The venue could not have been better. It was the landmark Grosvenor House in Central London that India’s Sahara Group had recently bought over and hoisted the Indian flag at the front entrance. The event on the evening of April 5 was to mark the honour bestowed upon Sahara Group chairman, Subrata Roy with stamps released by Royal Mail, UK’s official postal system.
The large gathering at the Court Suite at the hotel included A-list celebrities in London, including Cherie Blair, wife of former British prime minister Tony Blair, John Bercow, speaker of the House of Commons and industrialist Lord Swraj Paul, to name a few.
After a very short opening remark by the master of ceremony, the red curtains came down, revealing 10 uniquely designed Royal Mail stamps depicting the various facets of the Sahara Group, many with the face of Subrata Roy on them.
Roy himself took to the stage next and thanked Royal Mail for the honour bestowed upon him. He later told the handful of Indian media persons invited to the event that he was in fact a little embarrassed by this and wondered what he has really done to deserve such an honour. He however in all humility said that this was indeed a “big big honour.”
Roy is not the first Indian businessman to hoist the Indian flag on British soil, euphemistically speaking. The Tata Group, Hinduja, Caparo, Vedanta and more recently the Essar Group have made their mark in British economy and have come out in flying colors. In fact Tata Group is the largest Indian employer in the UK, comprising 19 companies and a 42,000-strong workforce. Tata has been in the UK since 1907 and is also the largest foreign investor in the UK today.
This fact alone beckons the next logical question. Why was Roy honoured with a stamp by the Royal Mail ahead of Ratan Tata (or for that matter Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata or JRD) or the Hinduja brothers or Anil Agarwal of Vedanta Group? What really are the criteria for selecting a person to be honoured with a stamp by the Royal Mail, one of the world’s oldest and longest running postal systems?
The answer to these questions came from two sources. A Royal Mail spokesperson said, “Royal Mail has a range of services which allow individuals or businesses to create a personalised label, which can feature their own image or logo next to a postage stamp.”
“Companies and individuals around the world purchase Royal Mail’s customised stamp sheets and we are delighted to have produced these limited edition Business Customised sheets to mark this occasion. Our customised stamp products, Smilers and Business Customised services, are very popular with businesses and individuals, who create and purchase them to celebrate events which range from the birth of a baby to a significant event or achievement within their business.”
(For the record, this reporter was able to create a Royal Mail stamp with his face on it, which if printed would have cost £14.95 or Rs 1076 for a sheet of 20 stamps).
However, a Sahara Group spokesperson continued to assert, though only verbally and not in writing, that what the group displayed at the Grosvenor House was not a product of a commercial deal but a real honour bestowed by Royal Mail on the Sahara Group and its chairman. These assertions where backed by a phone call to “Royal Mail’s South Asia representative” sitting in Delhi, who toed the same line as the Royal Mail press office in London but said this was neither a product under the Smilers scheme or Special Stamps programme, but a one-off case of honouring a business group that looks very promising for the British economy.
Answers to questions about honouring someone who promises great prosperity ahead of people who have already delivered a great deal to the British economy (like Ratan Tata) turned into an acrimonious conversation.
A Royal Mail spokesperson later denied having any representative in Delhi representing South Asia.
