Although I don't believe in the castes & the erstwhile caste system which was prevalent in India, but here's something which I couldn't resist posting on my blog. Here's a very very interesting story about India's castes...
A few weeks ago, the prestigious Forbes magazine has put out a list of the world’s 1,210 billionaires. 55 of them are Indians. A billion dollars is somewhere around Rs. 4,920 crore.
A Baniya is a member of the Vaish caste, originating mainly from the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat. They constitute less than 1% of India’s 1.25 billion population.
Here are a few interesting facts regarding the Indian billionaires who feature in the Forbes list of billionaires.
- India’s richest man, Lakshmi Nivas Mittal (Mittal Steel & Arcelor Mittal), world’s sixth richest man with $31.1 billion, is a Baniya.
- India’s second richest man, Mukesh Ambani (Reliance) with $27 billion, is a Baniya.
- India’s third richest man, Azim Premji (Wipro) with $16.8 billion, is a Khoja.
- India’s fourth richest men, brothers Shashi & Ravi Ruia (Essar) with $15.8 billion are Baniyas.
- India’s fifth richest person, Savitri Jindal (Jindal Steel) with $13.2 billion, is a Baniya.
- India’s sixth richest man, Gautam Adani (Adani Group) with $10 billion, is a Baniya.
- India’s seventh richest man, Kumar Mangalam Birla (Aditya Birla Group) with $9.2 billion, is a Baniya.
- India’s eighth richest man, Anil Ambani (Reliance-ADAG) with $8.8 billion, is a Baniya.
- India’s ninth richest man, Sunil Bharti Mittal (Bharti Airtel) with $8.3 billion, is a Baniya.
- India’s tenth richest man, Adi Godrej (Godrej Group), world’s 130th richest man with $7.3 billion, is a Parsi.
Score: Baniyas - 8, Rest of India - 2.
If we consider the two Gujaratis, Godrej and Premji (from the Lohana caste), as coming from the mercantile communities, then actually Rest of India wasn’t even playing this match so far.
Well, lets continue further...
- India’s 11th richest man is K P Singh of DLF ($7.3 billion). He is the first departure from the trend of mercantile castes. Singh is a peasant (not now though), the most populous caste grouping of India, about 50% of our population.
- From numbers 11 to 20, there are four Baniyas. They are Anil Agarwal of Vedanta ($6.4 billion), Dilip Sanghvi of Sun Pharma ($6.1 billion), Uday Kotak of Kotak Group ($3.2 billion), & Subhash Chandra Goel of Zee ($2.9 billion).
- The non-Baniyas are Shiv Nadar of HCL ($5.6 billion), Malvinder & Shivinder Singh of Ranbaxy ($4.1 billion), Kalanithi Maran of Sun TV ($3.5 billion), Mukesh Jagtiani of Landmark ($3 billion) and Pankaj Patel of Cadila ($2.6 billion).
- Between 21 and 30, there are five Baniyas. They are Indu Jain of The Times of India ($2.6 billion), Desh Bandhu Gupta of Lupin ($2.1 billion), Sudhir & Samir Mehta of Torrent ($2 billion), Aloke Lohia of Indorama ($2 billion) & Venugopal Dhoot of Videocon ($1.9 billion).
- The five non-Baniyas are G M Rao of GMR ($2.6 billion), Cyrus Poonawalla of the Serum Institute ($2.3 billion), Mumbai builder Rajan Raheja ($2.2 billion), Narayana Murthy of Infosys ($2 billion) & Gautam Thapar of Avantha ($2 billion).
- Of the non-Baniyas, three are from mercantile communities: Poonawalla (Parsi), Raheja (Shikarpuri Sindhi) and Thapar (Khatri). Murthy is Brahmin.
- Between 31 and 40 are two Baniyas: Rahul Bajaj of Bajaj Auto ($1.6 billion) & Ajay Piramal of Piramal Group ($1.4 billion).
- The non-Baniyas include three Brahmins: Nandan Nilekani, former CEO of Infosys & present Chairman of UIDAI ($1.8 billion), S Gopalakrishnan of Infosys ($1.6 billion), & Vijay Mallya of UB Group ($1.4 billion).
- Three of the others are from mercantile castes: Mumbai based builder Chandru Raheja ($1.9 billion), Brijmohan Lall Munjal of Hero MotoCorp ($1.5 billion) & Vikas Oberoi of Oberoi Realty ($1.4 billion).
- The last two are K Anji Reddy of Dr Reddy's Labs ($1.5 billion), from Andhra’s dominant peasant community, & Ajay Kalsi of Indus Gas ($1.7 billion).
- Between 41 and 50 are five Baniyas. They are R P Goenka of RPG Group ($1.3 billion), investment banker Rakesh Jhunjhunwala ($1.2 billion), Brij Bhushan Singhal of Bhushan Steel ($1.2 billion), B K Modi of Spice ($1.1 billion) and Mumbai builder Mangal Prabhat Lodha ($1.1 billion).
- The non-Baniyas are Baba Kalyani of Bharat Forge ($1.3 billion), Keshub Mahindra of Mahindra & Mahindra ($1.2 billion), Infosys co-founder K Dinesh ($1.2 billion) & S D Shibulal of Infosys ($1.1 billion), & Yusuf Hamied of Cipla ($1.1 billion).
- The last five, from 51 to 55, include two Baniyas: Mumbai builder Mofatraj Munot of Kalpataru ($1 billion) & Ashwin Dani of Asian Paints ($1 billion).
- Two of the others are from mercantile castes: Parsi Anu Aga of Thermax ($1 billion) & Khatri Harindarpal Banga of Noble ($1 billion).
- Delhi builder Ramesh Chandra of Unitech ($1 billion) ends our list of Indians with a billion dollars or more.
The list has three Parsis, two Muslims and Sikhs in one spot (shared by the Singh brothers of Ranbaxy). Banga is also a Sikh name but Harindarpal is clean-shaven. All of them, except Poonawalla, have inherited their wealth, though in the case of Premji, he took a small firm and made it global. There is nobody from the scheduled tribes or castes.
India’s large peasant castes have some representation (Singh, Patel, Reddy), but not much. There are 26 Baniyas on our list. Many of them inherited their wealth, but just as many (Mittal, Ruias, Adani, Dhoot among others) are self-made.
The list has 16 Rajasthanis, and 13 Gujaratis. Every single Rajasthani is from one caste, Vaish, though they are from two faiths: Hindu and Jain. Only Gujarat is capable of producing billionaires drawn from four different faiths: Hindu, Parsi, Jain and Muslim—and three different castes: Baniya, Khatri and peasant.
This is unique in India and there is something about this secular mercantile culture that produces great men across communities. What is it? Three out of the four biggest leaders of the subcontinent under British rule were Gujarati, and they were drawn from these three castes: Gandhi, Jinnah and Patel. Only 5% of India’s population, Gujaratis don’t have the numbers to dominate its democratic politics. But businesses are not run in democratic fashion. And to rise, you need quality, not quantity.
The heartland of India, where our quantity resides, is missing from this list. Bihar, Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh have little or no representation and this does not surprise us. On the list are 10 south Indians, in proportion to their 20% share of India’s population. The famous five from Infosys are obviously self-made. Of the others, four are first-generation wealthy. This is a good indicator for the future, and it restores some balance in favour of Rest of India.
One final observation. India’s greatest businessman is not on this list. Why is that? It is because Ratan Tata owns less than 1% of Tata Sons. He is exceptional in every way.
Proud to be a Baniya. Business is in our genes. We think business. We breath business. We live business. We love business.
With the hope that I make it to this list sometime in the future, signing off.....
