Making It Big

With these three threads of information, we left no stone unturned in our search for Jeet’s family. By an incredible stroke of good fortune—for us and, of course, for Jeet—we had been promoting potato farming at Giribari to feed our potato chip factory. All the farmers from Giribari have a connection with us. We assigned one of my most effective team members, Ram Chandra Dhital, to coordinate the work of finding Jeet’s family. By passing the word among the farmers in the districts around Kawasoti, we found out, within only thirty hours of our inquiry, that Jeet’s father had already passed away and that his mother had remarried. His older brother, who had taken Jeet to India with him, had given up his dream of finding a better future in India and had returned home.

  The story of Jeet—in fact, the story of many Nepalis like him—is all too real and all too tragic. This is the story of Nepalis who migrate to India and other places in a desperate attempt to escape poverty and hunger. Jeet’s brother had moved to Delhi with Jeet in a bid to support his family, particularly his younger siblings. Although Jeet was only eight years old at the time, he and his brother found odd jobs in the old quarter of Delhi. After two years, their employer said he could no longer afford to pay Jeet but would send the boy to Rajasthan to work as a domestic help at his in-laws’. I could just imagine how frightened the boy must have been and how bitter his brother must have felt. However, having no other choice, Jeet went to Rajasthan all by himself at the tender age of ten.

  Jeet began his new job in Rajasthan at the house of his master—and I say ‘master’ because Jeet was like a slave. That house became his entire world. He did not even know what Indian state he lived in, let alone the name of the town. One day, unable to endure the hardships inflicted on him any longer, he ran away. He actually wanted to return to Delhi but did not know how to go about it. After wandering the streets for hours, hungry and exhausted, he somehow made it to the nearest railway station. There he boarded the first train he saw, but it was headed in the opposite direction, towards Mumbai. I guess he had entered one of those crowded general compartments. Seeing a frightened foreign child, the other commuters started to bully him. Then the ticket inspector arrived. As Jeet had no ticket, he was told to get off the train. Just then, a woman who worked at a bank in Baroda intervened. ‘Please don’t do that to the child,’ she said. ‘If you force him off at some small station, he might fall victim to one of those gangs that force children into begging. They might pluck out his eyes. Please, at least, let him travel to the next big city.’ The boy was allowed to travel to the next big station, which happened to be Baroda.

  It is remarkable to note the twists and turns in Jeet’s life. At Baroda, the compassionate woman who had intervened on his behalf decided to take Jeet Bahadur home with her. After sheltering him at her place for a month or two, she took him to a camp run by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindu nationalist volunteer group, which engages in charitable and educational activities across India. This is an organization also often charged with trying to fan communal tensions. Narendra Modi happened to be the coordinator of that camp.

  Modi then took on the responsibility of raising Jeet as his own child. Let there be no doubt: Modi never used Jeet as a domestic help or for any other kind of job. When Jeet was brought to the camp, Modi first asked the boy what he wanted to do. Jeet said he wanted to study. Modi made all arrangements to provide Jeet with an education. Modi was impressed with Jeet’s sharpness, and the way the boy learnt Gujarati in no time. But what clearly got Modi smitten was the boy’s honesty. Once, Modi asked him if he wanted anything. The boy said he was interested in archery. Modi then bought him a huge electronic archery set, the sort professional archers use. But Jeet refused to accept the gift, saying all he needed was an ordinary bow and arrow. Modi loved him even more after that, and there was no looking back for Jeet after that.

  Eventually, we did manage to put Jeet Bahadur back in touch with his family but he always remained Modi’s son. Prime Minister Modi brought the boy with him to Nepal during his official visit in 2014.

  As regards my plan to invite Chief Minister Modi to attend the CNI conference in 2011, I faced resistance in Nepal from the very beginning. As we had to observe the correct protocol for Modi’s visit, I approached the prime minister, then Dr Baburam Bhattarai, as well as officials in the foreign ministry. I started to sense resistance, though it was never overt. Then, one day, the prime minister called up the CNI vice president, Narendra Basnet, urging him to convince me that this was not the right time to invite Narendra Modi to Nepal.

