Mr Vijay Mallya, Weren’t Kingfisher Employees Once Family to You?

Vijay Mallya had once said that Kingfisher employees were like family to him. Then why did he abandon his family?

Kingfisher Airlines was grounded in October 2012 by its chairman Vijay Mallya due to unavailability of funds. (Photo: Reuters)

In 1983, R Edward Freeman prescribed the stakeholder theory for businesses — a moral directive for a businessperson to look after the welfare of his employees and other stakeholders.

Going by Mr Freeman’s theory, Vijay Mallya falls many miles short of being a conscientious businessman.

Wife of Kingfisher Airlines Staff Commits Suicide

On 4 October 2012, Sushmita Chakravarti, wife of Kingfisher employee Manas Chakravarti committed suicide. (Photo: NDTV)

In 2012, Sushmita Chakravatri, the wife of a Kingfisher Airlines (KFA) employee hanged herself in her house in New Delhi, leaving a note written in Bangla exhibiting the level of financial duress that the family was under. The note reportedly said, “My husband works with Kingfisher, where they have not paid him for the last six months. We are in acute financial crisis and hence I am committing suicide.”

Last week, employees of the beleaguered airlines wrote their ex-Chairman a letter. “Mr. Mallya, your heart is impure and you have blood on your hands”, the letter said.

Businessman Vijay Mallya during the Kingfisher Ultra Indian Derby at the race course in Mumbai on 7 February 2016. (Photo: IANS)

Gaadi tak bechna pada (We even had to sell our car). We have tried everything. Kahin se positive response nahi mila (We didn’t get a positive response from anywhere).

Rajesh Kumar Srivastav, another Delhi-based KFA employee <a href="https://www.google.co.in/search?q=Gaadi+tak+bechna+pada+(We+even+had+to+sell+our+car).+We+have+tried+everything.+Kahin+se+positive+response+nahi+mila+(We+didn%E2%80%99t+get+a+positive+response+from+anywhere)%2C&amp;oq=Gaadi+tak+bechna+pada+(We+even+had+to+sell+our+car).+We+have+tried+everything.+Kahin+se+positive+response+nahi+mila+(We+didn%E2%80%99t+get+a+positive+response+from+anywhere)%2C&amp;aqs=chrome..69i57.358j0j4&amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;es_sm=93&amp;ie=UTF-8">to <i>Business Standard</i></a>

My father is bedridden and my mother is a heart patient. She underwent surgery in 2013 and I had to borrow money from friends and cousins for the treatment. The company had stopped the group mediclaim policy without intimation.

An ex Kingfisher <a href="http://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/ex-kingfisher-employees-protest-against-mallya-seek-payment-of-dues-116030900353_1.html">employee</a>

Using Twitter as a medium to voice his anger, Anjan Deveshwar is fighting for his and his colleagues dues, and consolidating the Kingfisher employees efforts in Delhi.

Deveshwar has had to sell the family’s fixed deposits and jewellery, and now maybe even his apartment in Kolkata.

These are just a few among the thousands of Kingfisher employees who have probably been stung hardest by the sordid crash of the airlines.

Their boss, the man they so admired, had once told them that “Kingfisher employees are like a family to me”. But going by the current state of affairs, seems like Mallya has brutally abandoned his family.