The Hindu Business Line : Saris, salt and satyagraha

SCAMS and Gujarat are no strangers, especially those of the financial kind.This was best manifest when the country was rocked by co-operative bank scams of various hues and colours.

The indelible image that one still has of the co-operative bank scam is the fall of the Madhavpura Mercantile Co-operative Bank, arguably triggered by the inimitable Ketan Parekh. And all those serpentine queues outside these banks, after the horse had well and truly bolted.

The other, lesser known fast and loose games include the Rs 100-crore multi-level marketing scam and the agribusiness scam marked by the illegal strains of Bt cotton that began mushrooming across the length and breadth of Gujarat at one point of time.

Invariably, most scams in Gujarat lead to the formation of long lines outside the offices. The general hope seemingly being that once you publicly proclaim that you have been duped and express your willingness to play a patient game against the culprit, then half the battle is won. The pay back may take a long time in materialising but at least one is sure of getting a share of that pie.

The latest scam to hit Gujarat has come in the shape of asari dealer being nabbed by the Punjab police for wrongfully collecting money from prospective distributors for his products.

Seeing an opportunity to bring more businesses into his fold, the `businessman' made hay while the proverbial sun was up and shining. He marched into branded salt, naming it from one of the great events of the freedom struggle.

Equally reminiscent of those halcyon days, some 600-odd creditors of the `businessman', mostly suppliers, sat on a satyagraha — a hunger strike — at Surat, apparently with the tacit support of the Federation of Surat Textile Traders Association.

The last word from Surat is that it has all the makings of a futile exercise and the politicians from both fronts are keen not to get involved. This holds well with the general trend in Gujarat, come election time, to give uncomfortable issues a wide berth.

Only last year had the sari businessman come close to `wet leasing' another of his brands, with an annual turnover of almost Rs 100 crore, to a company for a fee of around Rs 1 crore per annum. With one skeleton after the other tumbling out of the businessman's cupboard, that deal was abandoned.

It appears that the businessman had spread himself too thin on various trade forays, among the last ones being a me-too detergent along the lines of some of the other established washing powder brands.

Clearly, the sari maverick may need more than detergent powder to wash away the stains even as the duped traders will hopefully view the likes of him with a pinch of salt.

Vinod Mathew

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