There is a joke often heard on Mumbai local trains: that if Raj Thackeray expanded his anti-outsider campaign to target Gujaratis, Mumbai will shut down. The black humour is not without justification. As someone who travels in the local everyday, it will be no exaggeration to say that one might as well be travelling in Ahmedabad, Surat or Vadodara. Gujarati newspapers change hands, Gujarati expressions fly around and the talk is rife with "dhandho".
The history of Gujarati businessmen in Mumbai is an old one. They moved in hordes to the then newly minted financial capital in the British era to try their hands at textiles, taking advantage of depressed machinery prices in England to import new machinery and produce high-quality fabric at low cost.
This spirit of entrepreneurship for which the community is renowned is detailed in individual stories of success in the book under review. It looks at five Gujarati businessmen who started with little and, with grit and determination, expanded their empires. The stores are highly readable, if a tad hurriedly paced and offer lessons, without pontification, on how to succeed in business.
The first and foremost is community. Community not just provides familiarity but also works as a buffer in times of stress. Thanks to Gujaratis' propensity to roam distant lands -- they are one of the three Indian ethnic groups, the others being Punjabis and Bengalis, who make up the largest chunks of the Indian diaspora -- a Gujarati is never far from you. That can be of tremendous advantage, for instance, in seeking financial help at attractive rates. Since ties run all the way to the village back home, refusing assistance is not an option.
For world travellers they are. Stories of Gujarati presence in Uganda and Kenya are legendary. The book focuses on success in Dreamland. The first wave of immigration to the US happened in the 1950s. America welcomed them with open arms -- this was the post World War II phase when immigration barriers were not a smidgen on the horizon -- and Gujaratis settled in big numbers. The book showcases how the presence of Gujaratis in the moteling business encouraged others to migrate and run this quintessentially American institution.
Even when they went to get an education and live the salaried life, Gujaratis could not keep themselves from business. When Hasu and Hersha Shah migrated to the US in the late 1960s, they came to a land that offered a heady mix of opportunities. Within months of their arrival, they had bought two small motels close to their home. Hershu worked an engineering job and looked after the business at night, while Harsha managed the front desk in the mornings.
The women were as attuned to their role as the men, which is surprising because they came from deeply traditional backgrounds. It is they, at times, who come across as the more persistent, managing kids and kitchen on the one hand and assisting their husbands in business on the other. While the men assumed predestined roles, it was the women who learnt both to make kadhi from pancake batter and mixing the famed Indian hospitality with business acumen and a willingness to compromise.
Other stories demonstrate how good Gujaratis are at diversifying. The story of Mohanbhai Patel is instructive. Already employed as an executive with the Tatas, he also ran a factory that produced aluminium collapsible tubes which were earlier imported from Germany. He would work half-day with the Tatas in south Bombay, and in the evening, run a parallel operation in Malad, a north Mumbai suburb. Within a few years he had expanded into other metallurgical businesses and earned enough to buy a big parcel of land further north.
What also comes across through these stories is the Gujarati's conservatism in financial matters. Leverage is kept as low as possible, and where needed, local connections are tapped. Capital expenditure is deferred until sufficient funds are generated inhouse. While this may hurt growth in the short term, it also provides a healthy base for the business.
In this light, it would have been interesting to have the author discuss the similarities between Gujarati enterprise and other community-based success stories such as Korea's cheabols. While the scale of operations may be different -- chaebols typically run multinational organisations spanning diverse business interests -- they share common features such as an export orientation and deep financial cross-holdings, which are worth exploring.
But this book is a different beast. It reads like an old raconteur sharing anecdotes over smoke-fuelled soirees. Regrettably it doesn't dip into analysis but makes up for it with some nifty storytelling.
DHANDHA: HOW GUJARATIS DO BUSINESS
Shobha Bondre
Random Business
285 page, Rs 199
