Marwari Men, Money & Matters
The irrepressible Sarojini Naidu once told Gandhiji-Bapu, if only you
knew what it costs the country to keep you in poverty! Now, we have
a clearer picture. B.R. Nanda’s In Gandhi’s Footsteps: The Life and
Times of Jamnalal Bajaj, Medha Kudaisya’s The Life and Times of G.D.
Birla and Neelima Dalmia Adhar’s Father Dearest: The Life and TIMES
OF R.K. Dalmia, shed new light on the close links, financial and otherwise,
that existed between the Indian industrialists and politics. Today,
this nexus might even be called “crony capitalism” but that would be
grossly unfair to our founding fathers, men of the highest integrity
and rectitude. It would also be unfair to the businessmen themselves
whose support to the Congress before Independence was motivated very
heavily by altruistic instincts as “contributions” to nation-building.
Reading these books in today’s context would also lead to the conclusion
that Indian businessmen-like Birla and Dalmia-were ardent advocates
of Hindu communalism as well, what with their generous underwriting
of temple construction, of printing presses churning out religious literature
and of cow protection campaigns, to give just three examples. Apart
from Gandhiji himself, Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya was a great favourite
of businessmen of those times and Kudaisya details the extraordinarily
intimate relationship of the Birla family to this venerable founder
of the Hindu Mahasabha and of the Banaras Hindu University. Malaviya
is seen to be Hindu revivalist. But it was Malaviya who once wrote in
his newspaper Abhyudaya: ” India is not a country of the Hindus only.
It is a country of the Muslims, the Christians and the Parsees too.
The country can gain strength and develop itself only when the people
of different communities of India live in mutual goodwill and harmony.
Those who disrupt this unity are enemies of their country and their
community alike”. Could there be a more eloquent statement on Indian
secularism than this?
Adhar alludes to the unusually warm friendship between Jinnah (and his
sister Fatima) and Dalmia-a most unlikely duo to find mutual common
ground. Jinnah is demonised in this country. How many will remember
that in 1916 Sarojini Naidu hailed him as the Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim
unity and that three days before Pakistan formally appeared on the world’s
map, speaking to its Constituent Assembly, Jinnah declared: ” �. in
the course of time, Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would
cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the
personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens
of the state”. This is as fine a definition of secularism as any. And
in one of the those typically sub-continental ironies, Jinnah’s only
grandson, a prominent industrialist of Mumbai, is very much part of
the RSS/BJP circuit.
For long business has been a dirty word here. True, historically government
policy has encouraged dishonesty. The tax system still does. On the
other hand, we continue to have policies in the name of protecting labour
that have resulted in a situation where you have sick industry but no
sick industrialists. In the past, the shenanigans of Indian capitalists
led to the “every time I see an Indian businessman, my socialist instincts
come out” syndrome. For instance, Dalmia’s own actions hastened the
nationalisation of the insurance industry in 1956. But this is fast
changing. Indian business in the midst of a profound sociological transformation.
There is a fresh new generation deeply conscious of both corporate responsibilities
and social imperatives. This process of change will only accelerate
with greater competition and globalization, as well as with market-friendly
regulation. Government is getting out of business and that is all to
the good. But now business has to get out of government and that can
happen only when more transparent systems of financing of political
parties are put in place.
