The Polyester Prince chronicles Dhirubhai Ambani's life from childhood to founder of RIL following India's independence in 1947, and highlights how India's post-independence industry development was achieved by both fair and foul means.
The first section of the book explores the events of Ambani's young adult life that influenced his understanding of business and developed his skillset that later went on to help him found RIL. This section explores how the mixture of Ambani's working experience as a young adult at trading companies along with post-independence India's changing business landscape lead to Ambani's debut in the wealthy social circles of India and rise in his power.
Dhirubhai was never simply an industrialist, a trader, a financial juggler or a political manipulator, but all four in one. He knew how to take calculated risks.If he starts an acquaintance with someone he will
continue it. His philosophy was to cultivate everybody from the doorkeeper up. ‘I am willing to salaam [bow down to] anyone,’ he told a magazine interviewer in 1985, in a statement that shocked many readers for its bluntness
Dhirubhai also played on the perception that he was an outsider and ‘upstart’ who deserved help to break through the glass ceilings of vested interest and privilege in the business community.
That there was an inner circle in the ‘licence Raj’ the allocation by New Delhi of licences to set up factories and expand production capacity-was evidenced in 1967 with a report by a Bombay University economist, R. K. Hazare, to the Planning Commission which revealed that the Birla group of companies had received 20 per cent of the licensed industrial investment approved by the government between 1957 and 1966.Former colleagues say Dhirubhai resisted any temptation to smuggle in supplies. ‘Everyone knew smuggling was there, but Dhirubhai would not want to get involved,’ one former Reliance manager said. ‘Government support meant too much to him
In an interview with the magazine Business India in April 1980, Dhirubhai said Reliance Commercial Corp accounted for more than 60 per cent of the exports made under the Higher Unit Value Scheme. ‘he schemes were open to everyone,’ he said. ‘I cannot be blamed if my competitors were unenterprising or ignorant.’s Kothary remembers that several times during his turbulent climb to prosperity and influence, Dhirubhai would remark: ‘everything that I have done has been kept in the ground, and a first-class fountain has been built over it. Nobody will ever know what I have done.’
He didn't get on well with Morarji. Indira Gandhi’s return to power opened a golden period for Dhirubhai Ambani. In 1979, his company barely made it to the list of India’s 50 biggest companies, measured by annual sales, profits or assets. By 1984, Reliance was in the largest five. Dhirubhai himself had become one of the most talked and written about persons
in India, gaining a personal following more like that of a sports or entertainment star than a businessman.
Dhirubhai shared a certain contempt for the journalist. In Paris, waiters are known to pay the proprietors of certain fashionable restaurants for the privilege of being able to wait at the tables and collect tips. In Bombay, some would-be business correspondents are willing to eschew salary altogether and even
offer a monthly fee to the newspaper in return for being accredited as its reporter.
Krishna Kant Shah died in 1986, in the midst of a fresh controversy about the mysterious Isle of Man companies. At a meeting in 1995, Sailash Shah maintained there had been no business connection between his father and Dhirubhai. Asked how it was that the Indian press and investigators had singled out his family as fronts, he would say only. ‘I don’t know how.’ That Dhirubhai did have a connection with the
Isle of Man was indicated by the appearance in India during the mid-1990s of one Peter Henwood. An accountant running a company in the Isle of Man capital, Douglas, called International Trust Corp (later OCRA Ltd), Henwood had been instrumental during the 1980s in arranging layers of ownership for offshore holdings through several tax havens Dhirubhai had become close to Henwood and his attractive wife, on whom he showered expensive gifts.Much later, Henwood tried to market his services to other Indian businessmen. Dhirubhai became alarmed, and had Hen- wood followed on his visits to India. To protect his business interests, Henwood consulted a leading firm of lawyers in India.
But could the incongruous elements of the murder conspiracy have possibly been set
up? An alternative theory was that the plot might have been a case of a follower
being more loyal than the king that Kirti had acted out of an excess of loyalty. The
large sums of money paid to Babaria, surely far beyond the personal resources of a
middle manager, would then have to be explained.
Kirti Ambani was transferred to an obscure position in Reliance Industries and has
not appeared in the press since. Babaria continued to live in the police barracks at
Bhendi Bazar, but could no longer travel to big-time engagements in Dubai because authorities would not restore his passport. He continued to scrape together a living by organising evenings of Bollywood musical hits, often to collect funds for a charity called the Young Social Group, of which Babaria himself was president. A pamphlet produced for one such evening in 1996 said: Prince Babaria, lately the most
controversial international figure for his connection with big industrialists and others,
has gained a lot of publicity in the press and TV, locally and internationally.
Both Dhirubhai and key figures in the V P Singh government saw it as a desperate
fight to the death. ‘There was hardly a day when we did not spend several hours pondering how we might bring down V P Singh,’ recalled one senior Reliance executive, about 1990. And I suppose that in his office there were people who spent as much time plotting how to do the same to US.’ Gurumurthy had become a close adviser to the BJP leader, Lal Krishna Advani, while Arun Shourie, the editor of the Indian Express, was vehemently opposed to the new
reservations.
As the Singh government was weakened, Dhirubhai’s fortunes revived. The turn
could even be plotted on a graph of the Reliance share price, which began rising steadily from July 1990. The government was distracted by its numerous splits and battles.