  ‘Please make Binod realize that inviting Modi to Nepal at this time could affect the entire process of drafting the Constitution,’ Dr Bhattarai said to Basnet. ‘Modi being here could be enough, in itself, to trigger a heated debate about Hinduism, which we do not want at this point.’

  This is what Narendra Basnet told me. But Dr Bhattarai did not say anything to me about this. The Indian ambassador to Nepal, Jayant Prasad, told me that the ministry of external affairs in India could not endorse Modi’s visit to Nepal unless the Government of Nepal also agreed to it. But, because of its unnecessary apprehensions, the Government of Nepal was not convinced that Modi was being invited not as a Hindu leader but as the leader of the Vibrant Gujarat movement, and that his visit would have opened a lot of vistas for bringing Indian investment into Nepal. But there were so many blocks laid on our path that we had to drop the plan altogether. I felt very bad. Even Modi felt bad.

  ‘What happened to your plan, Binodjee?’ Modi asked me over the phone. ‘Is there any problem?’

  I briefly explained the situation and urged him to take the initiative from his side.

  ‘No,’ said Modi. ‘I, too, can’t discuss this matter with our government.’

  The Government of India was led by the Congress, which allegedly had a track record of restraining foreign trips by chief ministers of states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

  However, this could not dent my relationship with Narendra Modi. In fact, our relationship has further strengthened over the years. Modi expressed his deeply felt gratitude after I reunited the boy with his family. Through Jeet I got personally linked to Modi, but I have never exploited this relationship to advance any of my business interests. I am convinced that if I were ever to seek Modi’s favour, it would be for matters related to Nepal’s development.

  Someone else who brought me closer to Modi was Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who founded The Art of Living Foundation. I’m a person who believes in karma, but I don’t blindly follow religious orthodoxy. It only takes me five minutes to complete my daily prayers. I am also not one of those orthodox Hindus who dismiss other faiths. I bow my head in reverence when I see a Buddhist temple, a church or a mosque. Nonetheless, I have to say that I am extremely influenced by ancient Hindu philosophy and culture. I am not superstitious but I firmly believe in the law of karma. If your days are bad then bad things happen to you so that even if you say something good, you could offend your listener because of a judgemental error on his part.

  Digvijaya Singh

  I have worked closely with politicians from all the major parties in India. I have had deep interactions with Digvijaya Singh. As an entrepreneur from a country that depends so heavily on India for business, I have, over the years, pushed for the leaders of Nepal and India to establish informal, one-on-one relationships. However, in my experience, the leaders of India’s Congress party have become significantly less politically engaged with Nepal over the years, especially when Pranab Mukherjee was finance minister. As I knew him very well, I tried to convince him that the Congress leadership should have closer ties with the leadership in Nepal, and he did introduce me to many influential people. However, India’s non-political actors gradually became the decisive force in India’s dealings with Nepal. There are many books explaining how that kind of engagement has impeded both economic and political development in Nepal, so I do not want to go into it here. Nonetheless, I continue to enjoy the support and encouragement
of the Indian authorities, including political leaders, in expanding my business interests in India. Ashok Gehlot is one of them.

  As part of my goal to make Wai Wai the only company in India with a pan-India presence, I have been setting up Wai Wai plants in many different parts of India. In the food manufacturing industry, fast and efficient distribution in catchment areas, as well as costs, is very important. While I was planning to set up another Wai Wai plant in western India, I learned that the ministry of food processing industries had come up with a scheme under which the Government of India would provide a subsidy of Rs 50 crore to anyone who established a ‘food park’. A food park is a concept that aims at establishing direct linkages from farms to processing, and ultimately to the consumer market. Ramdev Patanjali Ayurveda Limited had set up food parks in a few states under this scheme. I decided to build one in Rajasthan, choosing that state because it was well integrated with the rest of the country, with access to the massive Delhi–Maharashtra corridor, which links Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra.

