The-Polyester-Prince

minority government in 1996, and several on the left such as Chandrashekhar,another short-term prime minister in 1990-91. But his strongest connections werealways with the Gandhi coterie’s within Congress, even though he never likedIndira’s socialistic policy phase in 1969-70, and then later with P V Narasimha Raowho took over the Congress mainstream and prime ministership in 1991.The links were not always based on money, however. Dhirubhai is widelyacknowledged to be a masterful exponent of his own business visions, which havegenerally been more farsighted than those of almost anyone else among India’sbusiness leaders. He was quick to grasp that many Indian politicians, officials andbankers could be captivated by intellectual excitement or flattery at being in theinner circle of such an emerging tycoon. Should such individuals’ later show signs ofself-interest or personal financial difficulty, Dhirubhai or one of his lieutenants wouldpick up the signals. A post-retirement job, a business opportunity for a child, indirectfunding or a burst of inspired publicity might then follow for the person concerned.Dhirubhai also played on the perception that he was an outsider and ‘upstart’ whodeserved help to break through the glass ceilings of vested interest and privilege inthe business community. That there was an inner circle in the ‘licence Raj’ theallocation by New Delhi of licences to set up factories and expand productioncapacity-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 ofcompanies had received 20 per cent of the licensed industrial investment approvedby the government between 1957 and 1966. The early support given by GhansyamDas Birla to Mahatma Gandhi had certainly paid off in the independent India ruled byCongress. Writing in 1981 on Birla’s 88th birthday, the journalist T N. Ninan notedthat the Birla companies had multiplied from 20 in 1945 to about 150. ‘f anyindustrial house benefited from the licence-permit raj,’ wrote Ninan, ‘It was thehouse that Birla built.’ Birla’s rapid expansion contrasted with the moderate growthof the Tata group, the Parsi-controlled empire that had grown strongly under Britishrule. The then head of Tata, J. R. D. Tata, told an interviewer: ‘I think it wrong for abusinessman to run newspapers [the Birlas had set up The Hindustan Times, thestrongest paper in New Delhi], wrong for him to play a political role ... But it doesseem that others who do not mind mixing politics with business have done extremelywell for themselves.’ For G. D. Birla, his political connections and the ostentatiousphilanthropy that saw various Birla institutes and garish Hindu temples built aroundIndia were all supportive of his preordained role. As the Bhagavad Gita says, everyman must do his duty, which means if you are a wealthy man, you must do yourduty by your wealth,’ the Birla patriarch reasoned. A businessman’s karma [fate] isto amass wealth and his dharma [duty] is to provide for the general welfare. Ifpolitical action is involved in this, I don’t see why I should feel shy of it.’One of earliest backers, the banker and politician T A. Pay, falls into the category ofintellectual sympathizer. Pai came from an extraordinary upper-caste family based inthe tiny village of Manipal on the Karnataka coast, far south of Bombay. It is still anout-of-the-way place, on a barren hilltop overlooking the sweep of palm trees andexposed beaches fronting the Arabian Sea. In 1925 the Pai family had establishedthe Syndicate Bank there. By the mid-1960s it was the tenth largest Indian bank,with some 190 branches. As well as bankers, the Pai’s were educationists and usedtheir wealth to found a college at Manipal in 1942. It has since grown into one ofIndia’s largest private universities, attracting fee-paying students from Malaysia, theMiddle East and the West Indies.