Sadaaqa celebrates enterprise and ‘assimilation’ with Tony Jashanmal

KUWAIT CITY, April 21: On April 23, Sadaaqa presents Tony Jashanmal, Group President of Jashanmal Group, one of the oldest leading trading, distribution, and retail companies in the Middle East with more than a 100 internationally curated brands.

In 1919, Jashanmal’s grandfather Raisahab Jashanmal moved out of India and set up the first retail store in Basra just after the First World War. The store sold items such as stationery, newspapers, books and men’s clothing. In those days, they were novelties in the Middle East.

In 1934, he began expanding his business when he opened the first shop in Kuwait’s Safat Square which was followed by a store in Dubai’s Al Nasr Square and in Bahrain. In many ways, Jashanmal’s family exemplifies the Indian spirit of enterprise. Indians as a community migrated to different parts of the world where they lived, worked and became one with the soil while maintaining their own identities.

Tony Jashanmal’s family has done the same for more than three generations. He is suave, multilingual who left a PhD midway to join the family business in 1971. He is also a founding member of the elite Indian Business and Professional Council, Kuwait. His uncles in the UAE are leaders of Indian community and yet at the same time they have almost totally assimilated with the local culture.

Indian and the Arabian Gulf culture merges in the Jashanmals who have now over 150 retails stores in Kuwait, UAE, Oman and Bahrain and a distribution network of over 1,000 outlets.

In the April edition of Sadaaqa we celebrate this Indian spirit of enterprise and assimilation with the Jashanmals. Personally, I promise you a wonderful lesson in history filled with anecdotes of pre and post oil Kuwait. Tune in.