But the return of the cult of Harshad Mehta—in a new mini-series directed by Hansal Mehta, Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story on SonyLIV, and a forthcoming movie, The Big Bull, directed by Kookie Gulati and starring Abhishek Bachchan—signals a resurgence of interest in studying India's uncomfortable relationship with wealth. As a civilisation, we have believed in balance in all aspects of life: dharma, artha and kama, all in moderation are meant to lead us to moksha—but independent India's socialist credentials put an end to this idea. There is that famous exchange between JRD Tata and the country's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru told Tata that he hated the word 'profit'. "Jawaharlal, I am talking about the need of the public sector making a profit," Tata said. "Never talk to me about the word profit; it is a dirty word," Nehru retorted. Yet it is not that wealth creators have not flourished in India. The pursuit of Lakshmi is an honourable one, even if Indian businesses have often played fast and loose with the system to enter the billionaires' club. There are many reasons why Harshad Mehta fascinates us, just as Dhirubhai Ambani, founder of the undivided Reliance empire, did, and on whom Mani Ratnam made a well-regarded, if somewhat hagiographic, movie, Guru (2007). Rajeev Mantri, co-author of a thoughtful new book, A New Idea of India: Individual Rights in a Civilisational State, which says that as a nation if we worship Saraswati and Lakshmi, it follows that Durga will co-exist, believes Harshad can be viewed as a product of his times. "In a way, he pushed the boundaries of the system at the time unlike anybody else and exposed its frailties. A Harshad Mehta existed, thrived and ultimately imploded due to the absence of proper regulation. The Securities and Exchange Board of India [SEBI] was created only in 1992, whereas India has had functional public equity markets for many decades prior to that. In a sense that scam led to an urgency for regulation." Indian capital markets in the 1980s and through the 1990s, in the early years after SEBI was created, were a jungle. Those who worked in the 'share market' were looked down upon in the larger business community as gamblers and hustlers. That has changed only over the last 10-15 years, with the rise of what is now called the 'financial services/asset management/securities broking and trading' industry. Mantri sees parallels between the capital markets sector back then and the formalisation-driven shakeout underway in real estate today. "All this could have come together earlier, had India not taken the sharp socialist turn in the late 1960s-early 1970s," he notes.

Harshad Mehta

Breaching 50,000

Hansal Mehta: Stirred by a Scam

Harshad Mehta: The Return of Chutzpah