In this era of easy money, private planes and conspicuous consumption, we sometimes forget what industrialists were like in the days before the economy opened up and every second businessmen became a millionaire. Younger people have been told that they were all crooks who survived by manipulating the licence-quota raj and bribing bureaucrats and politicians. Only after 1991, or so it is said, did the true entrepreneurial energy of India get unleashed and a new class of savvy, globally conscious businessmen emerge.
Postcard: The Doshis, known for their interest in the arts, on a holiday in Africa. Courtesy: Saryu Doshi
Like most generalizations, this has an element of truth in it but it is also an exaggeration in some respects. It ignores the fact that before independence there were business families who were deeply committed to the idea of creating an industrial infrastructure for India out of a sense of patriotism. And even after the licence raj took over, such families as the Sarabhais, the Tatas, the Godrejs and the Walchands managed to retain their values and refused to subscribe to the prevailing ethic of manipulation and bribery.
Of these families, the Tatas and the Godrejs flourish; the Sarabhais are better known for non-industrial activities and the Walchands are rarely thought of as a single entity any longer. Few people who read about Chakor Doshi, Sharayu Daftary or Ajit Gulabchand think of them as being part of the same family. And though Walchand Hirachand was one of the founders of Indian industry (with interests in shipping, aeroplane manufacturing and automobiles) he is hardly ever talked about today. Nor has the family done as well as it could have, at least partly because in the 1970s and 1980s, many of its members refused to play the bribes-and-manipulation game.
Also Read: Vir’s previous Lounge columns
I saw some of this up close because Vinod Doshi, who died this October, was one of my closest friends in Mumbai. I saw him during his triumphs and his tribulations and I always marvelled at his good humour, his integrity and his ability to never forget that there was a world outside business.
Vinod was the oldest son of Lalchand Hirachand (brother of Walchand) and my guess is he would not have been a businessman had he not been born into an industrial family. Right from the time he was in college, his real interest was in the arts and in theatre, in particular.
In those days, it was not so unusual for business people to care about the arts. In fact, one of the things that saddens me most about today’s hotshot millionaires is that not only do they do virtually no charity (shouldn’t some of these guys have set up the sort of institutions that the Tatas and Birlas did? It’s been long enough since they made their money), but the only interest they have in art or culture is as an investment.