<b>India's Rich, Open Your Wallets
</b>
By PAUL BECKETT
On Saturday, Bill Gates will pick up the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development from India's president. He will be the first businessman to receive the prize since it was instituted in 1986.
[Paul Beckett]
Paul Beckett
He won't be collecting it for Microsoft but for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which was awarded the 2007 prize last year but is only receiving it now.
In theory, it could have been an Indian businessman receiving this prestigious award. But it isn't. The reason: The Gates Foundation has invested almost $1 billion in the past decade on philanthropic work in India.
I don't believe any individual Indian businessman could come remotely close to matching that.
Why not? Obviously, the Gates Foundation is backed by Mr. Gates's huge riches, which have for years made him the world's richest man.
Yet India has its fair share of billionaires, multimillionaires and millionaires who could be giving away a good proportion of their money for the betterment of their country but aren't, at least not on even a fraction of the Gates scale.
Amid the broad adoption of U.S. business culture in Indian industry, this lack of dramatic, sustained, well-organized individual giving â practically a competitive sport in U.S. business circles -- is sadly conspicuous by its absence. (Corporate social responsibility, a growing field, is a different beast.)
âThey must do more because they've got new wealth.â
"We need to see more of the sort of vast private endowments that Western people make to foster art and other cultural projects," says Gautam Thapar, chairman of industrial group Avantha. His grandfather set up Thapar University in the Punjab as a philanthropic exercise more than 50 years ago and the family still funds it today.
I've heard many reasons wealthy Indians don't give more, or even much.
Mr. Thapar says it's because the tax regime has not been favorable to the accumulation of great wealth in individual hands.
The more jaded say it is connected to a lack of community spirit â an extension of the attitude that makes people maintain a spotless home but look the other way at the trash on the street. That is belied by the fact that ordinary Indians, when asked to give, give generously to those in need.
Others maintain it is because there are no good outlets for their donations: there are few prominent national charities or foundations that instill trust in potential donors or are transparent enough to demonstrate that funds are being put to good use.
That may explain why much of the sustained good work you do hear about is done, literally, on an individual level -- building a road in an ancestral village or sponsoring village children in school.
Tarun Das, chief mentor to the Confederation of Indian Industry, says it is because India's wealthy are "too easily satisfied by giving a little and they're probably insecure that, if they give too much away, will there be enough?"
Fortunately, this aspect may be changing. After years of the so-called "Hindu rate of growth," India's economy has romped along for long enough that it has instilled some confidence in the nation's wealthy that the sky won't fall tomorrow.
And there are some Indian entrepreneurs who are starting to set an example. Shiv Nadar, chairman of HCL Technologies, says he has put 450 crore (about $94 million) of his own money into his educational initiatives â an engineering college in Chennai and a series of residential schools for poor kids in Uttar Pradesh, among other initiatives.
Now 64 years old, Mr. Nadar says he wishes he had gotten into philanthropy sooner. "I read something that if you knew grandchildren were so much fun, you should have had them before children," he says. "So if I had known not-for-profit was so fulfilling, I should have got started there much, much earlier."
He'd like to see more of his peers involved. "There is no point in just writing a check," he says. "It is your time that is more valuable." So far, however, he says they are virtually invisible.
Even if a nascent philanthropic culture is emerging, Mr. Das says of his fellow (well-to-do) Indians: "They must do more because they've got new wealth. I feel they can multiply what they do as individuals and corporations by one hundred times."
Maybe some will be inspired to do so when they see Mr. Gates collecting a prize.
âPaul Beckett is the WSJ's bureau chief in New Delhi
Write to Paul Beckett at paul.beckett@wsj.com
</b>
By PAUL BECKETT
On Saturday, Bill Gates will pick up the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development from India's president. He will be the first businessman to receive the prize since it was instituted in 1986.
[Paul Beckett]
Paul Beckett
He won't be collecting it for Microsoft but for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which was awarded the 2007 prize last year but is only receiving it now.
In theory, it could have been an Indian businessman receiving this prestigious award. But it isn't. The reason: The Gates Foundation has invested almost $1 billion in the past decade on philanthropic work in India.
I don't believe any individual Indian businessman could come remotely close to matching that.
Why not? Obviously, the Gates Foundation is backed by Mr. Gates's huge riches, which have for years made him the world's richest man.
Yet India has its fair share of billionaires, multimillionaires and millionaires who could be giving away a good proportion of their money for the betterment of their country but aren't, at least not on even a fraction of the Gates scale.
Amid the broad adoption of U.S. business culture in Indian industry, this lack of dramatic, sustained, well-organized individual giving â practically a competitive sport in U.S. business circles -- is sadly conspicuous by its absence. (Corporate social responsibility, a growing field, is a different beast.)
âThey must do more because they've got new wealth.â
"We need to see more of the sort of vast private endowments that Western people make to foster art and other cultural projects," says Gautam Thapar, chairman of industrial group Avantha. His grandfather set up Thapar University in the Punjab as a philanthropic exercise more than 50 years ago and the family still funds it today.
I've heard many reasons wealthy Indians don't give more, or even much.
Mr. Thapar says it's because the tax regime has not been favorable to the accumulation of great wealth in individual hands.
The more jaded say it is connected to a lack of community spirit â an extension of the attitude that makes people maintain a spotless home but look the other way at the trash on the street. That is belied by the fact that ordinary Indians, when asked to give, give generously to those in need.
Others maintain it is because there are no good outlets for their donations: there are few prominent national charities or foundations that instill trust in potential donors or are transparent enough to demonstrate that funds are being put to good use.
That may explain why much of the sustained good work you do hear about is done, literally, on an individual level -- building a road in an ancestral village or sponsoring village children in school.
Tarun Das, chief mentor to the Confederation of Indian Industry, says it is because India's wealthy are "too easily satisfied by giving a little and they're probably insecure that, if they give too much away, will there be enough?"
Fortunately, this aspect may be changing. After years of the so-called "Hindu rate of growth," India's economy has romped along for long enough that it has instilled some confidence in the nation's wealthy that the sky won't fall tomorrow.
And there are some Indian entrepreneurs who are starting to set an example. Shiv Nadar, chairman of HCL Technologies, says he has put 450 crore (about $94 million) of his own money into his educational initiatives â an engineering college in Chennai and a series of residential schools for poor kids in Uttar Pradesh, among other initiatives.
Now 64 years old, Mr. Nadar says he wishes he had gotten into philanthropy sooner. "I read something that if you knew grandchildren were so much fun, you should have had them before children," he says. "So if I had known not-for-profit was so fulfilling, I should have got started there much, much earlier."
He'd like to see more of his peers involved. "There is no point in just writing a check," he says. "It is your time that is more valuable." So far, however, he says they are virtually invisible.
Even if a nascent philanthropic culture is emerging, Mr. Das says of his fellow (well-to-do) Indians: "They must do more because they've got new wealth. I feel they can multiply what they do as individuals and corporations by one hundred times."
Maybe some will be inspired to do so when they see Mr. Gates collecting a prize.
âPaul Beckett is the WSJ's bureau chief in New Delhi
Write to Paul Beckett at paul.beckett@wsj.com