Probity in Public Life

Since disclosure of personal financial interest and investments of people in high public office is a subject of so much discussion currently, after the second report of Hindenburg Research in August 2024, it is worth putting in the public domain some archival material that I have had access to while researching and writing the text of a personal biography of Cooverji H Bhabha, independent India’s first commerce minister.

This material shows that probity in public life is not a subject matter of mere legislation or rule-making. It depends on the moral fibre of a society and the ethical values of a person. After all, laws have to be implemented by administration and enforced by a judiciary – if they are bereft of morality and ethics, we can make the best laws in the world, but they will be observed more in their breach. As BR Ambedkar had said: “...however good a Constitution may be, it is sure to turnout bad because those who are called to work it, happen to be a bad lot. However bad a Constitution may be, it may turn out to be good, if those who are called to work it, happen to be a good lot.” (Quoted by Meera Emmanuel  in https://www.barandbench.com/columns/dr-ambedkar-1949-constituent-assembly-speech). 

So you can lay down codes of conduct for people in high public office, but if they lack the ethics and morality, it will be an infructuous exercise.

The documents here show that Cooverji Bhabha, on his appointment as a Member of the Interim Government of India under Lord Mountbatten wrote to Jawaharlal Nehru who was then the Vice President of Executive Council of that Government, declaring his financial assets.

The Interim Government was sworn in on 2nd September 1946, Mr Bhabha’s letter, dated 8th September, states "As informed to you the other day, I am connected with several companies either as director or shareholder. I enclose herewith a list of companies in which I am a shareholder in my own rights or as a joint holder or as a beneficiary or as a Trustee. I have resigned as a Director from all the companies where I was a Director. However, I am a Shareholder of these companies as per the list, including private limited companies. You may if you think right, communicate this matter to our other colleagues as well as to H.E. the Viceroy."

The letter had a three page enclosure listing the names of companies in which he had a shareholding and those in which he was a director. We had word-processed the list since it was a copy on flimsy paper - which were used those days as copy sheets of typed documents. These archival documents are in the personal collection of the Bhabha family.

This declaration was made by Mr Bhabha much before India’s independence even before the Representation of the People Act 1951 came into being. and 60 years before the Rules under the Act made it mandatory for Members of Parliament to declare their assets.

An Interesting Archive!

Our traditional understanding of an archive is that it is “a collection of historical documents or records providing information about a place, institution, or group of people.” For most people, the word archive evokes an image of dusty documents stuffed into boxes, stacked in a corner and forgotten --boxes that are opened only when some researcher wants to delve into actual documents about a period or a person to establish some fact.

 The word ‘archive is hard to define, as it is used in various ways, depending on context. It can mean:

1. A collection of items which form evidence of the activities of a person or institution.

2. A building where historical records are kept.

3. Papers that are old or used infrequently.

4.The act of adding records to an archive.

For me, the strongest memories of archives are of the basement of Elphinstone College Mumbai that was almost like home half a century ago (when I was working on my PhD dissertation) and of the central archives of the Reserve Bank of India, Pune (more recently, when I was researching for the book on Cooverji Bhabha). Both, for me, were veritable gold mines!

My understanding of the word expanded when I came across a quotation from Edgar Allen Poe who wrote: “Grey hair is an archive of the past.” It dawned on me that the most ordinary object carries a story of its own, waiting to be discovered and documented! This realisation came alive more recently when I came across a wonderful book by Arshia Ladak titled A Wardrobe Full of Stories.

Cover of the book

“Sarees are memory keepers,” according to the author. So the book brought home the fact that a saree is also an archive – for each one of us, who considers this garment as an essential piece of our lives, a saree carries so many of our personal memories. But a saree also carries its own tapestry of tales – of the craftsperson who wove it; to the design that may have been influenced by the diverse culture that has been the pride of our country; to the variety of the raw materials used, reflecting the state of resources available – cotton, silk, hemp, linen, etc. And, as Arshia Ladak wrote so evocatively:

“A saree has lived with a weaver’s family before becoming a part of mine. Every saree I wear has enmeshed within its design the fragrance of the flowers in the weaver’s wife’s hair, the sounds of his children playing with shuttles, his own perspiration, the tears in his prayers, the hopes in his dreams, and the aroma of freshly cooked rice that awaits while he puts the final knot into a long day’s work. I am reminded that each saree I buy places food on his table, a book in front of his children, and a stronger future for our country.” 

