RIL - Dhirbubhai Ambani-Short Story

8/3/2019 RIL - Dhirbubhai Ambani-Short Story

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Shri Shekhar Gupta, Editor, Indian Express

Mukesh, Anil, Nita, Tina, all members of the family and friends.

I was told to speak on behalf of the media. I’ll speak as a journalist, because I only got to

know Dhirubhai Ambani, as a journalist, some four years back. I was told to come andhave lunch with him. Lunch was such an enjoyable experience and such a unique

experience, that we did it several times afterwards. The one thing I noticed after that

lunch and I came home and told my wife, I said, there is something funny when you walk

into that room. There is an aura of intense energy and somehow, urgency. And what

then happens is you do everything faster. You talk faster. You also talk louder for some

reason. You eat faster. You think faster. And you are out faster than you think. There

was never a second wasted.

I make my life, dealing with all kinds of people and mixing with all kinds of people, good

and bad. But I have never in anybody’s presence felt such a sense of energy andurgency and such an aura of things just moving. Even the lunch on the table was always

so eclectic. You had to constantly run your eyes on the table to see what’s where. There

were dosas, idlis, some food from home, some sprouts, there were several kinds of cut

fruits, and there were noodles. By the time you figured out what was where, the lunch

was almost over. But by the time it was over you realise you talked about so many

things. And so many ideas had floated in that room that it gave you a sense of what kind

of a personality he was.

I got to know him in a phase when he was not managing the business on day-to-day

basis. He had two very able sons to do that. But he talked about many things, includingIndia-Pakistan relations, the larger political economy of the country. And I always came

back thinking that this man could be the Ross Perot of India, except that he could

perhaps win the election. Because he had very radical ideas and was never shy of

mentioning them.

The big thing about Dhirubhai was, and which is something many of us in Delhi realised

much later, is that he was willing to think big beyond his times. He was the product of the

licence quota raj and one of the most unfortunate aspects of the licence quota was that it

fixed limits for you in business. It said you would do only this much and no more. And if

you dared to do more than that you were punished. And somehow that mediocrity

became our national credo. In every field we fixed limits for ourselves. Even our athletes

and sportsmen never went beyond mediocrity because they thought that if they achieved

some mediocrity you were okay.

I think Dhirubhai very early decided that he was going to defy this. I’ve said sometimes

that there is a great divide between Delhi and Bombay. In Bombay people think you can

make money and they make money through enterprise and with that you can buy some



power. In Delhi we think we have the power because we live in Delhi. We have politics,

we have the joint secretaries, we have the levers of power. So through that power we

can make money by taking bribes, by taking gifts or just by harassing and blackmailing

people who make money through enterprise.

Most Indian businessmen, I say this with apologies to those who are here, most Indianbusinessmen in the past had accepted that principle. This was a kind of compact. We

shall do this and you shall do this in Delhi. Dhirubhai decided to defy that and he defied it

very very efficiently. When I looked at the Tata Safari ad, which said, Make your own

road it reminded me of Dhirubhai and the business he built. When there were no roads

available he built his own road and so successfully at that.

If I speak on behalf of the media, what have we lost? In the media we have lost a very

very interesting personality. And a very newsy personality. We always cover business

and we'll continue to cover business. But I think it is very unlikely that the world of

journalism in India, the media, will find a personality as interesting and as newsworthyand as inspiring as Dhirubhai Ambani.

I remember and many of you remember that my paper and Dhirubhai fought a famous

battle many years ago. And if I look back on those files, I can see that this was a battle

between two very very formidable rivals, who I am sure deep down, also admired each

other a great deal. And I have gone back to try and pick up the history of those times

and that really was the case.

I was sitting with my friend and guru Arun Shourie, who was then the editor of the paper

the other day. Reflecting on those times, he said with satisfaction that journalism is

based on issues and issues of the day. So while there was a background and there wasa history of a great battle between a media giant and a corporate giant it did not

constrain Arun’s own actions and his own judgement when it came to certain decision

vis-à-vis his ministry and Dhirubhai Ambani’s company. I have no hesitation in naming

the IPCL issue, where there were tremendous pressures on Arun to bend the law, to

twist the law. He was reminded of many old stories and instances but he stuck to the

principle, which is that in the media and out of the media we make our minds on the

basis of the issues of the day.

Dhirubhai was somebody who had blazed such a trail of success and such a trail of

good business practices, particularly after the licence quota raj he was the first one.There were many Indian businessmen who prospered during the licence quota raj, but

who withered away immediately as reform took place. Dhirubhai was a unique

personality who built his empire during the licence quota raj and prospered much when

the licence quota raj was abolished.

Dhirubhai was such an interesting personality and he was so full of humour. I cannot

conclude this without telling you about a small joke that I once told him at his expense.



This was around the time when the first signs of India-Pakistan tensions had come up

and it looked like we were getting close to a war. Somebody mentioned on the table that

Reliance was always told why are you setting up these huge refineries so close to the

borders. They could be bombed in the event of a war. And I had to put one past

Dhirubhai. I said that you (Dhirubhai) don’t have to worry about anything. Nothing would

ever happen to your refineries. And he asked why. I replied, by the time Musharaff ordershis air force to bomb your refineries he will discover that his Air Chief holds a hundred

shares in Reliance Industries. Because I am sure he would've taken care of all this. He

had a great laugh with all of us and we parted on that note. It’s a great pity there wasn’t

one more meeting after that.

So let me conclude this by saying this on behalf of myself and the lot of the media, that

our business is made interesting by personalities, good, bad, but particularly those that

are enterprising and those who can think new things all the time. To that extent

Dhirubhai is somebody that we would miss forever. I do not think, again with apologies

to everybody else who is from the world of business here, I do not think that for a longtime we'll find a replacement.

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RIL - Dhirbubhai Ambani-Short Story