The Polyster Price

Much later, Henwood tried to market his services to other Indian businessmen. Dhirubhai became alarmed, and had Hen- wood followed on his visits to India. To protect his business interests, Henwood consulted a leading firm of lawyers in India.

Over the years 1982 to 1984, Dhirubhai also met problems within the 'Reliance family'.

In 1982, junior office staff in Bornbay petitioned the Reliance management about low salaries and being obliged to work long hours and on holidays without overtime pay.

Then they attempted to join a trade union, the Mumbai Mazdoor Sabha run by R. J. Mchta. Some 350 were dismissed without notice, ostensibly on grounds of a 'reorganisation', while others were transferred to Reliance offices in Gujarat. The dismissed workers said muscle men had beaten up one activist and a deputy personnel manager had waved a pistol at a typist.

In December 1983, Dhirubhai had hosted a special lunch for all his 12 000 factory staff at Naroda to celebrate the wedding of his daughter Dipti to Dattaraj Salgaocar, the heir to a prosperous iron ore mine in Goa. It was a love match-Raj Salgaocar had been staying in the same apartment building in Boinbay's Altarnount Road as the Ambanis when he met Dipti-but a prestigious one for Dhirubhai, just as he had emerged as a tycoon himself.

The bonhomie at the wedding covered some mixed feelings on the factory floor. The Naroda workforce was seething. Within a few months, the textile hands were agitating for a wage increase, payment of overtime, and removal of contract labour. Dhirubhai effectively nudged aside his elder brother Ramnikbhai from management of Naroda, and put his younger son Anil in charge. In August 1984, the company suspended 160 of its workers, and announced formation of a company union, the Reliance Parivar Pratinidhi Sabha (Reliance Family Representative Union), includ- ing 6700 workers and 1800 staff.

'The concept of unions has no place in our set up,' the company's general manager for personnel and administration, H. N. Arora, told a newspaper. 'We believe in participative management.'

Agitation continued within the plant. On the morning of 28 August, the company announced suddenly that work was stop- ping, and the plant was closed. Squads of Gujarat state police and police reserves waiting at the gate stormed in and charged the protesters with lathis (long wooden staves) and tear gas.5 Dhirubhai rode out this episode, but with regret. Not only had he lost the earlier affinity