Gujarati Capitalism: Going Global

Since we are generalizing, its worth mentioning the tendency of Gujratis (or most Indians) to be extremely insular and selfish:<p>&quot;Trust and honesty remain essential to Gujarati-dominated industries. Mr Mehta, himself a Jain from Palanpur, whose diamond company has a turnover of $1.8 billion and offices from Antwerp to Tokyo, says that, despite the size of the business, it is still “all based on handshakes and words, with no contracts”. &quot;<p>These people have traveled from Antwerp to Tokyo for 200 years...yet Palanpur is a shithole just like every other town in India. They have seen all the benefits of a free and modern society, but have not lifted a finger to bring 1% of those ideas to the town where they live.<p>Surat which processes 90% of the worlds diamonds is also a shithole. Its just yet another massive Indian city with no modern infrastructure, garbage and sewers everywhere, and had a plague outbreak about a decade ago!<p>While these globe trotters make millions which they stash, how much money do you think the rank and file of diamond polishers make? Do they have adequate health benefits and protection against problems like this: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pubmed&#x2F;16201206" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pubmed&#x2F;16201206</a><p>“We don’t have to deal with government too much, and mostly not with the banks, as most money comes from families,” says Dinesh Navadiya, the head of the Surat Diamond Association. “So there is little scope for corruption.”<p>No corruption...except massive tax avoidance. It is impossible to run the smallest business in India without running into corruption.<p>Some might argue these people have no obligation to improve society and that&#x27;s Ok. But any article writing about the pros, should also write about the cons.

The confidence with which the author generalizes various groups of people in the article makes me quite uneasy.<p>We know that this is not permitted if we are attributing negative qualities to a group of people. Why is it then permissible to generalize when we are praising the same groups? In doing so the author is sort of admitting that it is at times logical to generalize groups of people and that there is no risk of prejudice in doing so.

Indian Gujarati here, so I get a pass for what I&#x27;m about to write.<p>If this article was about whites or about Christians, it would not have a laudatory tone. Instead, the author would be writing about how the &quot;old boys network&quot; keeps others out of lucrative businesses, about how there&#x27;s no diversity in the top rungs of these companies, and about how &quot;handshakes&quot; are circumventing government laws and taxation. But that is exactly what the Gujarati network is all about. Yes, it is a hardworking group, but also very in-group oriented, and yes, racist.

I&#x27;m a Gujarati. My ancestors established businesses in most British colonies at the time, from Ceylon to Hong Kong, from Siam to Réunion, from Australia to the Suez, from Kenya to Rangoon. Our family names are based on places where our dad worked for a living. For instance, my mother&#x27;s family name is Siamwala (an indicator that my grand dad and his family were involved in international trade based in Thailand).<p>This article seems more like PR but isn&#x27;t far from truth. I think, as a community, Jews have probably outdone any one community out there.<p>In fact, a great many jewish business families in British-India adopted Gujarat, and spoke Gujarati.<p>Here&#x27;s another biased take on the topic by a Pakistani journalist:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.livemint.com&#x2F;Opinion&#x2F;WaBCEddMLH5DaM0aD5wzbN&#x2F;Why-India-is-part-dysfunctional-fully-functional.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.livemint.com&#x2F;Opinion&#x2F;WaBCEddMLH5DaM0aD5wzbN&#x2F;Why-I...</a><p>And here my answer on Quora on a related question: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.quora.com&#x2F;Why-do-Gujarati-people-make-up-a-large-percentage-of-the-population-of-Mumbai-despite-the-city-being-in-the-state-of-Maharashtra&#x2F;answer&#x2F;Murtaza-Aliakbar" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.quora.com&#x2F;Why-do-Gujarati-people-make-up-a-large...</a>

I know that this is intended to be a puff peace about the perceived entrepreneurial spirit of the Guajarati community as a whole but I would have appreciated more if the author took the time and effort to shed some light on the usual failure stories that some members of this community endured and didn&#x27;t make it abroad.<p>The author made it sound like every and each Gujarati person is destined to entrepreneurial success and failing and losing are unexpected outcomes in their cases.<p>Nothing against Gujaratis or Indians in general. I really like entrepreneurial and trailblazing people provided they earned their wealth through legitimate means not questionable or unethical ones but I preferred to read a more impartial analysis or critique of this anthropological topic than this nauseating self-congratulatory Economist article.

I am reading this sipping dunkin donuts coffee made by gujarati lady.

Here&#x27;s the problem: once you allow ascribing a particular laudatory quality to a certain group, you HAVE to concede that certain groups have bad qualities. That is, unless group qualities are only good, a claim for which there is no evidence whatsoever.<p>So... Gujaratis have an ethic of capitalistic success. Are you also comfortable saying Blacks have an ethic of failure, Jews have an ethic of in-group morality, Gypsies have an ethic of stealing, and so on? If you are not, then you are arbitrarily imposing a limit that qualities assigned to a group must only be good. If you are, congratulations! You are now racist.