Dhirubhai Ambani, the transfer of wealth and Yemen

The Ambani brothers might well be the richest in India today. However the source of their immense wealth is questionable. The creator of this wealth is the late patriarch of the Ambani family - Dhirubhai Ambani, a native of Gujarat, the state on the west coast of India.

Born on 28th Dec 1932, the 3rd son of a school teacher living a very basic life, Dhirubhai moved to Aden in Yemen at the age of 16. Starting as a handyman in the markets of Aden, Dhirubhai soon was popular amongst the Indian worker community in Aden.

While in Aden, Dhirubhai's business senses spotted opportunity in the Yemeni currency. Yemen though under a monarchy was being administered by the British and was a prosperous region. The Yemeni Riyal was an extremely strong currency and was made of a high quantity of silver. Yemen was perhaps the most prosperous of countries in the Arabian gulf as all the other countries used the Indian rupee as currency since they were not as advanced to have their own and most of these countries were ruled or administered by the British, so it made sense to follow the same currency used in British India by the British, - The Indian Rupee

Aden was a popular trading hub, similar to Dubai of today but more so as it was the location of Shell, the oil giant which dispatched the oil to different parts of the world from Aden.

In 1947, India gained independence from the British, this was around the same time that Dhirubhai had spent a considerable time in Yemen. The transfer of power from the British to the Indians happened overnight and the chaos and confusion that followed led to hyper inflation and huge rises in prices of metals in India, one of them being Silver.

Spotting this opportunity, Dhirubhai started collecting Yemeni Rials, bringing them to India on his vacations , melting them and there after selling off the silver component of these coins. This activity must have been carried out on a very large scale, as the Yemeni central bank officials soon realized that there were hardly any coins left in circulation in the country. Imagining the scale of this operation, it could be estimated that the silver brought in this way ran into a few tonnes.

The money realized from this sale of silver was the seed capital for the start of Reliance Industries which initially was a cloth trading firm and then steadily grew to become the giant which it currently is.

Today the 2 sons of Mr Dhirubhai ambani, Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani are amongst the richest in India and the world. However Reliance might be a rich company however it is known to be one of the most unethical of companies in India which evades taxes and is extremely non transparent. Some of the notable wrong doings Reliance has been accused of are massive bribing of government officials, forming cartels and environmental destruction.

While Dhirubhai melted Yemeni silver to fuel the growth of Indias largest company, Yemen on the other hand started a slow decline into poverty and destruction. Today , both Mukesh and Anil Ambani the 2 sons of Dhirubhai are worth an estimated 45 billion dollars and rising. while the Gross domestic Product of the whole of Yemen is estimated to be worth 26 billion dollars and falling. Which means the 2 Ambanis are worth more than the country of Yemen, the country which gave Dhirubhai his first break.

In a brash display of personal wealth, the Ambanis have begun constructing huge mansions in Mumbai, Antilia the 27 floor personal house of Mukesh Ambani has 600 full time staff catering to Mr Ambani, his wife, 3 children and mother. The cost of the mansion is estimated to be around US 1 billion. Not to be left out, Mr Anil Ambani has started construction of his mansion which will cost around 1 Billion to be built in the suburb of Bandra in Mumbai. Yemen on the other hand is today, one of the poorest and least developed countries in the Arab World, with massive unemployment, dwindling natural resources and increasing populations. Yemen's economy is the weakest compared to most countries in the Middle-East, mainly because of its almost exhausted oil reserves and massive corruption leading to extreme poverty in a country whose silver has heralded prosperity for one of its immigrants family across the Arabian gulf in India.