Mumbai’s glass towers gleam against a smog-stained sky this morning, their reflections bouncing off the Arabian Sea. Inside one of those towers, Mukesh Ambani is doing what he does best: rewriting the rules of Indian capitalism. His latest gambit, a colossal share sale billed as India’s biggest, has London investors circling like sharks drawn to chum. The numbers are dizzying. But what does this mean for the millions who won’t own a single share?
Let me take you to the streets below. In the shadow of Ambani’s Antilia, the 27-storey private residence that costs more to run than most companies earn, a chai wallah pours sweet tea into clay cups. He has never bought a stock in his life. His son has a smartphone but no bank account. This is the other India, the one that doesn’t feature in glossy prospectuses.
The share sale, structured as a rights issue and a follow-on public offer, is designed to attract foreign capital. Reliance Industries, Ambani’s behemoth, wants to expand into green energy and retail. London’s fund managers are salivating: they see a stable return in a volatile world. But the human cost is subtle. Every pound that flows into Reliance is a pound that could have gone to a small business struggling for a loan. Every new store that opens under the Reliance Retail banner is a kirana shop that closes.
Class dynamics underpin this story. Ambani’s rise mirrors India’s widening gap between the ultra-rich and the rest. He is now Asia’s richest man, a title that comes with immense power. When he speaks, the government listens. When he raises money, global markets tremble. Yet his companies employ hundreds of thousands at wages that barely keep pace with inflation. The share sale is a masterstroke of financial engineering, but it reinforces a system where capital begets capital and labour is just a cost to be managed.
Cultural shift is more subtle. In London, the investors are not thinking about the chai wallah. They are thinking about arbitrage, about the returns that will fuel their own bonuses. Meanwhile, in India, the middle class watches with a mix of pride and envy. Pride that an Indian can command such global attention. Envy that they are not part of the deal. The average retail investor, seduced by the hype, may buy a handful of shares, but the real action is in the big money that never touches the ground.
Social psychology explains why this matters. We are witnessing a redefinition of success: not as a society that lifts all boats, but as a collection of individuals chasing private gain. Ambani is not a villain; he is a product of this system. But his share sale is a litmus test for India’s soul. Will the windfall trickle down, or will it simply make the rich richer? The answer, I suspect, is written in the tear-gas stains on the walls of India’s protest zones.
So as the London investors circle, let us not be dazzled by the numbers. Let us ask: who benefits? The answer may be as simple as looking up at Antilia, and then down at the street.
