Ambani & Sons ~ Hamish McDonald 8 of 26

After reading The Polyester Prince by Hamish McDonald, I became curious about why it was banned and how Ambani & Sons differs. Interestingly, around 70% of Ambani & Sons overlaps with the content of The Polyester Prince, with the main additions being Dhirubhai’s death, the Mukesh–Anil feud, and the eventual division of the business. It’s also notable that Ambani & Sons wasn’t banned despite the similarities.  This was a quick read inspite of it being a book of 400 pages, because of the repetition. 

This reminded me of how authors today, increase the count of books with similar content. This book covers the rise of 'Ambani Desh' 'Ambaniland' inside India. In this Corporate Kurushetra, with every element of Indian soap opera with the wealthy tycoons, brothers fighting each other, sleazy political neta, clever financiers, angry wives, religious seers, a disputed inheritance, private eyes, allegation of forgery and phone-tapping, officials pretending to be active, frustrated investigators and chorus of reporters besieging the main characters. Most important of all it had the mother, respected and loved by all for her innate and unsophisticated wisdom, able to cut through to the main emotional issue. Looks like she had sorted help from K.V. Kamath, then chairman and CEO of ICICI bank. 

Unfortunately, the brothers' biggest enemies continued to be each other. A big lesson for Anil was 'it is not enough to make great presentations and wow everybody with financial deal-making. Running a business requires focus, sustained application, team-building and meeting customer expectations.'

Dhirubhai had an instinct for human weakness and a willingness to exploit it. This gave him a preferential treatment or at least a blind eye from the whole gamut of Indian institutions of various times. Over decades in India some of the world's best minds had applied themselves to building a system of government controls on capitalism. Dhirubhai Ambani made a complete mockery of it- admittedly at a stage when the system was decaying and partly corrupted already. 

The dispute surrounding the rise of Dhirubhai also tells us something else about India: How it agonises over the morality of change, of success and failure, a syndrome explored by the economist Amartya Sen in his essay 'The Argumentative Indian'. 

While India needs entrepreneurs like Mukesh Ambani, it also needs a much stronger state to apply rules against any abuse of market power. Businessmen will do what they can get away with, and the Reliance model shows a strong appreciation of the benefits. A strong state would devote more resources to relevant and update policies, better revenue collection and accountability and effective policing of rules rather than persisting with so much effort in micro-managing affairs. 

These Modh Bania from Saurashtra seems to portray the spirit of the new India of flashy life more than the regions other most famous Modh Bania M.K. Gandhi who propagated 'Simple' living. What seems certain is the continuing story of these brothers - slum dog billionaires, whose homes have gone from the chawl in Bhuleshwar to their own high-rise towers - is unlikely to become dull. 

*The Polyester Prince* was not banned in India.

Ambanis got an ad interim injunction from Delhi High Court against Publishers *Harper Collins* which never challenged the injunction.They chose to withdraw rather than engaging an unscrupulous Corporate in a protracted legal battle, which resulted in a virtual ban!

Just to put the record straight.