Every journalist is asked one question after she writes on an important or controversial topic: “What else do you know? Come on, tell me what else has happened that you know about that the world does not…” Often, the journalist smiles and says, “That’s all there is to it. I know no more than you do now on the topic.” The listener is not convinced and is, in fact, sure that the writer is playing a game, not revealing all that she knows. And the prodding continues...
It is with this sense of anticipation that one picks up Surge: Tamil Nadu’s Growth Story by Sushila Ravindranath, who, the introduction tells us, has been a journalist for more than 30 years. Chronicling her experience of writing on business and industry in Tamil Nadu, the book successfully captures the state’s journey in these important years. In a nutshell, the book has several positives: it captures the achievements of industry and its pitfalls neatly, talks about different business groups and those at their helm, and even lets slip a few nuggets of insider information. The list of companies and groups must have been painstakingly listed out before the author delved into their details for this book.
Where it leaves you yearning for more, however, is in the insights one would expect from the business people covered here, and their experiences through the cycles of fortune. While each business group has been etched out with a surprising level of detail, one wonders whether such a checklist of chronology, founders, scions and achievements might not have been sacrificed for more insights gleaned from years of conversations with the corporate head honchos.
That is not to say that there is no such insight. Only that they are few and far between. For instance, what the world remembers about Ma Foi, the recruiting firm, is that its promoters K. Pandiarajan and his wife sold a successful venture to Randstad of the Netherlands. But the author also writes about its founder’s early days: he had about 20 engineers ready to go to the Gulf in December 1992. “Babri Masjid happened. All their visas were cancelled. These engineers had resigned from their jobs to go to the Gulf.” Fewer still know that Murugappa Group’s decision to acquire shares in Parry’s came at the prodding of former president R. Venkataraman. Or that Solidaire, a hugely popular brand of TVs in the ’80s, stumbled in its first avatar after a merger with an unlikely partner, tennis player Ramanathan Krishnan, but came back strong in its second innings to capture the market in Tamil Nadu.
Information has been well classified. Considering that each group or business person the author has chosen to write about could well fill individual books by themselves, a categorisation with chronological cadence, starting with the hoary old ones to recent start-ups helps the reader keep track. The ‘Old Money’ section has Murugappa, TVS and Amalgamations Group, while the ‘New’ has chapters dedicated to Shriram Group and Apollo Hospitals. Then come the pioneers of the ’90s where Sify, the Marans of Sun TV and businessman Sivasankaran figure.
Curiously, the author has also segregated companies into ‘Failures’ and ‘Disasters’. While Southern Petrochemical Industries Corporation (SPIC) and other petrochemical projects in the state find mention in the former category, NEPC and Sterling Maxworth fall under the latter. Here, the author has been empathetic to the wildly swinging fortunes of these promoters, referring to NEPC as a company that attempted “too much too soon”, while Sterling was “an idea before its time”.
A separate section on the auto industry is well-deserved, considering the State’s strides in this area. The fact that Tamil Nadu bent backwards to bring in Ford and Hyundai is captured well. The level of detail one finds here is welcome. For example, did you know that one of Ford’s conditions before it invested here was that the State would ensure no other industry was set up in a 20-km radius so that its ‘ultra-modern’ paint plant would be free from pollution?
Possibly the most interesting part of the book is about the ‘clusters’ that Tamil Nadu has encouraged, now with the largest number of industrial clusters in India. The matchstick cluster in Sivakasi, for instance, started off in 1923 when the founders of the first such unit saw agriculture failing and wanted an alternative source of income. That Namakkal is an egg-producing cluster is another curve ball for those who know of it only as a centre for automobile body manufacture.
A rookie starting off in business journalism in the south will find this book invaluable. But to interest an MBA graduate in his first job, a book carved from each of the chapters herein, with business insights thrown in, may be necessary. Which brings us back to the first question: Have Tamil Nadu industrialists been their usual, reticent selves and given out too little of their strategy to the chronicler? Or does the author have more insight than she has let us peep into, duly reserved for future books?
Surge: Tamil Nadu’s Growth Story; Sushila Ravindranath, Westland, Rs. 699.
bharatkumar.k@thehindu.co.in
