India’s billionaire family feuds need rules

Final touches are made to a giant statue of a mythological Hindu figure ahead of the seven-day Health, Wealth and Happiness carnival in Chandigarh, India, in September 2016. | REUTERS

Nov 11, 2026

In Chennai, the TVS Group’s patriarch filed caveats in court against his wife and daughter, who did the same against him. In New Delhi, the scion of the Godfrey Phillips empire accused his mother of orchestrating an assault on him. Pune’s prominent industrialists, the Kalyanis, took their two-decade-long inheritance dispute to mediation. The list goes on.

India’s corporate landscape is littered with family feuds. Venerable business groups, some built over centuries, are splintering into petty fiefdoms once their patriarchs die or step away and the heirs’ pursuit of wealth, power and control descends into bitter infighting.

The opportunity cost to the nation is enormous. As owner-families get distracted, business stalls, brand loyalties erode, employees lose direction and shareholder wealth is destroyed. It can be years before personal scores are settled. The dragging conflicts impair the country’s reputation for a stable and regulated business environment and narrow its appeal to foreign investors.

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