The Confident Kinsmen

The biggest industrialists in East Africa are neither black natives nor British settlers but four enterprising Indians--the Madhvani brothers--who run 18 companies worth $30 million in Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika. They stand at the peak of a bulging settlement of clever, clannish Indians, who came to work on the railroads at the turn of the century and stayed to do well in commerce. Unlike most of the clan, now fearful of the future under independent African rule and sending their savings abroad, the young Madhvanis are determined to remain and are vigorously expanding to prove it. Says the senior brother, Jayant Madhvani, 41: "We don't want history to say that we lagged behind when the need for economic development is so great."

From Sweets to Steel. The Madhvanis profit almost every time an East African eats, drinks or washes. With companies that produce sugar, shortening, toffee, tea, soap, bottles and Nile brand beer, as well as a 20,000-acre sugar plantation in Uganda that is their biggest holding, the brothers last year earned $1,400,000 on sales of $14 million. This year in Tanganyika, they fired up East Africa's first steel rolling mill and are building a brewery and candy factory. In Uganda, judiciously allied with the government's development corporation, they will also build a bag factory and eventually pulp and paper mills, and they have longer-range plans for distilling alcohol and manufacturing drugs. "We are," boasts Jayant, "the only people in East Africa who are going full speed ahead."

The brothers already have been brushed by some of the winds of change that other Indians fear: Uganda's Parliament enacted a higher sugar tax largely aimed at the Madhvanis. But they have hedged against too much discrimination by heavily supporting charities and political parties in the three nations, and by presenting the government of Uganda with a $500,000 office building in Kampala. They have hired some black African executives. Jayant, a citizen of Uganda and a former member of its colonial legislature, continues to cultivate his old political friendships.

Phones & Ashes. Though the four brothers regularly rotate responsibilities, Jayant is the most equal among the equals. "We know how a family business can be run," he says. "We never have disagreements."

Educated at the University of Bombay, suave Jayant is a Hindu and strict vegetarian who also fasts one day a week and once each year for a fortnight eats only yoghurt. But he does business from an air-conditioned, four-telephone office on the shores of Lake Victoria and tools around in a blue Mercedes to visit the 12,000 workers for whom the Madhvanis provide free housing, schools and medical care. The brothers are frequent business visitors to Europe and the U.S.

The family stake was begun by their father, Muljibhai Madhvani, who arrived in Uganda in 1905 to trade in salt, flour and seashells. Eventually he traded up to bicycles and farm tools, plowed the profits into new ventures, and bought the sugar plantation for almost nothing from white landowners afraid of the tsetse fly. Madhvani broke in his sons as plantation laborers and ruled with an iron hand. Jayant recalls that "all our meetings were held over the dinner table, and we never left his presence until 11:30 in the evening." Though he has been dead since 1958, Muljibhai's presence is still felt in another way. His ashes rest in a brass box in a filing cabinet beside Jayant's desk, waiting for a suitable shrine to be built to hold them.

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