The Infosys co-founder Narayan Murthy whose 70-hour workweek remark sparked debate all over, has now issued clarifications for his statement. Narayan Murthy was present at the Kilachand Memorial lecture in Mumbai on Monday where he insisted on not ‘imposing’ long working hours on another person and also stated that such issues are not a matter of debate, rather introspection.

The 78 year- old founder earlier said about embracing hard work for the Indian workforce if they want the country to realize its potential at the global stage. The remark was given during a podcast in 2023 where Narayan Murthy said, “India’s work productivity is one of the lowest in the world. Unless we improve our work productivity, unless we reduce corruption in the government at some level, because we have been reading, I don’t know the truth of it, unless we reduce the delays in our bureaucracy in taking this decision, we will not be able to compete with those countries that have made tremendous progress. So, therefore my request is that our youngsters must say ‘this is my country. I would like to work 70 hours a week’.” The tech leader also laid examples of the Germans and Japanese during the World War 2.  

These remarks stirred a massive row on social media where users started questioning about the responsibility of an Industry leader over such remarks that could lead to exploitation of the employees. It further rose the need of a “work-life balance”. Even business icons shared their opinions, some stating about the quality of work, instead of quantity and the employees to only work for the vision of the company’s long term vested interests. People also pointed about the demand of work from entry level employees who work at lower wages.

A clarification over the 2023 remark comes over from Narayan Murthy on Monday at the event where he said, “I can say that I used to get to the office at 6:20 am and I used to leave at 8:30 pm. That’s a fact, I have done it. Nobody can say no, that’s wrong. I have done it for 40-odd years. I think these are not issues that should be discussed and debated. These are issues that one can introspect on, one can ingest and one can come to some conclusion and do whatever they want. That’s all to it. There’s nobody who can say, you should do it, you should not do it, no.”

The debate was further heated up after L&T Chairman SN Subrahmanyan talked about the 90-hour workweek and why his employees were not working on Sundays. He even remarked, “What do you do sitting at home? How long can you stare at your wife? How long can wives stare at their husbands? Get to the office and start working.” These were termed as misogynistic and sexist by users at the same time drawing severe criticism.

The debate still continues where the employees demand for a work-life balance with a focus on their productivity and well- being.