Gurugram: It was a business conclave, but exclusively for Baniyas. Inside an ITC hotel ballroom in Gurugram, every face was optimistic, and every handshake hinted at a potential deal. “Talk to him, he is useful” or “take his number, don’t leave without it” — the din of such murmurs filled the room.
It was a conclave organised by the World Baniya Forum (WBF), and every Baniya in attendance there had one goal: to strike a business deal that catapults them into becoming the next Ambani and Adani. In Modi’s India, the ambition is higher.
“It was such a pleasure meeting you, sir. I run a small business in Chawri Bazar. I’d love to provide services to your company,” said a young entrepreneur, with a business card in his hand, as he approached Ramesh Agarwal, Managing Director of Agarwal Packers and Movers. Behind him, a small line of crisply suited businessmen waited their turn — cards ready, pitches practiced.
The founders of all the top businesses and biggest brands — from Ambani and Adani to Birla and Jindal — are from the Baniya community. But that’s not enough anymore. Now, even the Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) within the community are waking up. They are united in their goal — to run the world and to outpace the non-Baniya business players.
Baniyas were born out of the thighs. Because thighs hold the entire body, the same way Baniyas hold the entire business and India’s GDP together
– WBF co-founder Sonal Garg
That’s what gave birth to the World Baniya Forum. It’s like the Davos of Baniyas. Every month, Baniyas — businessmen, investors, lawyers, academicians — meet and discuss the issues holding their community back from growing bigger, faster, stronger. It’s a networking-cum name-dropping-cum-flexing platform. It has hustle written all over it.
The community wants to reclaim the heyday of Baniya dominance in business. But the new post-1991 India has unleashed the animal spirits of entrepreneurship, where caste networks don’t have to necessarily matter. The flood of new non-Baniya business players such as Azim Premji, Narayana Murthy, and Shiv Nadar is threatening their ‘Make Baniyas Great Again’ project. Founders Sonal Garg and Nitin Goel gauged this urgent need for community solidarity and built the World Baniya Forum around it in 2023. And they are holding onto the belief that the Vaishyas were born to do business.
“Baniyas were born out of the thighs. Because thighs hold the entire body, the same way Baniyas hold the entire business and India’s GDP together,” said Garg.
And even Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta is on their side. The World Baniya Forum Foundation Day 2.0, which took place last month, had CM Gupta as its special guest. Although she couldn’t attend at the last minute due to an urgent meeting, the founders say.
Many Baniyas feel left out of the India Story. And a rising tide must lift all the Baniya boats. Only then the mercantile community will redeem its tryst with history.
“Baniyas are rich and that is true. But it’s also true that 90 per cent of India’s wealth is held by just 10 per cent of the population — and even among them, only some are Baniyas. We are the remaining 90 per cent of Baniyas, and we want to uplift each other. There is a lot of competition. This group is by the Baniyas and for the Baniyas,” said Garg, who runs a retail business in Chandni Chowk.
Beyond businessmen
For first- and second-generation Baniya entrepreneurs, the World Baniya Forum (WBF) has become more than just a networking platform; it’s a gateway into the elite world of Baniya business.
At just 23, Harsh Gupta was the youngest businessman at the conclave — and the most sought-after. Dressed sharply and standing beside his stall in the hallway, he greeted visitors. “Don’t have time to manage your financial portfolio on your own? Try SIP Yatra,” he said in a practiced pitch of a car salesman. His company, SIP Yatra, is a wealth management company.
His stall wasn’t flashy, but he had numbers on his side: Harsh currently manages the wealth of 40 business families from within the forum.
“My clients are some of the most prominent names in our community. They trusted me because I was a Baniya. If it had been anyone else, they would have thought twice before investing,” Harsh said, with a confident smile.
And this is what he says is the goal of WBF: to give business to Baniyas, take resources from Baniyas, and completely shun outsiders. It’s an in-group with global ambitions.
Harsh started investing at the age of 15. He is a second-generation businessman, and says that baniyas are born with business skills. His first clients weren’t strangers — they were his teachers, his principal, and the families of fellow students from his West Delhi school. And his favorite game? The share market.