  We identified a partner for the food park project in Rajasthan and selected a 100-acre plot. However, just three days before applications closed, our partner had to pull out of the project, placing it in jeopardy. Coincidentally, just at that time, I and a few family friends were on a week-long trip on Royal Rajasthan on Wheels, a luxury tourist train. When the train reached Jaipur, Varun and other members of the team involved in the food park project, who were still in Rajasthan, were there to meet me. It was then that I suddenly thought of Ashok Gehlot, the chief minister of Rajasthan, with whom I was well acquainted. I sought an appointment with him, and he immediately took time out to see me. After I told him about the story of my food park project, he immediately called up a leading real estate development company called ARG and asked them to help me out.

  That very evening, I handed over the matter of the food park to my team and the ARG, and left to continue my train journey. Within three days, we were able to apply for the food park, which is now under construction. This is a shining example of the level of commitment of Indian leaders towards their state. Politicians in many other parts of the region, including Nepal, need to emulate this. I feel indebted to the great politicians and statesmen from the different political parties of India who have, over the years, given their selfless support to me to help create business and employment in many parts of the country and helped me expand my business. I have found some governments in India friendlier than many other governments towards foreign as well as domestic investors. Insofar as the political parties in India are concerned, none of them is unfriendly to investors like us.

  I recently made the acquaintance of Vasundhara Raje Scindiajee, the chief minister of Rajasthan, during the wedding of my second son Rahul. She had already heard about us and the wedding. I found her to be sharp and entrepreneurial. She was very keen about what we were doing under the food park project. It did not take her long to grasp that the food park we were setting up in Ajmer was going to be a game changer in linking the Rajasthan farmers to the market. Under this venture, we would establish not only the core operational facilities in Ajmer with over Rs 120 crore of investment in a one-acre plot of land, but also twelve other regional processing units in twelve districts of Rajasthan. These units would be available to the local farmers for processing their goods for direct sale in the market, helping them fetch better value for their produce. Scindiajee wanted to be personally involved and summoned a meeting of her key officials, promising everything that was needed for the facilities.

  Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

  I have already talked about the grand success of the FNCCI-organized economic summit that was attended by some of the great leaders of Asia, such as Hussain Muhammad Ershad, Farooq Leghari and Anand Panyarachun. I had always been fascinated by the rise of the Asian Tigers under leaders like Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad of Malaysia and Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore. I came up with the idea of inviting Mahathir Mohamad to help us prepare and carry out substantial homework on governance and administration for Nepal’s transformation. I preferred Mahathir because it was under his leadership that a country, which was in no better shape than Nepal, actually metamorphosed into a leading regional economy. Though some criticize him, calling him a dictator, nobody disputes that Dr Mahathir was the person who not only transformed Malaysia economically but, in the process, also played a pivotal role in shaping the ASEAN economic block.

  It was not difficult for me to bring Mahathir to Nepal. His son is a friend of Iku Mohamed, our close family friend Yusuf Mohamad’s son. Iku is a leading animator in Japan, and is also highly sought after in Hollywood. It was not that I was unacquainted with Mahathir, having met him several times in the past. But I chose to approach him through Iku.

  ‘I need a favour from you,’ I told Iku. ‘You have to help me get in touch with Dr Mahathir Mohamad.’

  ‘No problem,’ he replied. ‘We’ll go to Malaysia and meet him together.’

  Iku himself was planning to write a book on Mahathir in Japanese.

  He fixed up an appointment for me with Mahathir, and I immediately flew to Malaysia for the meeting. Mahathir had recently stepped down as prime minister and was recuperating from a surgery. We had a long discussion on a range of issues. I was impressed with his knowledge of Nepal, and with his understanding of the legacy of the Gurkhas scattered all across South Asia and South East Asia. He explained how he helped integrate Nepalis into Malaysia, given that we had played such an important role in shaping the country. He and his spouse had never been to Nepal and were both keen to visit.

  By the end of that first meeting, Mahathir had agreed, in principle, to visit Nepal. ‘Please provide me with information on the socio-economic issues as well as the political situation in Nepal, and I’ll try to come up with some meaningful observations,’ he said.

