The Wealth Wallahs

by Shreyasi Singh

  The responses from the survey will be referenced in this chapter and the next. In summary, however, the findings do reveal some surprising insights, including the fact that 97.5 per cent of the respondents said they do not enjoy showing off their wealth. Nearly 55 per cent, in fact, said they made a concerted effort to underplay it.

  It’s a contradictory diffidence. It isn’t as if India’s new wealthy are spartan. Certainly, there is no forced frugality. The visible manifestation of wealth, at least across our cities, is much more evident than it was a decade ago. There is an increase in consumption and indulgence. There are more expensive restaurants, luxury automobiles, steep rise in vacations and in the value of clothes bought.

  Reams of newspaper print have been spent covering upmarket weddings in Delhi and Mumbai. In certain “intellectual” quarters, this extravagant display is decried. It is said to demonstrate our changing values and a culture of crass consumerism. But is the dramatic increase in spending limited to only the rich?

  In an aspirational India, spends have increased across all income segments. We consume more as a nation on a whole range of “discretionary items”. The wealthy certainly do but aren’t unique in doing so. As a fraction of income, lifestyle spends have gone up steadily even in upper-middle class homes.

  In the case of the first-generation wealthy, lifestyles have often undergone substantial changes — especially when compared to the middle-class milieu a large number of them were brought up in. Typically, where, and how they live, has been upgraded dramatically from their lifestyles a decade back. There has been an appreciation of the good life — for food, travel, clothes and homes — and few people would admit to not being shaukeen about at least one of these.

  Most have also made at least a few indulgent purchases, usually a large house in their city’s prime real estate. They savour and enjoy their new possessions — especially the vacations they take, the homes they live in and the cars they drive — but are uncomfortable with the idea of being defined by it or if perceived to have become extravagant because of these spends.

  Few will say outright that they are proud of having gathered the financial ability to acquire these. If not guilt, there is definitely an uneasy mix of self-consciousness and awkwardness when talking about the material manifestation of their wealth.

  I also wondered if there was an element of fear or the risk of security the wealthy obsessed about; that in a deeply unequal society, it was best to not call attention to oneself. Previous events come to mind.

  In November 2006, three people had kidnapped the young son of the then Adobe India CEO Naresh Chand Gupta from his home in Noida, a Delhi suburb. The kidnappers had asked for 50 lakh ($75,000) as ransom for the release of the child. Fortunately, the Noida Police had managed to rescue the child and arrest the kidnappers by launching a successful operation. The case had made huge headlines at the time. The wall-to-wall coverage of a corporate CEO’s child being kidnapped had hinted at the dangers of being visibly rich. It was later found that the accused had worked in the neighbourhood where the Guptas lived and therefore probably knew the family’s daily schedule as well as economic capacity.

  Yet, I didn’t find security to be a tangible, powerful fear for the wealthy. Not one person admitted to it and in the several years that I have been profiling successful (and wealthy) business builders, I have seen only one person — the owner of a very popular chain of south Indian restaurants that can be found across the country and which started from a small market in south Delhi — being escorted around town with a security entourage that would outrival one of our senior mantris.

  In the survey as well, I found that across all respondents — old and new wealthy, professionals or entrepreneurs — not one person said the risk of security was a reason for them to underplay their wealth. Nearly 70 per cent of those polled said they underplayed their wealth because India was an unequal society, another 26 per cent because of what they called society’s attitude toward wealth and a tiny 4 per cent because they worried about nazar, or the uniquely Indian notion of the evil eye.

  The baggage of a bad name

  Either there is an acute sense of being under watch, or a worry at being judged by those around them. Whatever it may be, the new rich do seem to make a concerted effort and seem to have developed a sharp self-awareness towards there being as little as possible outward change in who they are, or how they look.

  The discomfort at being labelled rich could be a possible reflection of the remnants of India’s socialist past and the license-raj era of business, when participating in crony capitalism, rent-seeking and tax evasion were considered the main ways of garnering wealth.