For Harsh, WBF is like a “people profile” — a Baniya version of LinkedIn. And it was the forum where he confronted his fear of public speaking.
“I was terrible at it,” he said. “But WBF changed that. I addressed over 400 people at the conclave.”
He now makes it a point to be the first to arrive at the monthly meetings held at Chelmsford Club in Central Delhi.
But it’s not just Harsh. Fifty-three kilometres away in Noida, 45-year-old Jyoti Aggarwal is an active follower of the World Baniya Forum. On her iPhone, the WBF WhatsApp group is pinned to the top, and she is subscribed to all its social media channels.
Aggarwal, the owner of Arjun Toys and Furniture, joined the forum in 2024. She and her husband, Shashwat, started their business back in 2010. It was a first-generation setup, supplying school furniture across Delhi-NCR. Originally from Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, for more than a decade, their business journey remained disconnected from the larger Baniya community.
“That changed with WBF,” she said. “This was the first time we actually felt connected — not just as businesspeople, but as Baniyas.”
She began attending every training session, listening closely to motivational talks by community leaders and seasoned entrepreneurs. Soon, her company began receiving bulk orders from reputed institutions like Shri Ram Global School and Queen Mary’s School.
“Currently, we supply school furniture to reputed schools in India,” she said.
But there’s a common thread between Harsh Gupta and Jyoti Aggarwal’s story on how they first discovered WBF: through a targeted Instagram ad. “The Brightest Business Leaders are walking into the room… The Biggest Business networking event of the year,” read one of the advertisement posters of the forum. With just one click, they became part of this close-knit business community.
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The Baniyas within Baniyas
At the WBF office in Paschim Vihar, a poster on a standee reads: “World Baniya Forum. A platform to transform.” Inside one of the cabins sits Hemant Sharma and his marketing team of five. They are the driving force behind bringing the Baniyas together.
They send targeted ads aimed at Baniya businessmen, after which a salesperson contacts them to explain the concept.
“Meta doesn’t allow us to target ads based on caste, color, or religion. But we can target based on business, skills, and behavioral patterns. That’s how we create ads to reach the general business population in India,” said Sharma.
WBF works rigorously in its advertising strategy. And for the middle-class baniyas, monopolies aren’t working, so they are working on expanding their networking.
In his book, India’s New Capitalists, Harish Damodaran writes that after the liberalisation of the economy in 1991, businesses — once an “occupational silo in the caste system”— began opening up to more caste groups, moving away from their traditional professions.
“The liberalisation of the economy after 1991 opened the floodgates for new entrepreneurs, and the rise of the knowledge-based economy brought in a new breed of businessmen from a variety of backgrounds and mindsets,” Damodaran writes.
“See, Baniyas never knew what advertising meant. Now, we are even learning that skill,” Garg let out a loud laugh. Ahead of the second Foundation Day ceremony on 2 August at an ITC hotel in Gurugram, posters were plastered across 30 locations in Delhi, including prime spots like Connaught Place and RML Hospital.
The ads run both on Facebook and Instagram. But there is a caveat: as soon as a businessperson clicks on the ad, they are directed to the landing page of the WBF website where they must answer a question: Are you a Baniya? If yes, they proceed to fill out a form. In the last one week, Sharma has converted a dozen clicks by Baniyas into leads.
The form requests business details, job profile, and phone number. Then, a salesperson calls the businessman or businesswoman to explain the forum — and that’s when the real drill begins.
Shubhang Gupta, who owns a hardware and furniture store in Chawri Bazar, said a team visits their office to verify the details and confirm the scale of the business. This scrutiny filters out Baniyas without a solid business or market presence.
“We focus on Baniyas, but only those with good business. We don’t let just any Baniya join our forum,” said Gupta, who became part of the community two years ago.
But these memberships come at a price: Rs 15,000 for Gold and Rs 1,25,000 for Diamond, yearly. The difference is not just in the fee — it is about the opportunities. Diamond members have their businesses highlighted as key partners during events, a privilege that Gold members don’t get. The website is full of what’s on offer, no beating around the bush: branding opportunities, professional workshops, names in the directory, business listings, and networking events.
