Murthy spoke about the work culture in the first episode of the 3one4 Capital’s podcast ‘The Record’, where he discussed the extended working hours in Japan and Germany. He also discussed other topics such as the nation-building process, technology, Infosys and more.