  Because there didn’t earlier exist a way of creating wealth without these attributes, the presence of riches confirmed malpractices and corruption by default. In more cases than not, it may have, often justifiably, tainted those with wealth.

  What though explains the reluctance to be considered rich when the source of the wealth is absolutely above board?

  Usually, a salaried professional’s source of funds is largely beyond question. Yet, the professional rich in corporate jobs such as consulting, information technology and VC-funded start-ups, seemed as unwilling, if not more, to be branded with the rich tag.

  They underplay their wealth although over the course of their careers, many of them will amass a quantum of wealth similar to promoters of mid-sized companies. Actually, several of the rich professionals see themselves almost as accidental rich. Mostly in their early to late-40s, many seem somewhat surprised by how much they’re worth; their portfolio certainly isn’t a number they would have imagined, or even aspired for, while in engineering college or B-schools. Or, even during the early years of their corporate careers.

  Whatever the reasons for hesitation, amongst India’s first-generation wealthy, there is definitely a strange mix of mild denial (and delusion) and a certain discomfort at being “called out” to be rich.

  Even for the first-generation wealthy under forty years, who have come into adulthood in a more liberalised, free-market India of the post-1991 era, social mores and attitudes have been shaped by their parents and families. Most earned their livelihoods through jobs in government services, PSUs, nationalised banks and the tiny clutch of Indian private companies that were job creators from the 1960s through the 1980s.

  It’s why even the young, new wealthy, who are brimming with immense self-confidence otherwise are unlikely to be stridently self-congratulatory about being rich or about the personal wealth they had so far amassed. At least, in public.

  The rich are no longer villains…or are they?

  Monika Halan, consulting editor at business daily, Mint, believes this is changing as lifestyle and living standards increase and an aspirational middle-class wants to move to the upper middle-class band.

  People are becoming more relaxed about being affluent and the good life is not frowned upon as much, she tells me. It’s a transformation that is still in progress. Wealth, and by extension therefore, the wealthy, are slowly getting an image makeover, she wrote in a column last year.12

  ‘Hindi films showcased the rich as debauched men (very seldom women) who were either money lenders (1960s), hoarders (1970s) or smugglers (1980s). The honest policeman chose his mum over bangla, gaadi, daulat. Almost thirty years later, you’re a loser if you’re not rich or aspiring to get there. Money is the new God that demands the unadulterated adulation of its acolytes. And again that is not a bad thing. From being tightly held by a small elite in India, this wider holding of wealth, and therefore of the narrative of the country, is transforming all of us. The time for the disdainful turning away from money and its accumulation is over. Profit is a good word. And in this world, where the rules are suddenly different, many of us are floundering between the old and the new,’ Halan wrote.

  There is a somewhat schizophrenic force at play, a black and white, not a grey, where many of the new wealthy are comfortable with their wealth and spending
parts of it but are also acutely conscious of having it, says Pramath Raj Sinha, founder of specialty media company, 9.9 Media.

  As the Founding Dean of the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, and one of the founders of Ashoka University, located in Sonepat, Sinha has worked with many first-generation entrepreneurs and philanthropists to set up these higher education initiatives. ‘It’s a bit of a double life. They might buy a Porsche or a Mercedes for the joy of driving a great machine but will always hope people don’t see the car as a sign of showing off,’ he said.

  Being seen as not having changed on becoming wealthy is a big preoccupation for India’s first-generation wealthy. People try to adjust and offset the image they might have, he adds. Somebody he knew, for example, had bought a 100 crore-plus ($15 million) house in New Delhi but still drove a Honda City.

  Across workplaces in some of the country’s most prime commercial real estate and in the coffee shops of upmarket five-star hotels in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, where many of the interviews for this book were conducted, dressing down seemed to be the favourite wardrobe style of the rich.

