Lord Krishna is one of the few friendly Indian gods, after a playful Ganesha, who has significantly large following all over. Krishnashtamai is celebrated with a lot of fervour in different parts of the country, including Mumbai, Ujjain, Indore, Ahmedabad and scattered across North India, mainly Delhi and its adjoining areas besides of course Mathura, his birth place. But Krishna did not remain in Mathura and went far away to Gujarat to set up what is known as Dwarka, on the west coast of India.He was not a born King!

There are many many legends associated with this lovely and intelligent god who first came into folklore and literature some 5,000 years ago in the Aryavart, as ancient India was then known. His role in the epic tussle between the Kauravas and the Pandavas not only provided him with an image of a shrewd war strategist but also as a guru and an extraordinary leader in the war that came to be known as Mahabharata. He was on the side of Pandavas in the dharma-yudha.

Having said what is generally known through school text books and TV serials etc, I would like to introduce this innovative book to young readers. It presents before us a Krishna with a very modern image in a jargon that may appeal instantly to those in the corporate world or have attended IIMs to study leadership skills, among other streams of knowledge. The book could also attract the imagination of young army officers as it separates Krishna from his godly image and puts forth a Krishna who is a complete leader, a mature philosopher, an activist-rebel, a philanthropic wealth creator, a war leader and a management strategist!

Girish Jakhotiya, himself a creative management consultant (he also likes to label himself a rebel philosopher) has done a wonderful job to help change our way of looking at Krishna just as a god. What is amazing is that when you read the book, you actually start thinking about the ‘God’ as the one described here and not the templewalah.

Like a CEO in today’s world, Krishna used a simple but effective pyramid of performance showing Gyan Yoga as transformation through knowledge, Bhakti Yoga as genuine followers and bottom of the pyramid as Karma Yoga meaning perpetual performance.

Abhilash Khandekar

The reviewer is Consulting Political Editor with the Free Press Journal group of newspapers and writes on urban affairs and environment

The book is neatly divided into nine chapters and is replete with diagrams for easy understanding of his personality with modern day references. But I must say the beauty of the book lies in the fact that you can read it from anywhere and you often feel convinced of the new definitions the author gives Krisna. He concludes the book with a question: what is the future of the Earth and the answer in Krishna’s philosophy and wisdom.

Title: Krishna Niti—Krishna’s
Author: Girish Jakhotiya
PP: 240
Price: ₹400
Publisher: Ujwal Prakashan

‘The future of the earth would definitely be safe, sacred and strong if all of us converge our faiths into one single universal religion. Krishna described this as collective discipline and individual freedom and saw himself as its facilitator and moderator’, the author says. Krishna’s discussion on Poorna-Purusha should be an agenda of performance for all of us, the author argues.

In dealing with Krishna’s versatile role, there is a comparison done with Buddha, Mahavir, Chanakya, Shivaji or later-day leaders like Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln or Gandhi and Tilak. Projecting him as an able world leader, it is said, ‘With six divine features like power, wealth, wisdom, beauty, success and sacrifice, Krishna could lead different people for different causes in different circumstances and at different places. His leadership approaches have been divided into two groups. First included learn-energiseactivate- develop and second, love-enhance-alter-develop’. The author, describing first approach as the combination of knowledge and duty and the second as devotion and duty, goes on to say he is tempted to compare Krishna’s qualities with business leaders such as JRD Tata whose leadership was by goodwill and Aditya Vikram Birla whose leadership was by action and to some extent with Lokmanya Tilak who believed in collective movements of people while Shankaracharya led by his spiritual intelligence.

The author has given an interesting table showing, as per his own perception, a comparison with at least 20 top leaders in the field of business, politics and spirituality from Veer Savarkar and Pt Nehru to Winston Churchill and Maharana Pratap to Kautilya and Atal Bihari Vajpayee with that of Krishna. Vajpayee, according to him, provided good leadership to India in difficult times yet he lacked operational tactics and roleflexibility. Undoubtedly, the book sets you thinking.

(The writer can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and @Abhikhandekar1 his Twitter handle.)