Who are the billionaire Indian Hinduja family who are accused of human trafficking?
According to their Forbes Profile, the Hinduja family, which controls the Hinduja Group, an MNC conglomerate, was worth $20 billion as of November 2023. The group has business interests in everything from trucks and lubricants to banking and cable television
Four members of the billionaire Indian Hinduja family are on trial in Switzerland for alleged human trafficking.
Another allegation against the UK's richest family is exploitation of staff at their Lake Geneva villa by paying them less than they spent on pets.
With the news surfacing and bringing this family in the limelight, let's dive into why they are so influential.
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For the uninitiated, the Hinduja company was founded in 1914 in what is now modern day Pakistan, by Parmanand Deepchand Hinduja, who was from a Sindhi family based in India. By 1919 he had set up his company's first international branch in Iran, where its headquarters remained until the Islamic Revolution in 1979 that forced them to move to Europe.
Group Chairman at the time Srichand Hinduja and his brother Gopichand, also Co-Chairman, moved to London in 1979 to develop the export business; the third brother Prakash manages the group's operations in Geneva, Switzerland while the youngest brother, Ashok, oversees the Indian interests, says Mint.
Srichand's ailing health prior to his death in 2023 sparked a bitter struggle between his two brothers and his daughter, Vinoo, over a letter signed by the four siblings that said assets held by one of them belonged to all.
Who are the Hindujas?
According to their Forbes Profile, the Hinduja family, which controls the Hinduja Group, an MNC conglomerate, was worth $20 billion as of November 2023. The group has business interests in everything from trucks and lubricants to banking and cable television.
Second-generation patriarch Gopichand Hinduja, took over as chairman after his older brother Srichand Hinduja died in May 2023. All UK citizens, Gopichand lives in London, with Prakash in Monaco and Ashok in Mumbai.
According to Forbes, the family was the seventh richest in India (2023), the 146th richest in the world in 2022, and dropped off the list in 2023. They were also the 12th richest in Asia in 2017.
How did the business grow?
According to the group's website, the Hinduja brothers' father, Parmanand Deepchand Hinduja, traded goods in Shikarpur town in the Sindh region of British India (now Pakistan). He moved his merchant banking and trade businesses to Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1914 and opened an international office in Iran in 1919.
The brothers shifted their base to London in 1979, where it remains. The website claims the group employs 200,000 people worldwide.
His eldest son, Srichand P Hinduja, aka SP, took over in November 1935. He is credited with the founding of IndusInd Bank. Current Chairman Gopichand took the helm in May 2023, and is credited for the Group's forays into the power and infrastructure sectors.
For decades, Srichand Hinduja served as the patriarch of a sprawling business empire behind one of the world's biggest family fortunes with origins dating back more than a century.
