As India began voting in 2014, Indian newspapers were already naming Adani as ‘the baron to watch out for’ should Modi become the prime minister. The growth trajectories of Modi and Adani were not coincidental. From a closing price of `1.22 a share in July 2002, the price of Adani Enterprises had risen to `69.75 in May 2014, a rise of over 5,700 per cent. James Crabtree, a British journalist who wrote a book on India’s new billionaires, told the BBC: ‘The two men enjoyed symbiotic careers. Mr Modi’s pro-business policies helped Mr Adani expand. Mr Adani’s own companies, meanwhile, built many of the grand projects that came to symbolise Mr Modi’s “Gujarat model” with its emphasis on infrastructure investment, attracting foreign capital and export industries.’ That symbiosis, as Crabtree puts it, was real and visible.
While many Indian industrialists attended some of the ceremonies at Adani’s son’s wedding in Goa, one guest spent two full days at the wedding, like ‘a genial uncle’, and that was Modi. Their friendship deepened during Modi’s time as chief minister. Modi frequently travelled on Adani’s corporate jet across the state, and later, within the country. In May 2014, when Modi flew to Delhi to be sworn in as prime minister, he flew in Adani’s plane. Since his prime ministership, Adani has also joined him on several overseas trips.
Adani’s infrastructure investments are massive. According to the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires, in May 2021, Adani ranked twenty-fourth, with a net worth estimated at $59 billion. By late 2022, he had briefly overtaken Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as the world’s second wealthiest person.
His rank fell steeply in early 2023, after the meltdown of his stock price following the critical Hindenburg report.
The $25 billion group has interests in coal, infrastructure projects, commodities, media, telecom, and real estate. Its turnover represents 0.7 per cent of India’s gross domestic product, and its profit in 2022 was $1.8 billion. In 2018, when India awarded 126 contracts for operating piped natural gas networks, the Adani group secured twenty-five bids. Adani expanded into wastewater treatment in Allahabad and announced solar-powered data centres in Andhra Pradesh. It also declared a joint venture with the Swedish company Saab to make helicopters. Its other interests include agriculture (cold storage, grain silos, and food products), public transport infrastructure, and consumer finance. The group is building an expressway connecting India’s political and commercial capitals—Delhi and Mumbai.
Some of Adani’s infrastructure binge is driven by self-interest. Just as Ambani moved from polyester to yarn to petrochemicals to refining, creating an integrated chain, Adani has been building infrastructure that his businesses need. In his book on India’s billionaires, Crabtree writes: ‘Unable to rely on India’s ramshackle infrastructure, (Adani) built his own private railways and power lines. Lacking easy access to domestic coal, he bought mines in Indonesia and Australia and took their contents back home through his port…his expansion closely mirrored India’s own.’
By early 2019, Adani controlled a quarter of India’s port capacity (including Mundra) and had won the rights to manage all six airports India had tendered (and later added two more, including a three-quarters share in Mumbai, India’s second-busiest airport). In 2021, the group diversified from its reliance on coal to join the French company TotalEnergies and announced a $50 billion investment to create ‘the world’s largest green hydrogen ecosystem’.
Besides its ports in India, Adani runs ports in Australia, Sri Lanka, and since early 2023, Israel. Adani warehouses stock 30 per cent of India’s grain, operate a fifth of India’s power transmission lines, its airports handle one quarter of commercial air traffic, and Adani companies produce a fifth of India’s cement. When Adani bids for a project in India, other bidders sometimes withdraw, even if they are experienced and have a track record. In some sectors, the government has amended rules to permit Adani to bid, even if he does not qualify.
Adani’s expansion faced criticism during the farmers’ agitation in 2020, with critics suggesting that government reforms benefited him. Critics alleged that farmers would have to buy seeds from commodity firms Adani would control, plant crops at contract farms Adani may supervise, sell produce to Adani-owned warehouses, and urban consumers compelled to buy at Adani-owned supermarkets. That’s a neat conspiracy theory, and it was never proven.
Adani’s acquisition of NDTV, which was the last surviving liberal critic of the government in India’s increasingly vociferous, pro-government private broadcast media, raised concerns about media independence, neutralizing a prominent critical voice. Internationally, Adani faced controversies, notably in Australia with a coal venture and in Myanmar with a port project.
Socially responsible investors and environmental groups challenged Adani’s projects, reflecting the global shift away from carbon-based energy sources. An Adani-owned coal mine in the Galilie basin in Queensland became the flashpoint in Australia, where politicians were courting the company for much-needed investment, and green groups opposed it. On a visit to Queensland in 2018, even in a small village, I saw banners saying ‘ADANI GO HOME’.
This excerpt from ‘The Gujaratis: A Portrait of a Community’ by Salil Tripathi has been published with permission from the Aleph Book Company.