Sahara: The Untold Story

Tamal Bandyopadhyay

Jun 2014 · Jaico Publishing House

About this ebook

 FEATURES EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with SUBRATA ROY

EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SUBRATA ROY AND 

SAHARA INDIA PARIWAR, BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK…

Sahara: The Untold Story is based on painstaking research to demystify India’s most secretive and largely unlisted conglomerate, the Sahara India Pariwar. It also delves into the group’s ongoing legal battle with the market regulator.

Entrepreneur Subrata Roy, the guardian angel of the group, whose feet are touched by everybody in the Pariwar, wants to reach out to a million lives and feels impeded and shuttered in by regulations. So the clash with the regulators was inevitable. But when a regulator slams one door, maverick Roy opens another. This play has been on since 1978, when Sahara was set up.

Roy is well known for glamour and his association with film stars, cricketers and politicians. He exudes patriotism, with a statue of Bharat Mata (the presiding deity of the group) on a chariot driven by four fierce-looking lions adorning his headquarters in Lucknow. He is the Robin Hood of a country where only 35% of the adult population has access to formal banking services. This India and its millions of illiterate poor depositors stand in awe and admiration of him. But does he also exploit them? Do these poor people actually keep money with him or are they fronting for others?

EXCERPT FROM THE SAHARA INDIA PARIWAR DISCLAIMER

‘The book at best can be treated as a perspective of the author with all its defamatory content, insinuation and other objections, which prompted us to exercise our right to approach the court of law in order to save the interest of the organization and its crores of depositors and 12 lakh workers.’

TamalBandyopadhyay, a deputy managing editor of Mint, is one of the most respected business journalists in India. Tamal has kept a close watch of the financial sector for over a decade and a half and has had a ringside view of the enormous changes in Indian finance and banking over this period. His first book, A Bank for the Buck, released by P Chidambaram in November 2012, has been a non-fiction bestseller.

Ratings and reviews

Not thoroughly researched, not well written, repetitive. But a fascinating story all the same.

Really? You decided to write book on biggest fraudster in India AND decided to charge money for it? Subrato Roy was corrupt, greedy and he defrauded millions of middle-class people with phony schemes. I am ashamed to be from the same country as this goon and thug and even more disappointed to see his book on the sale on Google play.

No option for zero stars. No homework done . Most of the big claims are false

About the author

Tamal Bandyopadhyay is the Deputy Managing Editor at a financial daily, Mint. After completing his post-graduation in English Literature from Calcutta University, Tamal began his career with the Times Of India, Mumbai as a trainee journalist.