Elsewhere she says : “Sarees are breathtaking not only for the striking skill and labour of the weavers who have produced them for centuries, but also because each saree is a knowledge the weavers have received over millennia, passed from hand to hand, loom to loom, as empires, languages, social mores and technologies grew and changed… Sarees weave us into history. They also weave history into us.”

From the book, pages: 28-29

This brief video about the book speaks for itself

The passion of the author has been so completely internalised by the researcher and editor Aurvi Sharma and by the designer Rachita Dalal, that the book is a treat to behold and to actually read. You linger over every page and notice the detailing – the blending of the visual with the text, the imaginative way in which the text is used to enhance the beauty of the displayed design of the saree.

Detailed explanation of a motif, page: 49

 As Rachita explained her experience of designing the book: “Every saree—woven, painted or embroidered—is a work of art. To create an art book using so many diverse works of art in thread was an invigorating creative challenge! To replicate the tactile nature of the textile, we made real things with our hands. We stamped and sewed and embroidered and painted and wove. We also showed the saree in a different light through photo concepts, in an interweaving of emotions and stories, to answer the question: What is the saree to you?”

And Aurvi, who garnered the amazing inputs – comprising not just images, but songs, quotations from various references (some going back to mythology) – really deserves all the compliments for providing such a vast canvas of information to the author.

Some pages with songs, pages: 104-05 and 101

She says: "The author had interviewed saree lovers from all walks of life. What emerged from the poring over the interviews was how distinct and personal a saree is to the wearer. A saree could be a mother's song, a myth, a fable, a mirror, home, the blue sky. So we treated each chapter like its own creative universe to evoke the innumerable meanings a saree holds "

From the book, pages: 22-23 and 24-25

Unfortunately, Arshia succumbed to cancer just a few weeks before the publication of the book but she continued to work on her dream, even as she was undergoing chemotherapy, speaks of her determination and grit to see her passion come alive.

She conducted 30+ interviews with saree lovers or restorers and weavers from across the country through those trying times! And was able to approve the entire conceptualisation – the finally laid out text, the design, select the sarees to be photographed, colour scheme, fonts – in fact, the implementation of her concept. All the ‘classics’ among sarees find a mention in the book – paithani from Maharashtra, ikkat from Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, patola from Patan, bandhani from Saurashtra and Rajasthan, Parsi garas and, of course, kanjeevarams from Tamil Nadu and many, many more.

From the book, pages: 126-27 and 128-29

This is a book which richly deserves to become compulsory reference for students of design. It is in league with some of the best books designed by late Dr Sanjeev Bothra, especially his books for the internationally acclaimed artist Dr Himmat Shah.

Photo credit: Amazon.in

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Photo credit: Steta Publishers:http://www.steta.in/work/himmat-shah-writing-for-art

It is creditable that Shri Venkateshwar Somani Charitable Trust, Mumbai, published the book

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Meticulous Lord Mountbatten

In the past few weeks, Lord Mountbatten’s name has been in the media in connection with the sengol that was installed in the new building of the Indian Parliament.

I want to share some archival documents to show how meticulous Lord Mountbatten was and how particular he was about maintaining official records and following procedures to a T.

The records that I refer to are two letters that Lord Mountbatten wrote to Cooverji H Bhabha, independent India’s first commerce minister who had earlier served as a minister in the Interim Government of India headed by Lard Wavell and later Lord Mountbatten. The original letters are available in the personal archives of the Bhabha family. I referred to these while doing the research and writing for Cooverji Bhabha’s biography by his daughter Rati Forbes. 

These are just two letters, a drop in the ocean of the voluminous archival materials available – of Lord Mountbatten as well as of the period. But I would like to share them for people to draw their own conclusions about the fact, or otherwise, of the sengol being presented to him by the priests of the Thiruvavaduthurai Mutt in Tamil Nadu and then to Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first Prime Minister.

