Skip to main content

Corporate social responsibility: Behind diamond tycoon Savji Dholakia's success when top honchos failed

Savjibhai Dholakia
By Satyakam Mehta
Meet Savjibhai Dholakia, son of a humble agriculturist from Amreli district of Saurashtra region of Gujarat, now heading an industrial trading empire worth Rs 6,000 crore. At a time when top Indian industry captains are still trying to work out modalities of corporate social responsibility (CSR), seeking consultants' and NGOs' "help" for a job which they think has thrust upon them by law, Dholakia has done it without perhaps having heard about it: He has “gifted” his 1,200 employees cars, houses and jewellery to their wives as Diwali bonus!
Dholakia, who has built his diamond polishing and export empire over the last one decade in Surat, told me, that he has “presented” Fiat Punto cars, each costing over Rs 5 lakh, to 500 of his employees. “We surveyed every employee according to his needs. If he had a car but not a house, we arranged that. Somebody who had both, we arranged for jewellery for their wives,” he proudly declared.
Dholakia said the reason he gave such bonanza as bonus to his employees was, he was “one of them one day”. He insisted, “When I started out on my own, I used to cut and polish diamonds. Gradually, I had two-three employees and we all would do the same job. I would sometimes train them and train myself in the process.” One who speaks in Gujarati with Saurashtra accent, Dholakia “ignored” any question this correspondent asked in English language question – and for obvious reasons.
At home...
This correspondent asked him, what is social responsibility (CSR)? He just shrugged and grinned. In fact, he hasn’t bothered to wait for a law on CSR, and he wasn’t even aware. He did not have to either. He revealed, “I gifted some Maruti cars to a select section of staffers when I did’t have much money. This must be early nineties when the Maruti was available for around Rs 52,000… This was my investment. It could be business, but now it also has social spin-offs.”
The industry magnet picks up his cell phone every time, even if a stranger calls. He laughed aloud when this correspondent asked him about this; he replied, “My biggest responsibility is that I have no responsibility, and that’s probably why I am always available.” When his email id was sought, he grinned, “Message me your email and I will ask my staff concerned to mail you what you want. I don’t know how to operate the internet.”
At work...
Dholakia operates in India’s diamond capital of Surat that cuts and polishes 80 per cent of the precious stone exported from the country. His turnover was just about Rs 1 crore in 1991. His father Dhanrajbhai Dholakia was an agriculturist who wasn’t sure about the future of his four sons and, like many others from Saurashtra, especially Amreli district, wanted his sons to shift to Surat to work as labourers in the diamond cutting and polishing industry. Reason: The parched lands of Saurashtra did not give enough income to eke a decent livelihood.
“Father wanted, but I didn’t wish to leave my native village to an unknown destination. But I left school when I was in standard fourth since there were no educational facilities beyond standard five around our village in Amreli district,” Dholakia, who now struts around in a Mercedes which he has not changed for the last one decade (while the family has several versions of the world’s most famous car), informed Counterview.
It was at the age of 13 that Dholakia moved to Surat to engage himself as a diamond worker. He remained an artisan for a decade since then. Then he started on his own, and now his entire family of 28, including his parents, brothers and their families, are part of the entire Hare Krishna Exports. He said he and his four brothers and his two sons all have bonhomie. “There are no contests, no tussles about the control of the company. We all are together and so are our employees,” Savjibhai goes on. “I return to them what we have jointly learnt, what they learnt from me and what they did for the company,” he added.

Comments

TRENDING

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor*  This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

1857 War of Independence... when Hindu-Muslim separatism, hatred wasn't an issue

"The Sepoy Revolt at Meerut", Illustrated London News, 1857  By Shamsul Islam* Large sections of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs unitedly challenged the greatest imperialist power, Britain, during India’s First War of Independence which began on May 10, 1857; the day being Sunday. This extraordinary unity, naturally, unnerved the firangees and made them realize that if their rule was to continue in India, it could happen only when Hindus and Muslims, the largest two religious communities were divided on communal lines.

