"Savitri can become the 'richest man',
It is inseparable from some special opportunities. ”
Author:Fu Yumei
What is the richest woman in all of Asia like?
Many people may flash some images of grace and grandeur and domineering majesty in their minds.
However, 72-year-old Savitri Jindal completely turned people's imaginations upside down.
The Indian woman with gray hair, kind smile and simple dress in the photo is Savitri ↓↓, who has just become the richest woman in Asia
Probably even she herself could not have imagined that she would have such a day.
She came from an ordinary family in India, barely attended school, and was arranged to marry at the age of 15. She has been a housewife for most of her life, and she has 9 children.
Originally, she would most likely live like this until her husband died suddenly. As an heir, she was "forced" to take over the housekeeper's business.
The problem is that what her husband left her was not a grocery store or restaurant, but an "empire of the steel industry." As a housewife who has been out of touch with society for decades, can she do it?
Kindal Group. Source: Screenshot of the official website
In the face of many doubts, she counterattacked all the way, first winning the title of India's richest woman, and then topping the Bloomberg billionaire list of Asia's richest women, with net assets of more than 17.7 billion US dollars (about 126.8 billion yuan).
It is no wonder that some media commented: "She proved to the world that housewives can do miracles." ”
Marriages full of surprises
Sawaitri is the head of the Jindal Group, which is not only India's third-largest steelmaker, but also involved in areas such as cement, energy and infrastructure.
This is the hard work left to her by her late husband, Om Prakash Jindal.
Jindal.
Combing through the story of the husband and wife, "accident" is the key word throughout.
First of all, their marriage came unexpectedly.
As a child, Savitri called Jindal "brother-in-law". Jindal first married Savitri's sister and watched Savitri grow up along the way.
Kindar is 20 years older than Sativitri. He had 6 children with Savitri's sister, the eldest of whom was only two years younger than Savitri.
However, my sister died tragically in the middle of the marriage. The family thought about letting their sister Savitri be a "substitute". As a result, Savitri was accused of marrying Jindal at the age of 15 and officially married at the age of 20.
Later, Savitri gave birth to 3 more children for Jindal, and raised a total of 9 children.
Jindal's story of getting rich is also full of unexpected twists.
He was born in 1930 to a peasant family in Haryana in northern India. But he has little interest in farming, but has a special love for those rumbling machines, and from a young age, he loves to run to the auto repair shop to volunteer.
Unexpectedly, he showed a very high talent, often learned by reading it once. At first, he was fascinated by steel and only regarded this as a hobby. The appearance of a pipe changed his mind.
Once, he stumbled upon a steel pipe with the label "Made in Britain" and found that this was the case with many steel products. He was secretly determined to have "Made in India" replace them.
With this goal in mind, he started his own business.
At the age of 22, he opened a small bucket factory, which slowly evolved into a pipe factory and a steel factory. His talents became more prominent, for example, he was able to develop various machines in the factory on his own without professional guidance.
He decided to go deep into the steel industry. In 1970, he built his first large-scale factory in Kolkata. In the decades that followed, through expansion and integration, he opened factories to many cities in India, growing in wealth and joining the "billionaire club".
Forbes said of him: a truly self-made billionaire.
In November 2004, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry in recognition of his significant contributions to the Indian steel industry. At the same time, he also served as Minister of Electricity in the Haryana government.
The year after receiving the commendation, a fatal accident occurred: he died in a helicopter crash.
That year, Savitri was 55 years old. In addition to the pain of bereavement, a heavy burden fell on her.
Step out of the wall that has been around for 36 years
When Jindal died, he was worth $2 billion (about 14.3 billion yuan). But Savitri had no idea about it.
She has said in multiple interviews that she doesn't know what her husband's business does, much less how much he earns.
Savitri's desk had a picture of her husband.
Therefore, after taking over the chairmanship of the Jindal Group left by her husband, she was worried.
"I spent 36 years in the four walls of the mansion. In our house, women don't venture out and I haven't even been to the market in town. Jindal used to say that everyone in the market was my relative and elder, but the women in our family should not talk to them. She revealed in an interview with Forbes.
Savitri is short in stature and understated. In the first half of her life, her role was that of an obedient daughter and a housewife of her husband's godson. The watershed of fate came without warning, and she had to venture out of the wall.
At that time, Jindal's four sons took over their respective business in the group: the eldest was in charge of the pipeline company, the second was in charge of the steel company, the third was in charge of the stainless steel company, and the fourth was in charge of the power company.
Kindal (front row) with four sons.
Jindal was ingenious about the design of the Group's shareholding structure. Instead of having each of them own a company, he divided each company's stake into five shares, one for him, and one for each of the remaining four brothers. Later, Savitri inherited all the shares and assets owned by Jindal.
