Magazine
The growth of the Adani Group, especially overseas, has mirrored Modi’s political ascendancy. As a result, controversy involving Adani projects causes backlash against India as a whole.
A “Stop Adani” protest seeking to halt the Adani Carmichael coal mine in Australia, Oct. 3, 2017.
Credit: Wikimedia Commons/ John Englart
Few had heard of him two decades ago. Today, at 62, Gautam Adani – a college drop-out who is very close to India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi – is one of the world’s richest people. Adani’s corporate conglomerate straddles energy, transportation, cement, defense equipment, edible oils, food distribution, and much else, in the country and across the world.
The market capitalization of the Adani Group, comprising a dozen-odd companies whose shares are listed on stock exchanges, is over $200 billion. (Market capitalization is the face value of a company’s share multiplied by its price at a given point in time.) In addition, Adani, his family members, and associates directly or indirectly control at least 1,000 entities, many of which are based out of tax havens where little or no tax is paid on company profits.
In a manner of speaking, what Elon Musk is to U.S. President Donald Trump, Adani is to Modi, but with an important difference: Adani does not hold any position in the government of India. Yet New Delhi has shaped policies, tweaked rules, bent norms, and looked the other way when investigations into Adani’s affairs have taken place – the most egregious of which is an indictment for bribery and concealment of information in the United States.
Modi has traveled the world to promote Adani’s business interests. In the process, however, the Indian prime minister has hurt his country’s relations with at least two neighboring countries, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, as well as with other countries like Kenya – all places where Adani projects stoked local controversy and resentment.
The growth of the Adani Group has mirrored Modi’s political ascendancy – first as chief minister of the western Indian state of Gujarat for more than 12 years, starting in October 2001, and then as the country’s prime minister from May 2014 onward. Adani has accompanied Modi on many of his official trips outside India. Along the way, Adani has set up or tried to establish – in a few instances, unsuccessfully – business operations in countries such as Australia, Bangladesh, Greece, Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania.
These projects did not always progress smoothly.
