The Cow & The Tractor

Prime Minister Nehru once described India as "a bundle of the centuries in which the cow and the tractor march together." Indian business suffers from, and sometimes profits by, such intermingling. Among those who are mastering the combination is canny Arvind Mafatlal, who at 40 is chairman of a $61.9 million family-controlled business that is spreading out from the mills of India's traditional cotton industry into modern petrochemicals.

Mafatlal's jute plant and ten textile mills employ 25,000 Indians, produce 4% of India's cloth, and specialize in the low-cost cottons that make up the traditional dress of most Indians. Dissatisfied with too much dependence on textiles, Mafatlal recently linked up with West Germany's Farbwerke Hoechst to build a $21 million, nine-plant petrochemical complex that will be India's largest. By bringing a much-needed new industry to India, he hopes to dispel the notion, widely held among his countrymen, that all industrialists are merely greedy. Says Mafatlal: "We can also make a useful contribution to society."

Seeking Good Will. In some ways, Mafatlal has already made a start. For Indian women on a slim budget, his designers are now bringing out new saris that are durable and inexpensive enough for housework, yet attractive enough to be worn in public. Mafatlal has made deals with 34 Indian retail shops to sell his fabrics at low markups and plans to make more such arrangements. He has also taken the unusual step of placing ads in Indian newspapers and magazines to stress his company's interest in the public's welfare as well as in its rupees. "We advertise," he says candidly, "to create good will for private enterprise."

Private enterprise has been kind to Mafatlal and his business, which was founded by Arvind's grandfather in 1905. Mafatlal lives with his wife and three children in a swank Altamont Road mansion in Bombay's outskirts, is served by a staff of 65. A devout Hindu, he eats no meat, keeps his own herd of cows to supply his family with milk, and wears simple white cotton from his own mills. Mafatlal and other Indian industrialists of his generation are more civic-minded and less apologetic about wielding great wealth than were their fathers and grandfathers. Since their companies generally thrive despite India's chaotic economic conditions--while many government projects founder because of red tape and mismanagement--they are understandably anxious to protect themselves from nationalization. Yet they agree that India's problems are so many and so huge that there is plenty of room for both private and public enterprise in the economy.

Close Watch. Mafatlal has given something of a boost to "the public sector" by helping many schools and hospitals, setting up free meal canteens and a free girls' school and donating heavily to scientific and agricultural studies. But he concentrates his attention on his business, recruits bright young men from schools and colleges and trains them for top jobs in his empire. He watches expenses so closely that at the end of each day he summons his accountants into his presence and pores over their books. What Mafatlal sees has encouraged him in his plans to build a 26-story building to house his growing interests.

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