Kangana Ranaut won the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi.
Actor-turned-politician Kangana Ranaut recently shared her thoughts about work culture in India. The BJP MP said that people should normalise an “obsessive work culture” since India is still a developing nation. Ms Ranaut was reacting to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first address to his team in the PMO in Delhi after taking oath, in which he said, “Together we have just one goal – Nation First. Just one intention – 2047 Viksit Bharat. I have said this publically, my each and every moment is for the country. I have also promised the country – 24×7 for 2047.”
Kangana Ranaut shared the video on her Instagram story and wrote, “We need to normalise obsessive work culture and stop with the waiting for the weekends and crib about Mondays memes.”
She continued, “That’s all western brainwashing we are not a developed nation yet we can’t afford to be bored and lazy at all.”
This comes as many industry leaders have been voicing their opinions on work culture and how the youth of the country should work for long hours to compete effectively on the global stage. Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy’s comments had ignited a social media storm after he remarked that people should work 70 hours a week to boost the country’s overall work productivity and economy.
Mr Murthy drew parallels to Japan and Germany, countries that implemented the extended working hours. “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,” the Infosys founder said in October.
Not only this, Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Company’s Managing Director Nilesh Shah added to the workweek debate and said that for India to grow more rapidly, a generation of people needs to embrace the 12-hour workday culture which is common in China, Korea, and Japan. Mr Shah mentioned that the 84-hour work week would “accelerate the country’s growth” and would help people to transfer to “middle and upper-income levels”.
Mr Shah said, “Recently in India, Narayana Murthy mentioned working 70 hours a week, which created a controversy. He said that Indians need to work like Koreans, Chinese, and Japanese. If we work hard, there is no doubt that India’s growth will continue, the pace will accelerate, and there will come a time when there will be no sub-Saharan Africa-level poverty in India. We will have transferred everyone to middle-income and upper-income levels.”
Notably, Kangana Ranaut made her political debut as the BJP candidate from Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi for 2024 Lok Sabha elections. She won her first-ever election after defeating Vikramaditya Singh, the son of six-time chief minister Virbhadra Singh and state Congress chief Pratibha Singh.