When Priyamvada Birla died, leaving her wealth to Rajendra Singh Lodha, Yash Birla contested the will on the grounds that they were an undivided Hindu family and he was a natural heir of the childless widow
The Birlas are private people. The family has been an integral part of Indian business for over 100 years, yet it has rarely bared its soul to the public. Business history would be so much richer if only the members of the Birla family chose to publish their stories.
A recent event requires us to revisit the Birla history. A few days ago, Birla Corporation announced that it will acquire two cement units in the east from Lafarge. And the chairman of this company is not a Birla but Harsh Vardhan Lodha. How did this company transit from the Birla fold to Lodha?
That story is fairly well-known. Priyamvada Birla, the widow of Madhav Prasad Birla, on her death in 2004 bequeathed Birla Corporation to Rajendra Singh Lodha, the chartered accountant from Kolkata. Different members of the Birla family challenged the will, but the Company Law Board in 2009 paved the way for Harsh Vardhan to become the chairman of Birla Corporation (his father had died the previous year).
It so happens that little is known about Priyamvada and Madhav Prasad Birla. However, in his 2014 book, On a Prayer, Yash Birla gives a glimpse into their world.
Madhav Prasad did not have children. His next of kin was grandnephew Yash: Gajanan Birla's grandson and Ashok Birla's son. Ashok died in a place crash, along with his wife and daughter, in 1990. Yash was studying in the US and had to rush back to take control of his father's business.
In the initial days, Yash got help from Aditya Birla in business, but he was persuaded by relatives to switch to Priyamvada. (Her husband was unwell and had difficulty in communicating with people.)
Husband and wife lived in a grand house in Kolkata, done up in European style, but chose to wear simple Marwari clothes and were deeply religious. Madhav Prasad had a fetish for short hair and would berate anybody who had long hair or a moustache. So people went to meet him after flattening their hair with water or oil.
Priyamvada comes across as a strong woman in the book, ready to take bold decisions and also demanding at times. The person she had deputed to help Yash was unpopular. He was replaced by somebody Yash wanted. When that person died, Priyamvada was in a fix because he was key too running her business as well. To fill the void, she recalled another senior person she had deputed to Yash.
That was the breaking point: Yash decided to take matters in his own hand. He says in his book that he felt betrayed by Priyamvada for whom he had changed his whole life. The drama that followed finds no mention in the book.
A few years later, when Priyamvada died, leaving her wealth to Rajendra Singh Lodha, Yash contested the will on the grounds that they were an undivided Hindu family and he was a natural heir of the childless widow.
The other camp produced an angry letter written by Ashok Birla in 1984 to Madhav Prasad complaining about his "intense bitterness towards me and our family" and then said that Gajanan had relinquished all his rights in joint stock companies of the family in favour of Madhav Prasad in 1934 in the presence of none other than Mahatma Gandhi.
The undivided Birla family, the Lodhas said, was a myth and Birla, thus, had no claim on his grandaunt's estate.