Both the letters are written on the 9th of September 1947. The first one places on record the fact of Lord Mountbatten having “spoken with the Prime Minister on the telephone” about the appointment of Cooverji Bhabha as a member of the Emergency Committee of the Cabinet set up to deal with the post-Partition violence and riots. He asks Mr Bhabha to speak to the Prime Minister “before 8.0AM” and attend the Cabinet meeting at 10am.

The full text of the letter is as follows:

"Dear Mr Bhabha,

I have spoken to the Prime Minister on the telephone to-night &obtained his very willing concurrence to your appointment as the Chairman of the Delhi Emergency Committee.

I told him I would ask you to get in touch with him before 8.0AM tomorrow as he was proposing personally to inquire in the morning why the Emergency Committee of the the Cabinet's orders about forming the Delhi Emergency Committee had not been carried out. 

He agreed to consult you before taking further action if you got in touch with him.

Please come to the meeting at Government House at 10.0AM

Yours sincerely

Mountbatten of Burma"

Notice in the documents, that the address Viceroy’s House has been crossed out by pen and Government House has been typed above. This reflects not only the shortage of paper in the country at that time, but also how mindful Lord Mountbatten was about not wasting resources. Notice also that he has written on both sides of the paper. Perhaps he was following Gandhiji who used to pen letters and notes on pieces of scrap paper! Also, notice that Mountbatten records the conversation (and the decision taken) with Nehru in his own handwriting without waiting for it to be dictated and typed.

The second letter is also dated 9th September 1947 and is written after the Cabinet meeting held at 10am. Lord Mountbatten conveys to Mr Bhabha the decision to set up the “Delhi Emergency Committee” at which the Home Minister – Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel – had agreed that Mr Bhabha should be nominated the chairman. He asks Mr Bhabha to “please arrange to preside at the first meeting… which is being held this afternoon."

The full text of the letter is:

Dear Mr Bhabha,

At the meeting of the Emergency Committee of the Cabinet this morning we decided to set up a "Delhi Emergency Committee" to grip the situation in Delhi.

After the meeting, I consulted the Home Minister who agreed that a Cabinet Minister should take the chair and grip the situation and he has agreed that you should be nominated. Will you therefore please arrange to preside at the first meeting with the Chief Commissioner, Sub Area Commander and I.G. of Police, etc., which is being held this afternoon.

Thereafter will you please attend the Emergency Committee Meetings every morning at 10.0AM here -- as the Delhi Committee Representative & arrange future Delhi Committee meetings for each afternoon.

Yours sincerely

Mountbatten of Burma"

Could a person, who recorded the decisions and events so meticulously, have not recorded receiving the sengol from the priests of a well-known Mutt and returned it forthwith for onward transmission to the Prime Minister?

Pradip Shah Recounts How HDFC Segued from Build-and-Sell to Pure Lending

 (I was delighted to get a comment from Pradip Shah on “HT Parekh: Conceptualising an Income-gearing Product in the 1950s When Incomes Were Limited ”.http://nitamukherjee.blogspot.com/2022/08/ht-parekh-conceptualising-income.html He was a part of the core team of ICICI employees who worked with HTP on the launch of HFDC. A brilliant Harvard alumnus who had joined ICICI in the mid-1970s at the invitation of HTP, he was one of the few who left ICICI to join HDFC once it was set up. So, it was a pleasure that Pradip responded to my blog by recounting some of his earliest memories of working with HTP in HDFC to set trends that others would follow. I am happy to share these on this platform. For it places in the public domain some archival information about the first institution for housing finance in India. And, as I have emphasised, memories of personal experiences are the best archives! Thank you, Pradip.)

Comment on Nita Mukherjee’s blog, Pradip Shah, Mumbai, August 22, 2022 

I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to work closely with HT Parekh in setting up HDFC. I was instrumental in changing the concept of HDFC to make it a pure lending organisation. HT Parekh had wanted to create an organisation that would build homes and sell on instalments, following HUDCO where Keshub Mahindra (later HDFC vice-chairman), who endorsed the idea, had been chairman. Indeed, the proposal prepared by NC Singhal and me in mid-1977 and sent to Aga Khan and IFC (W) was based on that business model.

