The Polyester Prince

The Polyester Prince The Rise of Dhirubhai Ambani is an unauthorized biography of Indian business tycoon and Reliance Industries founder Dhirubhai Ambani. The book was written by Australian journalist Hamish McDonald and first published by Allen & Unwin, an Australian publisher, in 1998. The book was never published in India and was banned there.[1]

The Polyester Prince
AuthorHamish McDonald
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
GenreBiography
Published1998 (Allen & Unwin)
Media typePrint (paperback)
Pages297 pp
ISBN1-86448-468-3
978-1864484687
Followed byAmbani and Sons 

Creation

McDonald interacted with and interviewed many people who had known Ambani personally, including politicians, businessmen, lawyers and media persons. Some interviewees requested anonymity due to their personal and professional relationship with the Ambani family or to his political influence.

The book illustrates Ambani's journey from school teacher's son in Gujarat to a business tycoon. It documents Ambani's influence on politics and some of the allegations made against him.[2]

Indian ban

McDonald expressed surprise that HarperCollins India had even attempted to publish the book. An injunction was taken out against publication in 1998.[3] After the injunction, an expurgated edition, entitled Ambani & Sons, was approved for publication.[4]

Plot

The Polyester Prince follows the journey of a business tycoon Dhirubhai Ambani and his early life, career and how he achieved success in his life. He was the son of a village school master belonging to the modh bania community from Gujarat. Early into his life, due to scarcity of financial resources he dreamed that he needed to become opulent and education in school or college is not directly related to earn money. The family’s poverty kept him off from contact with members of their social peer group. In 1945 he moved to Junagadh and enrolled in high school. He completed his matriculation in 1949. Due to non availability of funds he was bound to earn his livelihood after matriculation only. In the meantime he learned that life is a web of relationships and obligations. He was pumped up with an ambition and he decided never to become dependent on anyone or to work under someone else for a long period of time.

Struggle

At the age of 16, he was strong enough to mark his later business career. He went to Aden soon after matriculation, following the tradition of Baniya families. In Aden he worked on a monthly salary of rupees 500. His elder brother Ramniklal, had went to Aden two years before and was working in a car sales division of A. Besse & Co. Early in the 1950s, the unit of currency of Aden, Rial was disappearing from circulation. Authorities traced that the coins were disappearing from south to the trading point of Aden, then a British colony and military bastian commanding the entrance to the Red Sea and the south approached to the Suez Canal. Later, it was found that an Indian clerk named Dhirubhai Ambani had an open order out in the souk of Aden. Dhirubhai had noted the value of Rial’s silver content was higher than its exchange value against the British pound and other foreign currencies. So, he began buying, melting them down and selling the silver ingots in London. After three months, he stopped all these and made a few lakhs. He was assigned to the shell products division of Besse. As he developed more familiarity with the trade, he was sent to market shell and burmah lubricants around the Besse network. He was outgoing, vigorous and helpful to freshers. He had risk taking potential and he was a one who never ponders in taking bold decisions. He was managing the operations shell and was also able to observe construction of the BP oil refinery in Aden.

The great polyester war

In 1960s, 1970s Dhirubhai and Nusli wadia were in partnership business. The business was of fabrics. But through the passage of time and differences in opinions they decided to get separate. After separation Dhirubhai established RIL and Wadia established Bombay Dying. In 1980s the demand for polyester fabrics in India rouse speedily. Through sale of 1 kg of polyester fabric profit of ₹80-₹100 was earned by seller. For manufacturing polyester a chemical named DMT was required. Wadia applied to get the license for DMT but it took more than 2.5 years. Whereas due to strong connection with PM, finance minister, president and other big shots politicians Dhirubhai started trading within three months of application. He captured the market before wadia could get a license. In 1985, finance department directed that a letter of credit (LOC) would be given by banks for 90 days and within which industrialists have to repay their amounts. By giving bribes in Canara bank, SBI & Standard chartered Bank Dhirubhai kept his funds rolling by forging, making fake documents and presenting it to government. He was caught several times but in court also by paying to judges and with the help of fake documents he marked himself safe and away from controversies. By doing all these he won the polyester war.

The rise of Dhirubhai Ambani

After polyester war RIL was financially strong enough to enter into stock exchange. RIL registered itself into BSE and within two years RIL worth was 10% in BSE. It was found in 1990's that RIL was issuing duplicate shares making internal profits and was giving a bluff to SEBI. After receiving a notice from SEBI RIL management replied that it wants to deregister itself from SEBI and it will pay back to its investors by issuing more number of shares. SEBI was afraid because of RIL contribution into stock market. And Dhirubhai tackled SEBI in this way. Dhirubhai was a man who knows to build relations. He was backed up with a strong political support. And where he wasn't able to create relations he use to bribe the politicians and gain their support and power. But the politicians of BJP were not in connection of Dhirubhai neither they were corrupt nor Dhirubhai was able to establish personal relations with them. In the elections of 1994 BJP won. The PM, finance minister and ministry of law was observing Dhirubhai and within two weeks of result after election a notice was issued against RIl for violating the companies law, 1956, tax evasions, issuing duplicate share certificates etc. Within 2 weeks due to political issues H.D.Deve Gowda became the new PM and Dhirubhai used his political relations and escaped from conflicts. In 1995 a letter to PM Narasimha Rao was sent by a group of 27 MPs that RIL explanations are not enough. More clarifications are needed. Son of Dhirubhai, Mukesh Ambani addressed the concerned MPs in Delhi and assured that shares switching was a common practice and reasons behind switching the shares were liquidity and tax minimisation on capital gains. UTI went through a survey and found that among top 20 behemoths of India only RIL was opting to switch shares for getting tax benefits and hence Mukesh Ambani's explanation was not wholly convincing. Later SEBI along with IT dept. inquired about scams by RIL. They reported that RCs did not provide them enough supportive documents and are not willing to help them in investigation. In spite of having practical issues and obvious possibility of scams, they did not got evidences against Dhirubhai; so,charges are not upto the mark.

Achievement

Dhirubhai built his company through outstanding abilities and drive on many fronts; as an innovative financer, a determined leader, an astute marketer of his products and as a forward looking industrialist. He was a jolly man, with good sense of humour, and always ready to take risk and challenges. In Spite of having number of cases against him, he was never afraid rather he tackled them gallantly. The dark side of his abilities was an eye for human weakness and a willingness to exploit it. He made a complete mockery of govt. and companies law at a stage when the system was decaying and corrupted already. The ministry of finance and its enforcement agencies, RBI, CBI, SEBI, IT dept. and the company law board proved timid and helpless in front of Dhirubhai's power. But RIL was growing up day by day because of public funds and whatever Dhirubhai had done, but neither he exploited the shareholders of the company nor he misused the funds he just allocated funds through wrong means. Due to immense success and public welfare he was awarded Padma Vibhushan in 2016.

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References
  1. "The Polyester Prince: The Rise of Dhirubhai Ambani Harper Collins, 1998".
  2. "The New York Times Book Review: THE POLYESTER PRINCE:The Rise of Dhirubhai Ambani". January 16, 1999.
  3. "Banned book: The Polyester Prince: The Rise of Dhirubhai Ambani HarperCollins, 1998 Status: Injunction against the book in 1998".
  4. "The Telegraph,BAN THE BAN - The republic of India bans books with a depressing frequency".
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