  He also asked Iku to arrange meetings for me with the top business and industrial leaders in Malaysia. This shows Mahathir’s leadership skill. Though he was no longer the prime minister of Malaysia, he was very eager to leverage every opportunity that came his way to the benefit of his country. Iku took me to Ananda Krishnan, a Sri Lankan raised in Malaysia, who went on to become one of the biggest businessmen in that country and one of the richest men in the world. Mahathir is very close to Ananda Krishnan and has his office on the top floor of one of the Petronas Twin Towers, which was jointly built by Krishnan and a Malaysian oil giant. Krishnan owns a number of big companies in the sectors of oil, gas, satellites, media, telecommunications and gaming. My friend Mintoo had introduced me to Krishnan before Iku had taken me to him. Mintoo was his business partner in a bid for a gas field in Bangladesh around twenty-five years ago. At that time, I had wanted to get Ananda Krishnan to invest in the power sector in Nepal through his company Powertek, a leading power generation company in Asia.

  Mahathir also introduced me to some of his senior staff. His senior assistant, Dr C.A.C. Badriah was the contact person for Mahathir’s visit. I began preparations for his visit as soon as I returned to Nepal. As the day of the visit drew near, his advance team arrived in Nepal. Mahathir had also informed Nepal’s ambassador to Malaysia about this visit. The stage was set, and everything appeared in place for it. Unfortunately, unforeseen and dramatic events were to call off the visit.

  On 1 September 2004, the very day Mahathir was due to land in Nepal, a deadly riot erupted in Kathmandu. An angry mob attacked many buildings protesting what they saw as the government’s failure to save twelve Nepali hostages in Iraq who were executed by an Islamic militant group. The violence spread like wildfire. While this was happening, I was at Hyatt Hotel in Kathmandu, overseeing arrangements for Mahathir’s stay.

  ‘Tun Mahathir has left for the airport from his residence,’ beeped a message on my cellphone. Tun is the highest honorific title in Malaysia.

  My heart began to race. I started calling up top security officials to get their views on the situation. I called up the home minister, the chief of army st
aff and the inspector general of police, among other authorities, but nobody could provide me concrete assurance that Mahathir would be safe. Nobody seemed to be taking charge to contain the situation.

  ‘Now the Tun is ready to take off for Kathmandu in his private aircraft,’ beeped another message. Here, it may be noted that Mahathir did not even want us to arrange a chartered flight for him.

  In a last-ditch effort to salvage the visit, I got in touch with every person who could possibly help us. I was now thinking about airlifting Mahathir to the Hyatt from Kathmandu airport as soon as he landed in Nepal.

  ‘Let’s not take any chances, Binodjee. The situation is still pretty volatile,’ a senior army official told me over the phone, which effectively ended my months of effort to bring Mahathir to Nepal.

  With a very heavy heart, I called up Mahathir.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Mahathir asked.

  ‘You know how emotional Nepali people are,’ I told him. ‘The situation in Iraq has provoked huge public outrage here. I don’t want to take any chances with your security and safety. And our government has also urged me to suggest postponement of the visit.’

  ‘No problem, Binod,’ Mahathir replied. ‘I’ve been through things like this before. Don’t worry. Relax, and focus on planning another visit sometime in the future.’

  Later, one of his aides told me that once it was clear his visit to Nepal was not on, Mahathir rescheduled his travel plans and headed to another destination directly from Kathmandu.

  These events, in fact, brought me closer to Mahathir. I went to Malaysia to call on him and personally apologize for the incident. I met him in his office in the Petronas Twin Towers.

  ‘I shall definitely come to Nepal. You just make fresh arrangements for my visit,’ he told me.

  When at last he visited Nepal, in March 2014, he invited my family to tea. Though I had wanted to invite him to my place for lunch, his hectic schedule did not allow it. But his invitation to my family was a huge honour for me. These days, I am in close contact with both Mahathir and his son.