Or thanks to this equity strategy, after the death of Jindal, the brothers did not stage a drama of fighting for family property, and Savitri's right to speak was also guaranteed.
In the view of Zeng Xiangyu, an associate researcher at the Institute of South Asian Studies at Sichuan University, the choice to make Savitri the heir rather than one of the four sons is also to maintain this "balance".
"No matter which son is handed over to Jindal, there is no guarantee that the others will obey him wholeheartedly and help him, but there is a risk of causing internal turmoil in the family." There is no shortage of precedents in India, where after the death of the family's 'top pillar', there was a lot of trouble because of the separation of the family. Savitri exists in part to circumvent this situation. Zeng Xiangyu said.
Savitri quickly found her position: she was better at managing her sons than she was at managing the business.
"I'm still in charge of the house and the man is in charge of everything outside." She said.
But at this time, she is no longer the mother who can only eat and clothe herself. She turned herself into the "glue" of the brothers' relationship, turning the family mansion into a place of unity.
The four brothers lived together in a compound and did not interfere with each other's lives. But if there was a problem, Savitri would have them sit down and discuss it together.
March 31 and August 7 are the death days and birthdays of Kindal, and the family must also get together.
On the day of Jindal's death, Savitri posted a tribute on social media.
Savitri had another trick: she told her sons that they would consider releasing their shares. When the brothers heard this, they were naturally "pinched", for fear of making her dissatisfied.
They are also angry. In addition to the local market, they led the Jindal Group to open up overseas roads, listing, acquisitions, alliances with foreign companies, and everyone sat firmly on their "mountaintop" and doubled the group's turnover in five years.
As a result, after Savitri became India's richest woman, some media outlets preferred to call her "India's richest mother."
Can you sit firmly in the position of the richest man?
"Savitri can become the 'richest man', in addition to the foundation left by Jindal and the subsequent operation, it is inseparable from some special opportunities." Zeng Xiangyu said.
Over the years, Savitri's worth has gone up and down like a roller coaster: $8.8 billion (2018)→ $5.9 billion (2019)→ $4.8 billion (2020) → $9.7 billion (2021).
At the end of July, her assets soared to nearly $18 billion, nearly double last year.
"The surge in energy prices this year is a very important driving factor. Minerals and energy are the core business of Jindal Group, which not only ushered in an increase in resource prices, but also led to a rise in stock prices on the secondary market, so in a short period of time, Savitri's wealth showed amazing growth. Zeng Xiangyu said that whether she can maintain such a high wealth value is not easy to predict now.
Coincidentally, not long ago, Gautam Adani, also from India, became the number one in Asia and the third richest man in the world. One of the reasons for the surge in his assets is also because he "holds a huge mine".
"The phenomenon of India's 'prolifying' the plutocratic is two-sided, representing economic potential on the one hand, and showing the ills of a highly uneven economic structure on the other. The privatization of state assets in India has benefited a group of businessmen, especially those in the infrastructure and energy sectors like the two richest men, but this has not done much to improve the lives of the poor, but has increased the gap between rich and poor. Zeng Xiangyu said.
However, after stepping out of the "wall", business was only a small part of Savitri's life.
She inherited not only the commercial wealth left behind by Jindal, but also his political "legacy". Zeng Xiangyu said, "This is India's tradition, and political resources can also be inherited."
In 2005 and 2009, Sawaitri won consecutive seats in the parliament of Shsar in Haryana. Every week, she would find time to communicate with voters and behave like a friendly ↓↓
In 2013, she was appointed Cabinet Minister of the Haryana government. "If it were not for the foundation left by her husband, a woman who was more than half a hundred years old and 'halfway out of the family' would hardly have such an opportunity in India." Zeng Xiangyu said.
In addition to following her husband's trajectory, she gradually found something of interest to her: charity and welfare. She once made a promise: "Where we build factories, we will build schools and hospitals." ”
She did not go to university, but helped found one of the top private universities in India ↓↓
Kindal Global University. Source: Screenshot of the official website
She has also made many efforts to promote women's rights and was awarded the International Women's Empowerment Achievement Award ↓↓ last year
In her acceptance speech, she said her dream is that women also have equal opportunities to serve their country.
For the first half of her life, staying at home and being patient and obedient was the best virtue of an Indian woman. Today, she can say "dreams" and "equality" in front of global audiences.
Whether or not she can sit firmly in the position of the richest man, she has climbed out of the wall and climbed to the top of her life.
Director system: Lv Hong
Producer: Zhang Jiankui
Editor-in-chief: Xu Chenjing
Editor: Su Rui
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