The WBF is a business in itself. “It is a community to bring Baniyas together. But we are also making money and investing that to turn it into the last stop for Baniyas,” said Garg.
A turning point
When Khushboo Aggarwal joined the WBF last year, she was struggling to grow her insurance business. That’s when she approached Garg.
“I wanted to be an independent businesswoman,” Aggarwal said.
But her reason for joining WBF was a little regressive. She admitted that, as a woman, she often doubted her business instincts.
“Men seem to know more about business. Women know less, and that’s why this platform helped me,” she said.
Every August, WBF members are required to renew their annual membership. But Aggarwal renewed hers a month early — in July. Joining WBF marked a turning point in her journey.
In addition to being an insurance advisor, Aggarwal now also runs a business selling silver-plated items — an idea she credits to Garg.
“My children are in Class 11 and 12, and I need to be home to take care of them. So I wanted to start a business I could run from home,” she said.
Soon, her silver products began selling — starting within the forum itself. In fact, Garg was her very first customer.
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‘Everyone is a Baniya’
It was during a business networking event attended by two friends — Sonal Garg and Nitin Goel — that the idea of World Baniya Forum was born.
“That’s when we thought, why not have a forum for the Baniya community, just like the Jains have with the Jains International Trade Organization (JITO),” Goel recalled. “And the worth of that organization is in billions.”
Once the idea took shape, the next challenge was choosing a name. It took three months of debate to choose an impactful name, the founders said. Names like ‘Aggarwal Forum’ and ‘Gupta Forum’ were pitched and discarded. Then Garg suggested a broader approach: calling it the World Baniya Forum.
Marwari, Jains, Gupta, Aggarwals — all are Baniyas. Our Delhi CM is Baniya. Even PM Modi is a Baniya. He comes from a mercantile community in Gujarat
– Sonal Garg
“Because Baniyas would include everyone. Even Jains, Marwaris — everyone who comes from the same cultural roots,” he said.
Since then, the duo has embraced their identity as Baniyas rather than being identified as Aggarwal or Garg. “Call us Baniyas. We are Baniyas and there is no shame in it. We do business and spend money but practically by also thinking of the profit,” Garg said.
It’s their ‘reclaim caste movement’ and they have a reason for it. Goel said that Baniyas were divided in their own fragmented and disconnected silos. “They won’t approach each other for help. Marwari won’t come to Gupta for business but would go to a non-Baniya very easily. It was an unhealthy competition and ego that was blocking our business growth,” he added, seated on the sofa at WBF’s office.
Ahead of the second Foundation Day conclave, Garg and Goel had met Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta thrice. And that’s where the much-needed confidence came from.
“We showed her a presentation of our forum. And she said that she was happy to see Baniyas coming together. She even invited us for the third time,” said Garg. He often refers to Gupta’s election victory speech during his own addresses at conclaves and meetings.
“Rekha Gupta said ‘mei Baniya ki beti hu, Delhi chala lungi’ then why are you afraid to call yourself a Baniya,” Garg asked.
And now, the duo is on a mission to get everyone under the banner of Baniya. And they argue that even Prime Minister Modi is a Baniya. “Marwari, Jains, Gupta, Aggarwals — all are Baniyas. Our Delhi CM is Baniya. Even PM Modi is a Baniya. He comes from a mercantile community in Gujarat,” Garg said, with confidence.
And they are already preparing for their third foundation day ceremony. This time, they want to call either Gautam Adani or Mukesh Ambani as their special guest. “It will be a big boost to our forum if they attend our foundation ceremony,” Garg said. “They are the heroes of the Baniya community.”
Harsh Garg, a budding entrepreneur, looks up to Ambani as a role model.
“I want to be famous and have a big business like Ambani sir,” he said.
This is the second article in Baniya Basics, a three-part series on the changing face of India’s mercantile community.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)
Although such a forum by baniyas look good, let us note that it is a caste-based forum. After independence Indian society is slowly moving towards a caste-less society. So anybody who is doing business is a “baniya” now. So a caste-based baniya forum must NOT be promoted.