OF FAMILY CULTURE, EGO WARS, AND MATRIARCHS
Sonu Bhasin highlights the complexity of family politics across generations
This delightful book deserves both praise and rebuke. Let me get done with the latter. One, it is badly proofread. There are over half a dozen errors including silly ones like ‘diary’ for ‘dairy’. Two, the chosen inheritors belong to families based in Mumbai and Delhi. There’s none from south of the Vindhyas. Three, accuracy of dates is a bit wobbly. In chapter 5 on Keventers, Bhasin writes “the original business was actually set up in 1922.” Yet Keventers’ prominent newspaper on 4th March claims “over 125 years enriching lives”. So who’s correct?
I forgive these trespasses without demur. Bhasin has deftly used her past expertise in creating an editorial platform dedicated to family-owned businesses. Her writing brings out the complexities of family politics across successive generations. An inevitable issue is the role of a widowed mother, the matriarch. She holds immense emotional sway over children, the inheritors, who will now run businesses she presides over but knows nothing about. The author is truthful but neutral about intrafamily disputes. Much is available nowa- days via archival online records but Bhasin gets high marks in credibility since each chapter ends with a section listing detailed references which researchers are welcome to examine.
This factor rebuts possible charges of interviews with business chieftains -- who have agreed to reveal family history, intrigues included -- being stage-managed. Obviously, conversations aren’t hostile or inquisitional. Interviewees are tough business practitioners. Without sharp eyes, ears and tongues they couldn’t have survived. Yet, true to their decision to face authorial audit, Bhasin is given firsthand narrations of family culture, ego battles and internecine rivalries that have ruinously led some family-owned businesses to doom. I found authentic accounts of brand warfare particularly fascinating. Powerful and always aloof heads of prestigious corporations are quoted and named with disarming felicity.
I can’t resist the temptation of telling readers about the brand war between Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL) and Marico, owner of coconut-oil brand Parachute. HLL wanted to buy Parachute. Keki Dadiseth, HLL chairman, phoned Marico owner Harsh Mariwala to tell him so. “Mr Mariwala, I will give you enough resources to take care of you and all your future generations.” Mariwala replied with silence and heard the threat that if he didn’t sell he would be the loser as HLL would make sure that there would be nothing left of Parachute in the market. Mariwala replied, “Mr Dadiseth, you may think I’m a nut but you will find that I’m a tough nut to crack. Thanks, but no thanks.” He wasn’t boasting. In 2006 Mariwala vanquished HLL by buying out its coconut oil business for Rs 216 crores.
The author’s summation of the intrafamily scenario in Berger Paints depicts an unhappy semi-equilibrium between generations. Kuldip has three daughters while Gurcharan has two daughters and a son. The daughters are not keen on joining the family business. The son studied in the US and is not keen to come back. It would be a shame, opines the author, if history were to repeat itself. It’s clear a business will thrive only if the family culture that has lasted four generations keeps the fifth one growing as well. Bhasin has uncovered a lot of stories. Why don’t entrepreneurs write their own tales? Perhaps there are too many skeletons in boardroom closets! Is this why no one takes the risk of letting a bone tumble out? I don’t know the answer. Maybe Sonu Bhasin does.