S. Divakara on Nani Palkhivala’s Union Budget Commentaries

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3imZDLWPs3A Duration: 473.6s

S. Divakara (00:08): One of the objects of the Forum also is to bring younger and younger people on its platform. That’s how Mr. M. R. Pai, who was the first Secretary of the Forum of Free Enterprise right since the day it started until 1978 when he resigned as Secretary and became our Honorary Vice President, he discovered Mr. Nani Palkhivala in 1957. Somebody told him that there is a very brilliant lawyer, who is specialised in taxation, so he had set an appointment with him, he met him on the 11/01/1957. The result was Mr. Palkhivala’s first talk, public lecture, the subject was recent changes in tax structure, that was on 12/02/1957 at the Green’s Hotel near Gateway where the Taj Intercontinental is standing now. And he spoke on the Union Budget for the first time in March 1958. The audience was about 800. From 1958 to 1962, he spoke in that venue, when the hotel people told Mr. Pai, we can’t afford to have our meetings here because we can’t accommodate the people who come, audience went on increasing. So 1963 the meeting had to be shifted to Museum Hall, even that was found to be inadequate. So 1965 it was shifted to the CCI East Lawn, and there the first year the audience was in the region of about 3,000. It went on increasing — 3,000, 5,000, 10,000. 1982, it exceeded 20,000 people, I could see because I was involved in arranging that meeting, and people standing on the walls, sitting on the balconies, everywhere, every possible place. And Mr. Vijay Merchant, he was presiding over that meeting. Casually he told me, Divakar, why don’t you shift it to the Brabourne Stadium? And next day, I went to him in his office, he was President of the CCI, Cricket Club of India. What brings you here? I said, Mr. Merchant, yesterday you said that we should shift it to Brabourne area, we want to shift. Then he thought, no, I only joked. I said no, we want to take it seriously. Then he said, you give a letter, I’ll put it in the committee. And within matter of two weeks he said, the committee has agreed to your proposal, we’ll be happy to accommodate your meeting. So from 1983 till 1994, all our meetings addressed by Mr. Palkhivala on the budget were on the Brabourne Stadium, which is now known as Brabourne Stadium. Except in one year in 1991, he did not speak because of the heart surgery, and the attendance went on increasing. The first time we went to Brabourne Stadium it was 35,000, it went on increasing — 92, 93, 94. It is not my estimate, estimated by the newspaper, they said it was in excess of 100,000. I still remember we used to be very closely in touch with Professor Milton Friedman, because we had the privilege of having him on our platform a couple of times earlier, we have also published his booklets. We used to keep him informed about our activities. One of the annual reports mentioned about the attendance at this meeting, he saw the photographs, said it is mind-boggling, this attendance is mind-boggling. And in fact there are many — in many meetings I could see people from other countries coming. Mr. Pai too also told me that there have been instances where parliamentarians from England and from Australia, they have attended. I used to get telephone calls right from November-December onwards — the meeting is always in the first week of March — from November-December onwards from company secretaries asking, Mr. Divakar, when is the meeting of Mr. Nani Palkhivala on the budget next year? Because we want to schedule our board meetings to suit our outstation members and our directors to attend the meeting. And there have been many such instances. And from February onwards, I was always flooded with telephone calls, please reserve a seat for me, please. Actually these invitations had no meaning because it was a public meeting open to anyone. We were only blocking a few seats in the front rows for Mr. Palkhivala’s friends and our own supporters and others. We are keeping about 10,000 chairs, and in no time we open the gate at five, by 05:15 it will be full. And then people who come later will go to the stands, and there has not been one single instance where we had any problem with the audience, I must salute the audience. And we always were keen — Mr. Palkhivala said don’t put up any barricade anywhere, because he did not like those barricades which are generally put up in such meetings. Not once did anyone give us any trouble. If there is a chair they will go and sit, otherwise they go to the stand or they come and sit on the lawns. In fact I remember a couple of times when at least once two Tata directors came a little late, one of them got a chair, the other man did not get. I saw him sharing a chair with another one. Next day I telephoned him, I said sorry, I did — Dr. Freddy Mehta. I said, Dr. Mehta, I’m very sorry, we couldn’t give you a chair. And no, Divakar, it is not your fault, it was my fault, I came late. Initially, we were from 1956 till 1991, we used to have a number of meetings every year on economic subjects, and there were any number of subjects also available. And after the liberalization, of course, what we wanted was achieved through liberalization, the rates of taxation came down. At one time in the early 60s it was 97.5, now it is in the 30s, 35% or something like that. And in fact, he used to address meetings on the budget in other places also. After speaking first in Bombay, he will go to Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Calcutta, Delhi, Ahmedabad and sometimes Pune also, and sometimes there are couple of other places. Every time in Bangalore the meeting was held at Vidhana Soudha Banquet Hall, because the local chamber of commerce, the Federation of Karnataka Chamber of Commerce, always involved the Chief Minister as president of the meeting. In one meeting Mr. Veerappa Moily was the Chief Minister, he was presiding, he made a very fine remark. He said, as a student I used to attend Mr. Palkhivala’s lectures, he was very critical of the budget. This time he has praised this budget. Because that time it was V. P. Singh’s budget, he praised the first budget of Mr. V. P. Singh. Mr. Palkhivala said there are many good things in the budget. So, what Mr. Veerappa Moily said was, all these years he was critical, this year he has praised the budget, that means Mr. Palkhivala has not changed, the government has changed its policies.