 HT Parekh with Pradip Shah at Washington Airport circa 1980, Courtesy Pradip Shah 

But I saw how building societies and savings and loan associations (S&Ls) worked, on my trip abroad in December 1977. The trip was a suggestion of HT Parekh, who spoke to the then head of Standard Chartered Bank, who arranged for me to visit Abbey National Building Society in Baker Street and stay at the Standard Chartered chummery in a London suburb (those were days of severely-restricted availability of foreign exchange). Using contacts, I was able to get appointments with some S&Ls in USA, a building society in Philippines (where there had been turmoil in money markets) and a building society in Singapore. Unfortunately, most of these organisations thought of my visit as an imposition; one US S&L head heard me for a minute then promptly escorted me out saying he did not have time to answer questions on how S&Ls functioned. But the few days I got to sit in the Abbey National branch and the interaction I had with a couple of people there made me realise that a scalable, sustainable housing finance organisation had to be a pure lending organisation, not one that would build and sell homes on instalment-payment basis. (Incidentally, ALL people I met appreciated my HDFC business card that you, Nita, designed and got printed!)

I came back and drafted the lending policies which were repeatedly not approved till we had a board meeting where I forcefully presented the lending-against-income and lending-against-alternative-security proposals. The alternative security (personal guarantees of respectable family members or friends; assignment of LIC policies, etc) overcame the objections of Suresh Shroff of Amarchand Mangaldas and YH Malegam who were advisers to HT Parekh, who rightly said that flats under construction offered no security. The practice of lending-against-income (and the instalment-income ratio) were copied by the industry that followed (imitation is the best form of flattery) as was our brochure (often word-for-word), loan-application form, alternative security idea and even the ‘annual rest’ (reducing the principal at the end of one year for all principal-repayments made monthly). Indeed, the annual rest practice, that HDFC started and the industry copied, had to be modified later to coincide with the accounting year-end. I had borrowed the annual rest idea from building societies to enhance returns to HDFC as HT Parekh was keen to lend at 10.5%, a below-market rate at that time.

Indeed, it was this lending policy that resulted in our loan for tea workers for which Mr Hirianniah (then head of technical at HDFC) and I visited the Tata Tea estate near Jorhat in February 1979.

 

HT Parekh: Conceptualising an Income-gearing Product in the 1950s When Incomes Were Limited

 At the outset, let me explain the rationale for writing this piece — to place in the public domain some archival information and memories that may get lost in the mists of history. I don’t even know whether some of the documents referred to here, and to which I had access once upon a time, exist anymore—physically or as digitised versions.

On 22 October 1977, when Housing Development Finance Corporation was launched by the then finance minister of India HM Patel, at the Ball Room of Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay, it was considered a ‘revolutionary’ step in the history of Indian finance.

To understand why the concept was so innovative, one has to understand the weltanschauung of the man who lobbied for it unfalteringly for nearly three decades before it saw the light of the day. One also has to understand the context of income-gearing. When jobs were so scarce and salaries so low, how could a product based on leveraging future incomes work?

HT Parekh articulated his concept of a housing finance company for the first time in February 1951 when he was employed with Harkisondass Lukhmidass, then an upcoming stockbroking firm in Bombay. On his return from the London School of Economics (LSE) in 1936, HTP had joined this firm on a salary of Rs150/per month, much to the chagrin of his father, because the share market was considered a ‘sattaa bazaar’ and the term dalaal was a pejorative. In any case, a degree in economics did not hold great employment opportunities in India in the 1930s. At best, you could get into poorly-paid academics or, if you were lucky and well-connected, after 1935, you could get a job with the newly set up Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Even LSE, established by Fabian socialists Sydney and Beatrice Webb in 1895, had a difficult time getting students as well faculty because a degree in economics hardly led to good jobs. As AW Coats, writing about the history of LSE, said: “The leading British economic writers had rarely derived their inspiration or their preparatory training from elementary economics; the number of academic economists was small; professorships were few and poorly paid; and consequently talented men turned to other matters, refusing to embark upon a scholarly and scientific career in which bare subsistence is uncertain. It was, admittedly, ‘just possible to earn enough to live with extreme economy by combining together several different economic sources of income’…” (See: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9780203978887-25/alfred-marshall-early-development-london-school-economics-unpublished-letters-bob-coats)

It was only during the directorship of Sir William Beveridge –1919 to 1937 –that LSE was able to get distinguished faculty members as well as students – many from developing countries. (See: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22576402-the-london-school-of-economics-and-its-problems-1919-1937). HTP was one such student from not a developing country but a then colony of British India.