N-power plant at Mithi Virdi: CRZ nod is arbitrary, without jurisdiction

By Krishnakant* A case-appeal has been filed against the order of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) and others granting CRZ clearance for establishment of intake and outfall facility for proposed 6000 MWe Nuclear Power Plant at Mithi Virdi, District Bhavnagar, Gujarat by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) vide order in F 11-23 /2014-IA- III dated March 3, 2015. The case-appeal in the National Green Tribunal at Western Bench at Pune is filed by Shaktisinh Gohil, Sarpanch of Jasapara; Hajabhai Dihora of Mithi Virdi; Jagrutiben Gohil of Jasapara; Krishnakant and Rohit Prajapati activist of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has issued a notice to the MoEF&CC, Gujarat Pollution Control Board, Gujarat Coastal Zone Management Authority, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and case is kept for hearing on August 20, 2015. Appeal No. 23 of 2015 (WZ) is filed, a...

Spirit of leadership vs bondage: Of empowered chairman of 100-acre social forestry coop

By Gagan Sethi*  This is about Khoda Sava, a young Dalit belonging to the Vankar sub-caste, who worked as a bonded labourer in a village near Vadgam in Banskantha district of North Gujarat. The year was 1982. Khoda had taken a loan of Rs 7,000 from the village sarpanch, a powerful landlord doing money-lending as his side business. Khoda, who had taken the loan for marriage, was landless. Normally, villagers would mortgage their land if they took loan from the sarpanch. But Khoda had no land. He had no option but to enter into a bondage agreement with the sarpanch in order to repay the loan. Working in bondage on the sarpanch’s field meant that he would be paid Rs 1,200 per annum, from which his loan amount with interest would be deducted. He was also obliged not to leave the sarpanch’s field and work as daily wager somewhere else. At the same time, Khoda was offered meal once a day, and his wife job as agricultural worker on a “priority basis”. That year, I was working as secretary...

Two more "aadhaar-linked" Jharkhand deaths: 17 die of starvation since Sept 2017

Kaleshwar's sons Santosh and Mantosh Counterview Desk A fact-finding team of the Right to Feed Campaign, pointing towards the death of two more persons due to starvation in Jharkhand, has said that this has happened because of the absence of aadhaar, leading to “persistent lack of food at home and unavailability of any means of earning.” It has disputed the state government claims that these deaths are due to reasons other than starvation, adding, the authorities have “done nothing” to reduce the alarming state of food insecurity in the state.

Epic war against caste system is constitutional responsibility of elected government

Edited by well-known Gujarat Dalit rights leader Martin Macwan, the book, “Bhed-Bharat: An Account of Injustice and Atrocities on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-18)” (available in English and Gujarati*) is a selection of news articles on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-2018) published by Dalit Shakti Prakashan, Ahmedabad. Preface to the book, in which Macwan seeks to answer key questions on why the book is needed today: *** The thought of compiling a book on atrocities on Dalits and thus present an overall Indian picture had occurred to me a long time ago. Absence of such a comprehensive picture is a major reason for a weak social and political consciousness among Dalits as well as non-Dalits. But gradually the idea took a different form. I found that lay readers don’t understand numbers and don’t like to read well-researched articles. The best way to reach out to them was storytelling. As I started writing in Gujarati and sharing the idea of the book with my friends, it occurred to me that while...

Proposed Modi yatra from Jharkhand an 'insult' of Adivasi hero Birsa Munda: JMM

Counterview Desk  The civil rights network, Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha (JMM), which claims to have 30 grassroots groups under its wings, has decided to launch Save Democracy campaign to oppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vikasit Bharat Sankalp Yatra to be launched on November 15 from the village of legendary 19th century tribal independence leader Birsa Munda from Ulihatu (Khunti district).

Fate of Yamuna floodplain still hangs in "balance" despite National Green Tribunal rap on Sri Sri event

By Ashok Shrimali* While the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Thursday reportedly pulled up the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for granting permission to hold spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's World Culture Festival on the banks of Yamuna, the chief petitioners against the high-profile event Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan has declared, the “fate of the floodplain still hangs in balance.”

Hyderabad Cong leader hospitalized after alleged AIMIM-linked mob attack; party demands justice

By A Representative   A group of Congress leaders and activists have written to the Hyderabad Commissioner of Police, urging immediate action over what they describe as a “mob lynching murderous attack” on party functionary Mohammed Hamed at the Congress Party office in New Kishan Nagar, Asifnagar, on July 21.