?While I struggled to build Gurgaon, I realised that unless one developed a good working relationship with the incumbent chief minister, it was virtually impossible to get things done.? So wrote DLF patriarch KP Singh in his autobiography published last year (full disclosure: I was a consultant on his book project before I joined The Indian Express). Those words may yet return to haunt him following the accusations made against Robert Vadra and his real estate empire but here’s another lesson he imparts in the book; one of the former incumbents, Bansi Lal, hounded him and cramped his expansion plans for over a decade because of a perceived slight at a dinner party Singh hosted, so such relationships can work both ways. Whatever the outcome of the latest one, Singh’s memoir, Whatever the Odds, was, for the most part, remarkably candid about his rise and the many hurdles and setbacks he faced but that is a fairly recent phenomena.
For decades, autobiographies or biographies on Indian business tycoons have mostly been hagiographies, unabashed tributes or self promotions where someone was paid a lot of money and obligated to write nice things about the subject; in the trade, it?s called ?vanity publishing?. The only reason publishers agreed to bring out such books was because the industrialist agreed to buy a few thousand copies to distribute among friends and business associates. There?s also the fact that that the genre has never really gained credibility till recently: there is always some dirty linen that businessmen would not like aired in public. Remember Hamish McDonald’s Polyester Prince, the unauthorised biography of the late Dhirubhai Ambani? The book was banned by the government, a display of the kind of clout Ambani senior exercised. More recently, there was Siddharth Deb?s The Beautiful and the Damned. It had a chapter on Arindam Chaudhuri, the founder of the IIPM business school, which contained some unflattering references. Chaudhuri took out an injunction against it in a lower court in Assam and Viking, the publishers, had to junk the chapter. Generally, it appears that business tycoons have developed a thicker skin when it comes to unauthorised biographies. Business journalist Alam Srinivas’ book, Ambani vs Ambani, published by Roli Books, exposed a lot of dirty tricks but unlike the father, the sons took no preventive action.
That was a period when books on businessmen were gaining credibility and more importantly, sales. RM Lala’s series of books on JRD Tata, Bachi Karkaria’s on MS Oberoi and TN Ninan’s on HP Nanda broke the traditional literary mold and provided a much needed incentive to publishers to lend greater focus to the genre. Penguin clearly did. They involved an insider, Gita Piramal, from a well known business family, to bring out bio sketches of Indian business legends. It proved a publishing success for Penguin, selling close to 30,000 copies. They are now preparing to publish the third book in the series. That opened the floodgates. Rupa Publishers were quick to pounce on Kishore Biyani and the result was It Happened in India about the growth of the Future Group which sold almost 400,000 copies. Harper Collins brought out RC Bhagava’s The Maruti Story and also did very well with Captain Gopinath’s Simply Fly. Viking, an imprint of Penguin, is about to release two prominent biographies on Indian businessmen starting with a corporate profile of the Tata group, basically a biography of Ratan Tata, by Shailesh Kothary. The manuscript will be vetted by Ratan Tata but any book on India’s most respected businessman is bound to attract attention and readership. The other is a biography on HCL’s Shiv Nadar. In fact, the number of biographies and autobiographies being readied for publication is an indication that the genre has finally come of age. Adi Godrej is putting the finishing touches to his autobiography, while Captain CP Krishnan Nair of the Leela Group is to bring out an English translation of his memoir, Krishna Leela, which was published in Malayalam last year. That version sold close to 10,000 copies, so it?s clear that in the post-reform era, Indians, mainly the young, are eager to read about successful businessmen and their inspirational stories. Minhaz Merchant’s biography of Aditya Birla, published a few months ago, managed a respectable ranking on the bestseller lists.
Most publishers are now eager to back such projects. There is no major Indian publisher today without a business list or business-related imprint. Business-related books currently account for around 25-30% of the English non-fiction market in India and business biographies constitute about 25% of that, making it a fairly substantial market considering that in India, even 5,000 copies is considered a successful print run. Reading between the lines, the growing readership for success stories on or by entrepreneurs is an indication that with aspiration levels having changed in India over the last decade or so, so have the role models. Move over Mr Bachchan, Mr Businessman is the new icon.
The writer is Group Editor, Special Projects & Features, ‘The Indian Express’