HTP was at LSE up to 1936. He had gone to London basically to appear for the Indian Civil Service examinations but, having failed to get selected, he completed his degree in economics at LSE. The spirit of Fabian socialism that he imbibed during those two years was perhaps the basis of his humanism throughout his career which was associated with institutions of capitalism – the capital market, banking and finance.

For the current generation, who may not be familiar with the tenets of Fabian socialism, very briefly, its advocates believed that: 1) substantial State intervention would be necessary if ordinary people were to prosper; and 2) the Welfare State had a collective responsibility to its citizens for education, healthcare and nutrition, housing and employment, along with support for care of the sick and aged.

Immediately after his return from London, HTP taught for a few months at St Xavier’s College, Bombay. He did opt for a career in banking like his father and elder brother, both of whom were working with the Central Bank of India. For HTP, as he has mentioned in his autobiographic narrative Hira ne Patro (Letters to Hira, first published in Gujarati), AD Shroff was a role model. AD Shroff too had started working in the share market after returning from London with a degree in economics joining the firm Batlivala & Karani (See Sucheta Dalal, AD Shroff Titan of Finance and Free Enterprise).

So, on noticing an advertisement of Harkisondass Lukhmidass in the Times of India for ‘educated’ youngsters to work as brokers, HTP decided to apply. Sir Purshottamdas Thakoredas, whom HTP knew well, was an adviser to Harkissondas; with his reference and a degree in economics from LSE, HTP got the job. Soon, he became the ‘right-hand man’ of Harkisondass (Hakkubhai to most people in banking and financial circles of Bombay in the 1940s and 1950s) who used the articulation abilities of HTP to make presentations to the then governor of RBI.

Until then, Harkisondass Lukhmidass was not one of the firms recognised by RBI for trading in government securities. It was at HTP’s insistence and initiative, that Hakkubhai sought a meeting with Sir James Taylor, governor RBI in 1937 to make a presentation about their vision of the capital market – that it is an avenue for peoples’ savings that need to be invested in the development of the economy. ‘Presentations’ those days were all in the nature of discussions on ‘Notes’ or ‘Working Papers’; so the domain knowledge of the business as well as articulation skills mattered most. Harkisondass Lukhmidass not only began to get business from RBI but also established such rapport that Sir Taylor began to consult HTP and Harkisondass Lukhmidass on business and economic issues. The relationship continued after Sir Taylor’s death in 1943 with CD Deshmukh who succeeded him.

The first ‘Note’ on housing finance that HTP wrote in 1951 was one such presentation to the Reserve Bank of India. It was titled “A Housing Society for the Bombay State” (see India through the Eyes of a Visionary: Writings of HT Parekh; page 467). (See:http://nitamukherjee.blogspot.com/2022/08/memories-as-archives.html)

                                          Photo: Nihar Sagar

In this Note, HTP’s emphasis was on the financial aspects of the company – mainly on how the resources for lending would be raised. The capital market was then in a nascent stage and, since he was working with a broking firm, he must have observed that it would be extremely difficult to raise money from the public. After all, if in 1955, ICICI’s first issue of 150,000 shares had less than 2,000 applications – 1,928 to be exact – in 1951, the situation could not have been any better. Such was the state of the primary issues market then. (2nd Board Meeting of ICICI; Secretary’s Board Papers; 28 February 1955).

The two tenets of Fabian philosophy, viz., a concern for the common man and State intervention for welfare – were reflected in this Note. The first paragraph of that Note said: “In order to assist the small man in building residential property for himself and to assist the numerous cooperative housing societies which have come into existence in recent years and who require finance for housing, it would be advisable to promote an independent housing corporation, sponsored by the government...” Further it said: “The primary purpose shall be to advance, for residential housing of the small man, either directly or through cooperative societies...”