Wadia had a call from Rajiv early in the week, asking for a meeting. Wadia was busy
preparing for an important business trip overseas the following Saturday, but Rajiv
insisted. So, after completing his work, Wadia few up to Delhi on the Friday evening,
arriving at Rajiv’s heavily guarded bungalow on janpath about 11 pm. It was their
first meeting since the Fairfax affair, and both men were edgy. Rajiv opened up by
complaining about the Indian Express sniping which continued against him. Wadia
exploded. This was nothing compared to what Gurumurthy and he had suffered:
arrest, harassment by the bureaucracy, constant inspections, his passport and visa
problems, and finally the murder conspiracy. Wadia asked Rajiv why he had refused
to see him.
Narasimha Rao installed as finance minister the career government economist Manmohan Singh, who had reached the bureaucratic pinnacles of the ministry as Finance Secretary and then central bank governor in the 1980s. The Cambridge-educated Singh had spent much of his earlier career helping to construct
the edifice of government planned investment. But then a spell making a comparative study of the world’s less-developed economics for the South Commission, a body representing many developing nations, had crystallised some
doubts and begun a Pauline conversion in him towards market-based allocation of
resources. Singh was soon backed by the elevation of Montek Singh Ahluwalia, (the
economist who wrote the 1990 reform paper) as Finance Secretary.
Within the BJP leadership, Dhirubhai became distrusted for the split he helped engineer in the party’s Gujarat branch soon after it took power in the March 1995 state elections. Dhirubhai backed a lower-caste BJP leader called Shankersinh Waghla in disputes with the newly elected chief minister, Keshubhai Patel. In
September 1995, the two openly split, and Dhirubhai few Waghela’s faction of state
MPs to the central Indian resort of Khajuraho, famed for its erotic temple carvings, to
keep them together. Around this time, Vajpayee was appalled to find Dhirubhai on the telephone, putting forward a solution to the Gujarat crisis: Waghla should be
made deputy chief minister. Highly embarrassed, Vajpayee refused. A year later,
Waghela ousted Pate…
Dhirubhai Ambani built his company through outstanding abilities and drive on many
fronts: as an innovative financier, an inspiring manager of talent, an astute marketer
of his products, and as a forward-looking industrialist. The energy and daring that
showed itself in his early pranks, practical jokes and trading experiments developed
into a boldness and willingness to live with risk that few if any other Indian corporate
Chiefs would dare to emulate. His extraordinary talent for sustaining relationships,
and sometimes impressing men of standing, won him vital support from both
governments and institutions.
The dark side of his abilities was an eye for human weakness and a willingness to
exploit it. This gained him preferential treatment o…
Over decades in India, some of
the world’s best minds had applied themselves to building a system of government
controls on capital-ism. Dhirubhai Ambani made a complete mockery of it-admittedly
at a stage when the system was decaying and corrupted already. The Ministry of
Finance and its enforcement agencies, the Reserve Bank of India, the Central Bureau
of Investigation, the Securities and Exchange Board of India and the Company Law
Board proved timid and sometimes complicit in their handling of questionable
episodes concerning Reliance. The public financial institutions that held large blocks
of shares in Reliance and had seats on its board were passive and acquiescent
spectators, rather than responsible trustees for public savings.
Throughout every crisis caused by exposure of alleged manipulations, its publicity took on a self-pitying ‘Why is everyone always picking on us?' tone. But the record
tends to show that it was Dhirubhai and Reliance who often made the first move to
put a spoke in a rival’s wheels, whether it was Kapal Mehra, Nusli Wadia or, latterly,
the Ruias of the Essar group. Coincidentally with disputes with Reliance, various
rivals were hit with government inspections, tax problems, unfavourable press
reports, physical attacks and, in Wadia’s case, a damaging forgery, a deportation
order and perhaps a conspiracy to murder him.
Another wild card is contained in the political hostility that Dhirubhai and Reliance
have built up within India. Every party has its Ambani men’s but this is no guarantee
that no government will dare to take on Reliance or make an example of it.
It is possible to draw several conclusions about India from the Reliance story There is
the flowering of individual endeavour and entrepreneurship from a traditional,
isolated backwater like Junagadh; the accumulated ethic of centuries of business and
banking among the Bania castes being transferred into modern corporations; the
amazing numeracy of Indians from the poorest street traders to the high financiers;
the way in which the age-old trading links to the Indian Ocean rim have been
extended into Europe and North America by the past 20 years of migration.
Indians love to tell the joke against themselves about the exporter of live frogs to
‘The kitchens of France. He didn’t need to put a lid on the crates, because as soon as
one Indian frog tried to escape, the others pulled him down.
What are the limits of ethical behaviour in a world full of surprise manoeuvres,
innovation, inside connections and corruption?
modern capitalism does allow a process of redemption in the life of a corporation.
Opium-traders, slave-owners, market cornerers, share raiders and all kinds of
robber- barons have been able to transform themselves into establishment pillars by
hanging on and consolidating during the system’s periodic crashes.
What are the limits of ethical behaviour in a world full of surprise manoeuvres, innovation, inside connections and corruption?
Dhirubhai was never simply an industrialist, a trader, a financial juggler or a political manipulator, but all four in one.We know of the truffle between Gurumurthi and Dirubhai but how it started and why, the political connection and changing governments from 75 to 95 his strong influence and role, connections with the underworld, toppling down competitors, fellow business men, nothing short of a thriller fiction this is.
Thanks for the recommendation.
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