Swraj Paul lauds Indira Gandhi for India's reforms

Describing the late Indira Gandhi as the "greatest Prime Minister" India ever had, NRI industrialist and one of Britain's wealthiest Lord Swraj Paul said credit for opening up the Indian economy goes to her.

"In India, people forget. It was the late Indira Gandhi who wanted to open the economy, not anybody else. In my view, she was the greatest prime minister India has had until today. The credit for opening the economy or planting the seed for that goes to late Mrs Gandhi," he said in an interview with the Arabic edition of Knowledge@Wharton website.

He said that Gandhi started in a more cautious way and wanted non-resident Indians to show interest in their homeland.

"Up until that time Indians and the Indian government treated non-resident Indians as if they came from the moon. They did not want to have anything to do with them," he said.

Paul, 79, who had made takeover bids on Escorts and DCM in the 1980s, said that he also deserves credit for forcing the Indian economy to change.

"Nobody should get the credit for forcing India's economy to change except Swraj Paul (alluding to his acquisitions in the 1980s). But Indians are very poor at giving credit. They only know how to praise the government in power irrespective of the power, irrespective of the government. They will only give credit to them," he said.

Paul, who had maintained that there was no transparency about the way Indian corporates were run, said that things have improved and he too had a role in bringing about the change.

"India is still not as transparent as one would like it to be, but it is certainly far more transparent now and I do think I deserve some credit for that," he added.

The founder of steel-to-hotels Euro one billion Caparo Group said he bought shares of Escorts and DCM when he found that Rajan Nanda (of Escorts) and Bharat Ram (of DCM) went "around the world asking people to invest in their companies".

Nanda had less than 5 per cent of Escorts and Ram less than 10 per cent in DCM. "I ended up buying 7.5 per cent of Escorts and 13 per cent of DCM, so I held more shares than them."

Paul, the first Asian to be appointed Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords, the upper house of the British Parliament in 2008, could not gain control of the Escorts and DCM in the 1980s but brought about takeover battles in India Inc.

He said his takeover attempt on the two Indian companies revealed abuse of balancesheets by the promoters.

"If you studied their balance sheets, there was so much of abuse... they (promoters) felt threatened and tried to stop (me)," Paul recalled, and added that they even went to the then prime minister and "to (other) politicians etc and I ended up losing money."

Speaking about his experience in the UK, Paul said that from the 1960s onwards there were a lot of industrial problems in Britain and the attitude of managements was, "them and us".

"There was such a gap between workers and management that the industrial relations were awful. I wanted to carry the workers with me. I didn't have many workers, but we try to develop a culture in which you become part of them," he said.

He said that people in Britain felt strange that there in the heart of British industry, which wasn't doing well at that time, somebody comes from India, of all people and wants to set up a company.

"They looked (at me) with skepticism. But I found (what) was lacking in Britain in industry at that time: A consistency in quality and on-time delivery. I saw the gap and said I am going to make sure that I will deliver something that is consistent with what I promised," he said.