Salaries in the 1950s: Interesting Anecdotal Evidence

As mentioned earlier, HTP had joined Harkisondass Lukhmidass in 1936 on a salary of Rs150/ per month; and although I have no evidence for what it would have been by the 1950s, since annual increments those days were not even in ‘three figures’, it may have been just touching ‘four figures’.

Even by the mid-1950s, ICICI – the development bank that HTP would join in 1956 – offered salaries as low as Rs400/- per month to the professionals it recruited. The minutes of the 1st meeting of the board of directors of ICICI on 20 January 1955 recorded that Percival S Beale, the then general manager, “was authorised to engage the necessary staff of about eight to ten persons on a salary not exceeding Rs. 400/- per month.” But since Mr Beale came from the Bank of England and may not have been too familiar with the situation on the ground, he was authorised to do so only “in consultation with any one of the Bombay Directors of the Company.” So, as recorded in the minutes of the board meeting, the first recruitment advertisement of ICICI said: “We need urgently the services of one or preferably two persons having general industrial experience, e.g., in the field of Electricity, Chemicals, or Mechanical Engineering, who can act as the link between our financial examination of proposals and the full technical examination of them.” Among the engineers so recruited was Siddharth S Mehta who came from Tata Chemicals, Mithapur after having worked in government of India’s directorate general of trade & development (DGTD). Engineers formed the largest percentage of initial employees of ICICI and included Suresh Nadkarni, SS Betrabet and R Hirway.

HTP would join ICICI a year later, in March 1956, as the number 2 person in the organisation after Mr Beale. The minutes of the 11th board meeting of ICICI on 12 March 1956 recorded, “Mr HT Parekh had accepted the appointment as Deputy General Manager. It was resolved that Mr HT Parekh be appointed Deputy General Manager on an inclusive salary of Rs3500/-… from 29th March 1956.”

As a private sector institution, ICICI was considered a good paymaster those days. So salaries in other organisations could not have been better. In such a scenario, to develop a loan product that would be geared on the future incomes of the borrower and from which he could pay at least 20% each month was, indeed, ‘revolutionary’. He defined the product as one that would offer “long-term loans for ownership housing on a mortgage basis.... (and) enables people to own a house at the beginning of their business career by borrowing first and repaying the debt, out of their income, over a period of years, instead of being in a position to own one's house only at the end of a working career, as in India.” It was even more challenging because Indians attached a huge stigma to ‘mortgaging one’s house’ – one did that only under dire circumstances. But what gave comfort and confidence was the fact that the ‘small man’ in India was, by and large, regular in repayment of loans – perhaps because moneylenders charged usurious rates and the cost delinquency was very high – not just financially but socially as well.

HTP said at the launch of HFDC: “Better housing and living conditions for our people is a dream I have always nursed,” and he would lobby tirelessly to make a housing finance institution to see the light of day. If I recollect right, it was this concern for the ‘small man’ (which, I would l always change to ‘common man’ while editing his writings), that was reflected in the fact that among the projects that were sanctioned in the first year of HDFC’s operations was a housing loan project for tea garden workers.

 

Memories as Archives

This article was triggered by a question I was asked recently about the two-volume collection of late HT Parekh’s writings published way back in 1995 when I was working with ICICI – then a development bank – The Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India. The volumes were published by ICICI and HDFC (Housing Development and Finance Corporation) on his first death anniversary to commemorate his contribution to the building of these two financial powerhouses in India.

Photograph: Nihar Sagar

Both these development-oriented institutions, bowing to the ‘needs of the hour’, have been converted to commercial banks by merging themselves into the banks they had set up. HDFC has announced the decision and conversion is still some time away.

But why am I writing this piece now about an event that happened almost three decades ago? The answer: to record my memories. It is my belief that faithfully recorded memories have archival relevance.

