1. From Salt Trader to Port Tycoon
Gautam Adani was not born into India’s industrial elite. In 1988, he founded Adani Exports, a small commodities firm in Ahmedabad.
During the 1990s, India’s liberalization opened ports and logistics to private hands. The Gujarat Maritime Board granted Adani a lease to develop Mundra Port, which would soon become the largest privately owned port in India.
Adani’s early instinct was simple: control the infrastructure that moves India’s economy.
2. The Gujarat Model: When Business Met Power
In 2001, Narendra Modi became Chief Minister of Gujarat.
The state soon embraced what came to be called the “Gujarat Model” — pro-business reforms, land liberalization, and industrial corridors marketed as “vibrant Gujarat.”
During this period, Adani’s empire expanded dramatically:
• Ports: Mundra Port received major dredging and expansion permissions.
• Power: Adani Power commissioned one of India’s largest private thermal plants.
• Coal & Mining: The group secured coal blocks in India and abroad (notably Australia).
• SEZs: Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) became a crown jewel, with tax holidays and infrastructure incentives.
Independent economic journalists — including Reuters, Financial Times, and The Wire — have documented how Adani’s companies were routinely showcased at “Vibrant Gujarat” investor summits, where Modi’s administration courted global investors.
A 2023 Reuters investigation titled “Modi and Adani: India’s Power Couple” quotes former state bureaucrats describing Adani as “a corporate ambassador of Gujarat’s development story.”
Modi’s pro-investment image and Adani’s rising wealth became mutually reinforcing symbols: one political, one financial.
3. Diplomacy for Business: The Global Push
Multiple credible outlets — including Reuters, The Guardian, and The Financial Times — report that Adani’s overseas expansions often followed Prime Minister Modi’s foreign visits.
Examples often cited:
• Bangladesh (2015): Modi’s state visit coincided with Adani signing a $1.5 billion power-supply deal to export electricity to Bangladesh — financed by Indian state banks.
• Australia (2014–2016): Adani’s controversial Carmichael coal mine received strong political backing from Indian diplomats during the early Modi years.
• Sri Lanka (2021): Adani Ports won a key renewable energy project after direct discussions following Modi–Rajapaksa government meetings.
• Israel (2022): During Modi’s trip, Adani Group expressed interest in Haifa Port, which it later acquired.
The Indian government denies favoritism, but patterns in timing and scale are striking.
Analysts at Financial Times wrote that Modi’s “commercial diplomacy” routinely “creates openings that Adani Group is well placed to fill.”
4. The Explosion After 2014
When Modi became Prime Minister in May 2014, Adani’s net worth was roughly USD 2.8 billion (Al Jazeera).
By 2022, he had briefly become the world’s second-richest man, with a net worth of USD 150 billion (Bloomberg Billionaires Index).
What changed?
• Government privatization: Adani Group won contracts for six of six airports in India’s first privatization round (2019).
• Energy & renewables: Received major allocations in solar parks and coal auctions.
• Defense, logistics, media: Entered strategic sectors once reserved for public or regulated firms.
• Financing: State-owned banks and LIC (India’s public insurer) became key lenders and investors.
Independent economists note that such growth would be impossible without state policy alignment — a pattern often termed “state capitalism for the few.”
5. The Hindenburg Crash: When the Bubble Was Questioned
In January 2023, U.S.-based short-seller Hindenburg Research accused the Adani Group of “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud.”
The group denied wrongdoing, but the report wiped out over $100 billion in market value within weeks.
Indian regulators launched inquiries, but opposition parties and analysts argued that the system’s institutions — from SEBI to the Supreme Court — were hesitant to challenge a politically connected conglomerate.
The episode reignited debate about corporate-political capture in India’s economy.
6. Inequality and Illusion
While Adani’s wealth multiplied thousands of times, India’s inequality reached historic highs.
The World Inequality Lab (2024) finds that the top 1% control over 40% of India’s wealth, a level unseen since colonial times.
Meanwhile, nearly 70% of Indians live on less than ₹200 per day (NSSO/CMIE estimates).
Public infrastructure, from water to rural health, has improved marginally — but much of the government’s capital spending flows into public–private projects dominated by a handful of conglomerates.
As Economist Prabhat Patnaik wrote, “India’s state capitalism now creates billionaires, not public goods.”
“Poverty reduction in India is showing progress … But concerns over data reliability, skewed wealth distribution, social inequity and persistent systemic injustices challenge the credibility of these statistics and undermine the country’s real poverty status.” East Asia Forum
7. What Adani Symbolizes
Adani’s rise is not only about business; it’s about the fusion of corporate and political power in the modern Indian state.
• When the Prime Minister is photographed boarding a tycoon’s jet, lines blur between nation and network.
• When foreign policy doubles as corporate expansion, the “Make in India” slogan morphs into “Made for the few.”
• When public wealth and policy are centralized in a few hands, democracy becomes a subcontractor of capital.
8. The Moral of the Gujarat Model
The “Gujarat Model” once promised efficiency, investment, and jobs.
Two decades later, its most visible product is not broad prosperity but the rise of a monopoly built through proximity to power.
India needed a development model — it got a dynasty of oligarchs.
Adani is not just a businessman; he is the mirror of India’s political economy — efficient, connected, and untouchable.
