AN INTERVIEW WITH ZAFAR SARESHWALA

Muslims being economically marginalized in Gujarat?

Zafar Sareshwala is first and foremost a businessman and

part of a versatile entrepreneurial community. Therefore, he has a keen eye for this issue. This is what he had to say:

•“If you take the latest figures, the economic position Muslims have now, they never had that before. It is much better than ever before.”

In the coming slides: Let us take a few examples and find out – through the words of Zafar Sareshwala.

Zakat is the easiest indicator to judge a Muslim’s wealth profile because you pay zakat on your wealth.

Suppose this year I paid Rs 2500 zakat, you can immediately extrapolate that I am worth Rs 100,000. Next year if I pay Rs 5000 zakat, it means my wealth has increased from one lakh to two lakhs.

Zakat has been continuously increasing in Gujarat year after year.

50% of the zakat of madarasas across the country comes from Gujarat and 50% from the rest of India. If Modi had destroyed Muslims, their share of zakat should have fallen. But in the last 10 years, the wealth of Muslims has increased.

1. Zakat

We sell BMW cars. The cheapest BMW is for Rs 30 lakhs; the highest goes up to 1.5 crores.

We never thought that we could sell more than 2 to 5 of these cars to Muslims. Last year, in 2011,

we sold 11% of our BMWs to Muslims. The population of Muslims in Gujarat is 9%.

This year again, we maintained that sales figure.

2. BMW sales figures

Forget Juhapura, go to any Muslim dominated area in Ahmedabad or Bharuch, there is massive construction activity going on there. You say they are marginalised, ghettoized, but to build a house even in a ghettoized area, you need money.

Land prices have risen tremendously in Muslim areas. In a good society, you cannot find land for less than Rs 50,000 per square yard; it is more than in any Hindu area. Paldi, where we live, there’s no bungalow for less than 5 crores.

Muslims are buying these bungalows, where has all this money come from (if they are economically marginalised)?

3. Real Estate

250 people earn their living from my business, out of which 230 are Muslims

10,000 people are directly employed by Tatas, apart from indirect employment created due to Tata plant. Do you think Tata employs only Hindus?

This Vibrant Gujarat Summit of Modi brings in fresh investments into Gujarat. I think more than half of Gujarat households will benefit from these new investments.

4. Employment

Modi has a simple policy with regard to business and industries.

Whether you are black, white, Hindu, Muslim, whatever, there are only two important things: the amount you invest and the number of jobs you generate.

His clear-cut single window clearance policy for investments and enterprises has helped the small entrepreneur far more than the big corporates.

In most parts of India the SMEs are in crisis and collapsing. In Gujarat they are growing and flourishing.

Most Muslim businessmen are concentrated in small, medium and micro enterprises. While their share in the overall population is 9%, their share in SMEs is proportionately far larger at about 22%.

5. Investment

All equal before law

Today Muslims in Gujarat don’t face any hassles or discrimination in getting government clearances when they

want to set up enterprises in Gujarat. Otherwise Muslims could not have prospered as they have. Modi has a simple formula.

All are equal before law - Take your rights as citizens. Don’t ask for this or that because you are Hindu or Muslim, or on the

basis of caste or community.

Growth Rate

The growth rate of small and medium enterprises in Gujarat has been over 75% in the last decade.

WHY?

LET’S SEE.

REASON 1:

Small and medium enterprises develop around big industry.

For example, when Tata brought in his Nano car plant, it created space for a lot of ancillary industries that supply parts to Tatas. A car company is basically an

assembly unit. They get brake pads from one source, the wipers from another. They need hundreds of such components.

GROWTH RATE OF SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES

REASON 2:

The Gujarat manufacturing model of growth is better than the IT model of growth.

In the IT model, if there are 10 lakh employees, each earning 30-40 lakhs per year-that salary goes straight to the bank. It does not percolate much to the lower

levels; their lifestyle benefits a limited number of people. In manufacturing, every job creates ten additional earners.

It percolates down to the lowest level.

GROWTH RATE OF SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES

Growth and slums?

In most Indian cities, industrial growth pockets have very slummy conditions. Even in Delhi, the Okhla or Wazirpur

Industrial Area create eyesores, plus wretched slums for the working class. Today Gujarat’s industrial growth is not

producing slum like conditions.

The Gujarat Industrial Development Centre calls them “Industrial Clusters”. The new ones developed during Modi’s regime--such as the automobile park--are world class. Please go and see them. My own family belongs to the small

and medium enterprise sector.

We are into manufacturing valves just as numerous other Sunni Boras are. We are a classic example of feeding in to large industry. There is no power

shortage, no water problem. Roads are world class and the overall infrastructure growth is friendly. Even sanitation is very good in these

pockets. Modi is not addressing this or that narrow or large constituency. He is doing what India needs doing.

THANK YOU