Many in India may remember HTP (as HT Parekh was known in professional and social circles) as the doyen of Industrial finance in India. But I was surprised to find that the fairly authoritative and the first book on the history of Indian business by an Indian economic historian Dr Dwijendra Tripathi – The Oxford History of Indian Business (published in 2004) – did not have a single reference to HT Parekh. HTP had played a seminal role in the growth of the financial infrastructure of the country for almost half a century (late-1940s to mid-1990s) – the capital and money market, financial institutions and banks – and important facets of the credit and monetary policies. How can one think of Indian business without finance?

Be that as it may, I was asked about the ‘background’ to the publication of the two volumes of HTP’s writings and how I went about collecting all the articles and text of his speeches spanning those decades. Well, it did not take me much time, as I had myself compiled the entire file containing his speeches and articles while he was still alive! Although my professional contact with him began in the early-1970s, I think I started putting the collection together some time in the late-1980s. By then, I had worked closely with him on editing and publishing ICICI: Story of a Development Bank 1955-1979 – after which he would ask me to edit all his writings.

Photograph: Dr Sanjeev Bothra

So, putting together the contemporary writings was not an issue; but I did do a lot of research for his earlier materials and started compiling the collection chronologically. Every time I added a piece to the file, he would give me one of his beatific smiles as he thought I was a bit crazy! I would tell him ‘who knows some day someone may want information on the capital market in India and your articles and speeches may provide valuable information to that researcher’. And he would indulge me!

Many, many years later, this indeed was the response of business historian Medha M Kudaisya, teaching at the National University of Singapore who was then researching for her book on the Bombay Plan and looking for references of that period. This is what she e-mailed me when I sent her the reference to these volumes: "Have managed to get hold of India in Transition through the Eyes of a Visionary! It’s a fantastic resource for the Bombay Plan. It was not available so could not buy it but have got it from the Australian Nat(ional) University on inter-library loan. Congratulations on such good volumes!"

As a social historian, I have always believed that the briefest documents, or even personal letters, or photographs, when contextualised, contain a lot of ‘incidental’ information about the times lived in, that may be of use to future researchers. When I was in the corporate sector, I would argue for the need for archives and plead with colleagues to preserve documents and photographs – physically those days, as technology for converting to digital documents or images was not available then.

So, when editorial work on the commemoration volumes started, it was a fairly easy task – I did not have to go far looking for the content. Though the challenge was on how to structure the sections, since HTP was so articulate and wrote on so many subjects! We classified the articles into eight sections – four in each volume of the book. Volume-1 included: capital market, development banking, credit policy, regional cooperation. Volume-2 covered: industry, economic policy, housing and general & miscellaneous.

Photograph: Nihar Sagar

HTP used every opportunity — be it a letter to the editor or a book review or, indeed, a speech at a public function — to make a point, to persuade and to provide intelligent and well-considered commentary on the subject. Little did we realise that there were 300 pieces, written over the period 1940s to 1990s, in English (he also wrote fairly extensively in Gujarati). The challenge was to contextualise every piece – whether it was a speech, an article or just thoughts he had penned that we found among his personal papers. Even more challenging was to date all the pieces. Fortunately, I was able to do this for almost 90% of the writings! When viewed retrospectively, these provide a peek into the times when debates and discussions formed the bedrock of public policy.

As I wrote in the Preface to the volumes (signed by the then chairmen of ICICI and HDFC), "HT Parekh himself would never have consented to this enterprise during his own lifetime. He was too modest and self effacing a person to believe that it would be of any value to present and future generations. We have thought otherwise... We debated, carefully, the merits of making a selection of his most important pieces rather than publishing nearly all his available works. We arrived at the conclusion that, for several important reasons, it would be preferable to adopt the latter course as it would place his writings in a historical perspective, indicate the progress of his own thinking on the subjects he cared about and, most importantly, demonstrate the persistence of his views over a long period of time. Not to publish the whole would have risked the imposition of the implicit bias of the editors and would have severely detracted from the chronology of thought that would be of importance to anyone interested in the economic and financial history of the period." 

Dr IG Patel wrote in the Foreword to  the volumes, "the collection brings home the fact that HTP was a man of considerable intellectual and analytical ability which he employed for arriving at his prescriptions and agenda for public or private action. If he was a karma-yogi in every sense of the word, his activities were rooted in gyana (study, analysis and judgement) as well as bhakti (devotion and compassion) — all three making a rare and very potent amalgam."

