There was a time when Indian capitalism was narrated as a story of liberalisation. The 1991 reforms dismantled the old licence/permit raj and promised a more competitive marketplace. Three decades later, a new question shadows India’s economic growth story — do a handful of big business groups command disproportionate influence over our markets, infrastructure and public policy?
It’s a no-brainer to identify the two corporate giants that control some of the most strategic sectors of the Indian economy today — ports, airports, telecom, digital services, data infrastructure, petrochemicals, power, logistics, green energy, retail, media…
Their scale, reach and speed of expansion have no parallels in India’s business history — and for many, they are our national champions who have made India globally competitive. But their rise has also raised concerns about the concentration of economic power, barriers to real competition and the role of state policy in private accumulation.
Crony capitalism is not merely about corruption in the narrow legal sense. It describes a political economy where access to power becomes a decisive business advantage, where regulation, licensing, state financing and public assets disproportionately favour those closest to the governing establishment.
The concern is not that successful businesses become large; scale is often a natural consequence of efficiency. The concern arises when scale becomes self-reinforcing through privileged access to capital, policy and state resources, making markets less competitive.
The rise of Gautam Adani has become emblematic of this anxiety. The Adani Group’s expansion from ports into airports, power transmission, data centres, renewable energy, media, cement and defence has been strikingly rapid.
From handling roughly a quarter of India’s cargo through Adani Ports & SEZ Ltd, it became India’s largest private airport operator. It owns/controls key international airports in Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Mangaluru, Jaipur, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram and Mumbai.
In Mumbai, India’s financial capital, it owns both Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport and the under-development Navi Mumbai International Airport.