'Mumbai was the first choice': How Bal Thackeray's reservation demand drove ISB to Hyderabad

As Raj and Uddhav Thackeray revive the Marathi identity pitch together in Maharashtra, a resurfaced clip from a podcast shows how a similar push from their family patriarch once cost the state a premier institution — the Indian School of Business. In an episode of The Neon Show, ISB founding dean Pramath Raj Sinha explained in detail how the premier B-school, initially planned for Mumbai, was relocated to Hyderabad after Shiv Sena founder Bala Saheb Thackeray demanded heavy reservations for Marathis in jobs, faculty, and admissions.

"Most of our board members were from Bombay. So the obvious choice was to go to Bombay, and they said, 'We'll get land in Bombay. Regulatorily, everywhere, you know, we are comfortable. We are all in Bombay.' Mumbai is the commercial capital of the country — logical choice [to set up ISB]."

However, Sina said he started to run into problems as Balasaheb Thackeray demaned heavy reservation. "Balasaheb Thackeray asked for reservations and very heavy reservations — 50% for faculty, 100% for staff, and some for students,” he said. "After he made those pronouncements — unfortunately, he made it to the press — the bureaucrats started feeling like, oh no, we did not want it to go this way. It was a situation that went a little bit out of hand."

With uncertainty brewing in Maharashtra, the ISB team began scouting for alternatives. "We thought that let's put some pressure on Bombay by showing that other people are also interested,” he explained. That's when then-Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu stepped in.

"The McKinsey team that was working with Chandrababu Naidu, which was also working with me, got into action and we made him write a letter to every board member individually saying — ‘Listen, if you want to look for a good location, there couldn't be a better place than Hyderabad, and I'm happy to welcome you.’”

Sinha described how ISB board members toured four cities in a day — Bombay, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai — before being won over by Naidu's hospitality and vision. "He treated the board with so much respect, and affection and grace, that people were just bowled over. The land that he offered us was fantastic. I think you know where the campus is. In those days, there was nothing there, but a barren piece of land with some rocks. Today it's a thriving metropolis. It could be anywhere in the world. So I think he was really visionary in that sense."

ISB eventually set up its first campus in Hyderabad in 2001, on a 260-acre site in Gachibowli, which was then a sparsely developed area on the outskirts of the city.

The anecdote has resurfaced as the Thackeray cousins - Raj and Uddhav - on Saturday came together for the first time in 20 years to assert unity over the Marathi language. In the past weeks, alleged MNS workers have assaulted people for not speaking Marathi, including vandalising investor Sushil Kedia's office over a social media post.