Although today we have far better developed financial infrastructure in the country, researchers and business historians will find in the collection invaluable information about the evolution of many institutions the foundations for which HTP had laid.

 

ICICI Story-2: Conceptualising the Theme Spreads

In this article, I discuss one of the thematic design spreads on which we spent a lot of time. Some of the discussions I remember vividly, even after four decades (and withering of the grey cells of someone in her eighth decade of life!).

Selection of the visuals – photographs as well as the tantric art images – for each chapter was as creatively challenging for all the creative professionals concerned; and for me it was a fantastic learning experience. Each of the three persons involved in the implementation of the design concept – Yeshwant Choudhary, Mitter Bedi and Vilas Bhende – was a master of his own art. All of them were years senior to me, professionally as well as chronologically. The fact that they had so much respect for each other made the discussions, the arguments, the banter, even their acerbic comments for each other’s views, so much fun – memories that I treasure to this day.

Each one of them made critical comments and gave suggestions for the evolution of the thematic spread– sometimes leading to a complete abandoning of the original plan. But there was no heartburn, no ego hassles and, most important, no financial disputes about who would bear the costs of what was scrapped! It was a team that anyone would die to work with! Wonder why they took a novice like me under their wing. Although they took my suggestions seriously, sometimes I wondered whether they were just indulging me! Whatever be their reasons, for me, it was a blessing to cut my teeth into the world of book design with those masters.

Each composition of the book’s thematic pages photographs was nothing less than a piece of installation art. The Nanas’ Chowk (Bombay) studio of Vilas became our adda for the eight weeks or so that we took to complete the 10 theme photographs. The actual photography may have taken less than 10 days but collecting all the props, getting the models and setting up the composition took much longer.

For those who use today’s digital tools: software like Adobe’s Creative Cloud (specifically Photoshop) or the more recently introduced series of graphic design software developed by Serif (Affinity Photo) – it would be difficult to even imagine how these spreads were created without access to such tools. Each bit was manually crafted that required immense skills of making cut-outs, masking and superimposing, know-how of photography and dark-room techniques, and eye for detail for faithful reproduction in print. The entire text was photo-typeset and manual artworks were created for the entire document. Something that takes just a few clicks now would require hours or even days of human labour.

One of the chapters in the book was titled “ICICI and the Planning Era”. A head, or the brain, was the faculty to be depicted. That was the easy decision; what was challenging was the composition of the thematic page. We had to get the cast of a head made from plaster of Paris. Vilas and Yeshwant were perfectionists and rejected at least six or seven casts before they were satisfied!

I remember Vilas and Yeshwant discussing the hand that should be shown as working on the circuitry shown inside the head – it had to be a male hand; of someone in his 30s; the nails had to be unevenly cut – Vilas went to the extent of having just the right amount of dirt in the nails to convey that it was genuinely a worker’s hand! And he shot at least a dozen photos to finally select the one which showed the right amount of pressure of the finger on the screwdriver!

Today, in times of microchips, the printed circuit board may appear primitive, as would probably the photograph with women working on calculators. But THAT was the state of electronics industry in India in the late-1970s; it was difficult to even get permissions to shoot photographs of a mainframe computer because only a handful of industries had them.

For me, the most enjoyable and educative hours were those when Yeshwant went through great lengths to explain to me why he had chosen the ‘tantric’ image of the sun for that page and the significance of the number 28. He told me that 28, in Indian mythology, had a special significance. It is considered the perfect number and denotes wealth. Also, he used that number with the image of the sun because the rotation time of the surface of the sun at its equator as viewed from Earth is about 28 days.

The numerals had to be written in Devnagari script, of course, because we were writing about an Indian institution. I must add that, after hours of heated discussions with him, the only change that I could convince him to make was in the drawing of the Man inside that image of the sun. He introduced moustache; originally, the drawing had only the lines on the forehead which could be interpreted as a Brahmanical symbol. My weltanchaung did not permit me to accept that ‘intellect’ and ‘planning’ were the prerogative of the Brahmins!

Those who would like to access the entire document, here is the link 

http://bit.ly/ICICI_1955_1979