Man who had the knack to bring together unlikely partners

Friends in Mumbai remember Jayant Malhoutra the industrialist as an adventurous man, a habitual taker of risks, successful with anything he took up.

Friends in Mumbai remember Jayant Malhoutra the industrialist as an adventurous man, a habitual taker of risks, successful with anything he took up. When he sold his foundry, he got involved with racehorses — friends recall how he bid outrageously for some fillies at one point — and owned a large box at the Mahalaxmi Race Course to which he issued generous invitations.

A flamboyant industrialist-MP, he hired private jets for trips as far away as London well before it became fashion to do so. But the biggest gambles he made were in politics which he took to when he got tired of business, even Sunday races. He told his friends that he was fired by the thought of politics, its endless possibilities.

Old-timers disagree that he was the first of industrialist MPs. The Birlas and people like TTK (TT Krishnamachari) got there much earlier. But they did the staid thing and were party MPs. Jayant Malhoutra, in the late Eighties and Nineties, heralded a modern trend — he was an independent, who defined his clout in politics by those he got together. He had the foresight to “spot” a Kanshi Ram, backed the young turk Chandrashekhar who then went on to become the Prime Minister, and was said to be close to PV Narasimha Rao.

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But more importantly, he was obsessed with the idea of making unlikely partners get together, talk and do business — a skill which is now taken for granted by most political parties who willingly accept such politicians to help them keep intact fragile coalitions, constantly imagining and forging new possibilities.

Says Ranjit Chib of ACNielsen who knew Malhoutra in Mumbai and Delhi: “He was the first in politics to have used market research. Nowadays, all big parties commission work from pollsters but Jayant got us to do work in UP, when governments were dismissed following the Babri Masjid demolition, as he sensed that a change was on the cards. At that time, he was close to Kanshi Ram and Mulayam Singh. He even paid for the data collection.”

Born in 1936, Malhoutra was a Chemistry graduate and was very close to the J K Singhania group, treated almost like a family member, say associates. It is said he played a role in Chandrashekhar eventually becoming the Prime Minister. Niraj Shekhar, Chandrashekhar’s son and now MP from Ballia, says he used to call him uncle and can remember how in his early twenties, his family “on all visits to Mumbai, used to stay at his Bhulabai Desai home.”

Disturbed that he had learnt of Malhoutra’s death a day later quite by accident, Niraj Shekhar said “Jayant Uncle always had a soft corner for Pitaji. I remember all of us attending his son Toby’s wedding in Bangalore.”

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Malhoutra set up a Bangalore-based business, which his son Udayant (aka Toby) Malhoutra now runs and has transformed over the years from one producing hydraulic pumps to precision engineering components. Dynamatic Technologies, from where several aerospace and automotive companies source components today, continues to flourish. The aerospace and automotive components division in Malhoutra’s company is headed by Air Cmde Ravish Malhotra, one of the two Indians to train as cosmonauts.

Malhoutra had his highs as a Rajya Sabha MP between 1994 and 2000. He surprised many by assuming a crusader’s garb when it came to defence deals. Together with Rear Admiral Purohit, Malhoutra levelled allegations of corruption, involving middlemen, in the purchase of Russian spare parts. These formed an important part of the report on defence deals since 1989 which CVC N Vittal authored.