No more rushes with history
A little over a month shy of his 90th birthday, Krishna Kumar Birla, Chairman, K.K. Birla Group of companies, passed away at his Kolkata residence after a brief illness on August 30. The eldest son of the legendary Ghanshyam Das Birla leaves behind a legacy of Rs 9,000-crore conglomerate comprising sugar, fertiliser, textiles, engineering, shipping, IT and media companies.
Of course, his closeness to the Congress party and the Nehru-Gandhi family helped. That, however, did not stop him from being candid. As the then President of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry in 1974, he countered Prime Minister Indira Gandhi about her economic policies, arguing that they had run their course and would be outliving their utility if persisted with further.
“He wasn’t one to accept ideas unchallenegd—he critically analysed everything in depth and was quite precise in his approach,” reminisces Amit Mitra, Director General, FICCI.
Recalls Rahul Bajaj, Chairman, Bajaj Auto, whose family has known the Birlas for the last 70 years: “He was the kind of person, who, on the one hand, had strong views and the courage of convictions to stand by them, and on the other, was not only affectionate in his personal dealings but also willing to listen to an opposite point of view.” Birla’s political innings lasted 18 years, starting from 1984 when he became a life member of the Congress party and got elected to the Rajya Sabha, where he remained a member till 2002. But apart from his corporate and political innings, Birla was also Chancellor of Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani, Rajasthan—the town where he was born in 1918.
His wife, Manorama Devi, had passed away a month ago. Birla is survived by his daughters Nandini Nopani, Shobhana Bhartia and Jyotsna Poddar.