  Casual, lived-in comfort has become the buzzword for all seasons. No matter how wealthy and which industry, age or type of business, the new Indian wealthy certainly don’t feel the need to look the part.

  Even in the offices of private bankers, long known for their carefully styled grandeur and meticulous well-heeled vibe, the fashionably attired amongst them stand out, not blend in. In fact, there almost seems to be a reverse bias against those dressed too slickly and sharply, even in the once-rarefied field of financial services where it might at one time have been considered essential to have been this way earlier. ‘Too much style doesn’t work in India,’ Mohan Goenka, director of FMCG giant Emami, headquartered in Kolkata, says.

  ‘I don’t think people are as yet comfortable with talking about wealth or showing off their money,’ feels Akshay Sethi, director of Stellar Group, a Noida-based real estate developer. ‘Few people would say, “Look I’ve earned it, and I can do what I want with it.” ‘I think much of India, although there are pockets of exceptions like south Delhi, is culturally uncomfortable with those who would do that, even if it is legitimately earned,’ Sethi adds.

  Manish Kejriwal, managing partner and co-founder of private equity firm Kedaara Capital Advisors, and a Harvard Business School alumnus who used to lead the Singapore-government’s investment arm Temasek Holdings India office, said this discomfort around being rich gives the new, Indian wealthy a substantial attitude advantage.

  Kejriwal, also the son-in-law of Rahul Bajaj, chairman of Bajaj Auto, said he hasn’t seen any of his friends who have come into wealth either misuse or be completely carried away by it. The Indian propensity for savings, borne out of the scarcity mindset of a previous generation, thrives robustly even among the battalion of the wealthy.

  ‘Most of our friends actually do their best to hide their wealth instead of show it off. If I were to take twenty of our closest friends as examples, and were to estimate what each of them is worth as an extrapolation of their lifestyle (which I haven’t done), my hunch is that my estimate will be significantly lower than their actual net worth. Most of us consciously try to ration luxuries,’ says Kejriwal.

  If these sentiments are widely felt, is this discomfort a part of our civilisational DNA and coded into our mental framework?

  At the core of our discomfort with wealth is our civilisational philosophy, believes well-known writer and mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik. The Indian approach to prosperity and fulfillment — a confluence of the many religious philosophies born here — warns against the relentless pursuit of wealth. In an excerpt from his 2015 book, The Success Sutra: An Indian Approach To Wealth, Pattanaik explained it this way:

  “Modern management is all about chasing a target, the Promised Land of Abrahamic mythology, the Elysium of Greek mythology. Hindu mythology, however, warns against chasing Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth; it will result in conflict. Instead they advise making oneself attractive to Lakshmi, worthy of her affection and auspiciousness, so she walks our way. For that we have to be less like Indra, king of the gods, who is consumed by his own hunger, and more like Vishnu, preserver of the world, who is consumed by other people’s hunger. Vishnu knows that human hunger is threefold: for wealth, power and knowledge.”

  The distrust of wealthy business owners — especially those who seem to manipulate and manoeuvre their way to riches — stems from the belief that they’ve corrupted the above philosophy.

  In India, respect and love will never come from power, wealth and victory. Rather, we have to give in order to get, we have to satisfy the hunger of others in order to satisfy our own, Pattanaik says to me.

  Unfortunately, not enough successful, wealthy people understand this Indian philosophical construct. In India, the rich and the powerful are not respected, they are indulged and feared, he explains. ‘ Many are Indras who are too busy creating their swarga (paradise) and imagining everyone who fights them (workers, state, competition, banks) as asuras (those who fight the devas). They’re not Vishnu because they have done nothing to earn love or respect,’ he added.

  ‘Like when people call me Tarneja if I tell them I am a real estate developer,’ laughed Stellar’s Akshay Sethi, referring to the iconic character of the corrupt builder played by actor Pankaj Kapur in the cult Hindi movie Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron. In the film, the protagonists, two professional photographers played by Naseeruddin Shah and Ravi Baswani, get caught working on a story that exposes the nexus between the municipal commissioner and Pankaj Kapur’s character of a builder, after a city bridge collapses.

  ‘Some businesses such as real estate do colour people’s judgment of how money is earned because many builders are like that,’ Sethi adds.

  Indian philosophical thought is rich in ideas about wealth, much of it is rooted in the fault lines drawn by Pattanaik: The idea that money is useful and necessary for human progress but potentially damaging and untrustworthy when privately hoarded. Social reformer and philosopher Sri Aurobindo had voiced similar caution when he wrote, ‘Money is not meant to generate money; money should generate an increase in production, an improvement in the conditions of life and a progress in human consciousness. This is its true use.’

  When greedily lusted after, the philosopher said wealth was one of the three forces along with power and sex that one needed to be careful of: They have the strongest attraction for the human ego and are most generally mis-held and misused by those who retain them. ‘The seekers or keepers of wealth are more often possessed rather than its possessors; few escape entirely a certain distorting influence stamped on it by its long seizure and perversion by the asura.’

  Do we see the wealthy as asuras then, divine beings in the Vedic period, who in Indian mythology tend to be evil and fight for power with the benevolent devas?

  Pattanaik adds that the venality of some amplifies and vitiates the already vicious cycle for business in India, and consequently towards wealth creation, where the state begins with the assumption that all companies are criminals. ‘We create laws so tough that only criminals can break it. Thus, instead of keeping the criminal out, we end up harvesting criminals. It’s a complex situation born of a socialist legacy, rejection of all traditional models of management and a suspicion of capitalist principles,’ he explains.

  Traditions and history have been powerful shapers of thoughts around wealth.

  The negativity around the creation and possession of wealth in Hindu scriptures comes from the fact that vaishyas, the varna (caste) usually responsible for creating the wealth, were not history-keepers or writers of Hindu texts, wrote economist Bibek Debroy, who is also a member of the NITI Aayog and a regarded scholar of the Mahabharata, in an article in Open magazine (6 November, 2015).

  There were few texts directly devoted to the vaishyas, such as there are texts on governance and duties of a king, like Kautilya’s Arthashastra or parts of the Mahabharata. ‘Most text
s that are cited were written by brahmans and for brahmans. That being the case, is it reasonable to expect such texts to lay emphasis on wealth creation?’

  The power of money to build, not spend

  The fresh spurt of entrepreneurship has helped counter this mindset to a certain degree. Amit Chandra, managing director of Bain Capital India, believes the pendulum has begun to swing a little, especially in the past fifteen years, as professionals become wealthy and new enterprises come up in sectors that are perceived to be less corruptible thus improving business transparency. The value of money and what it can do — create jobs, build products and expand markets — has given the pursuit of wealth more respectability.

  Yet, despite this, most business owners interviewed agreed that there remains a certain suspicion in people’s minds towards those with wealth. A technology entrepreneur believes we have fooled ourselves in the start-up ecosystems in Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai to think that this reality has completely changed: That being successful at business, and becoming rich, was universally celebrated and admired across India.

  Even though a large part of India is self-employed, most enterprises are largely aimed at survival and earning a livelihood, not at wealth creation. India’s innately entrepreneurial streak and its seemingly endless number of small businesses and establishments can’t be confused with the high-potential businesses and their wealthy founders this book talks about.

  Modern businesses and their founders must understand that their successes will be recognised and appreciated not just by how they earn this wealth, but how many people this wealth ends up impacting, said Lal Dave, CEO and chairman, of the Care Group, a top manufacturer of intraocular lenses (IOLs) in Vadodara.

  Care Group is an example of the rapid strides India has made in the pharmaceutical industry, from where several of the first-generation entrepreneurial success stories have come, including big names such as Dilip Shanghvi, founder and managing director, Sun Pharmaceuticals, one of the world’s ten largest generic pharma companies.