'I always quote the example of the Jewish community,' says Rami, an immaculately coiffed and dressed figure seated in his West London office. 'They realised after the Holocaust that to be in politics and public life is a necessity, not a choice. If you leave everything to other people they will never come to you; doctors and politicians are the same: they will never come to you, you have to go to them.'
The Indian communities made the same mistake in Uganda, Fiji and Burma, he says. 'We don't take any interest in the wider political or public life. We don't become decision makers.' And the results are there for all to see at Westminster with powerful and numerically strong representation for the Jewish community and Asian representation at a low level compared with their numbers in the population.
The figures speak for themselves: with a population of 250,000 Jews there are 73 Members of Parliament representing the community (45 in the Lords and 28 in Commons) while there are only about a dozen sub-continental MPs who speak for three million people, or 5 per cent of the population. 'It's not the British public's fault. It's our fault,' said Rami. 'They should understand that politics is a game where people undermine each other to surge ahead. You expect people to fight for it.'
No one understood that principle better than Rami after his initial experiences trying to get the Conservative Party to engage with the community.
'When I went there I found tremendous prejudice and I'm talking about Southall where 60 per cent of the people are ethnic. Not a single Asian was in the Conservative Association, but it's changed now,' said Rami who stood for at least an hour at a Conservative branch meeting without anyone taking any notice of him. Nobody said “can I help you.” Finally, he approached a woman about becoming a member and asked how much membership of the branch would be. 'It's £15 but you can pay more if you want,' she responded. Her interest was sparked when he plonked down £50. Thereafter he would take 10 young Asians along to each meeting and the education process got underway.
He told party leaders that there were no Asian role models in the Tories and warned them 'if your party is like Mount Everest – very difficult to climb – who is going to join you? Commonsense is not so common. They (Asians) don't like the Labour Party so they come to the opposition but you don't treat them well because you don't like them,' he said.
Rami's 10 years hard labour to convince the Conservative Party that Asians are dyed-in-the-wool Tories at heart is now paying off after three election debacles for the Tory leadership when they failed to capitalise on the Asians in their midst and three bouts of misdirected policies – including an anti-immigration platform – which he opposed at every turn.
The Labour Party has always had a more ready affinity with Asians through their contact with the poorer areas of Britain and the inner cities. For too long, says Rami, local Conservative branches have been run by rich, elitist middle and old-aged members of the party with inherited wealth looking for something to do after their children had flown the nest. 'They're not pro-active people, I've studied them for 10 years,' said Rami.
But now, after years of hard graft and activism, writing letters and organising meetings and events, his efforts have paid off with the foundation of his British Asian Conservative Link which has convinced the Tory leadership of the validity of his arguments to such an extent that Asians are now promised safe Conservative seats to fight at the next election. 'Before they would send Asians off into Labour stronghold seats like Bradford and seats in Lancashire just to damage our self-esteem.'
Rami's efforts to mobilise the Asian community have been recognised with the award of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) while his success with Sun Mark Ltd and Sea, Air and Land, which are increasing their volume of business 30 per cent year-on-year, has been marked with a Queen's Award for Export Achievement and by becoming a semi-finalist in the Entrepreneur of the Year Award from Ernst and Young.
He has always been active in charity work in the Indian community through the India Association of which he is a member. 'We want to put something back into the country,' said Rami who noted that last year £90,000 had been contributed to St Mark's Hospital at Northwick Park, Harrow, where their money has been contributing to cancer research.
But the most stellar India Association charity activist is its chairman, Balwant 'Bobby' Grewal, who 'warmed up' for his charity work by running the London Marathon in 2001, then followed that up by walking 2,500 miles from north-west India to the south in 2004-05 raising £100,000 for cancer and HIV research at Northwick Park. This year he walked from the Scottish Parliament to its English equivalent in London to raise money for bowel cancer research at the same hospital.
Life was not always so sweet for Rami. When he first arrived in Britain it was to qualify at the bar but he was shocked at the cost of studying and had to set about making some money to keep body and soul together. The fast food industry beckoned as a way of making some fast money and he rose rapidly to area manager with Kentucky Fried Chicken. With a company car, a big salary and expenses, all thoughts of study melted away: here was the way to make the sort of money that he wanted. But Kentucky had over-expanded and soon he was on the job market again and only too aware that Asians, at that time, had no track record with British institutions. 'We were just struggling – very few institutions like banks were ready to trust us. I found the prospects for promotion within companies were poor so the Asians had to go into business individually, that's why you see so many entrepreneurs.'
'When I came in 1970 it was very bad… there was prejudice; prejudice is everywhere. I'm not saying I had more in this country; I probably would have had the same back home but, yes, there was people's perception – whether these people have the ability because of the superiority complex – even a skinhead would think that he is cleverer than me.'
Without capital and with some £2 to his name he knew the service industries were the only way forward and – following a spell with Dixons – he noticed how many Africans bought electronics in Britain and then shipped them home. Soon Sea, Air and Land was doing it for them, as it is to this day.
Sun Mark, which is a development of Sun Oil Ltd, is now a booming company in third and developing world markets representing such top British brands as Unilever, Nestle, McVities, Beechams, Mars and Cadburys. On your travels to the Bahamas, Barbados, St Kitts, Cyprus, Malta, a range of Middle East countries or any one of some 65 countries and territories you will come across Rami's products but not necessarily under the brand names that you recognise – Royalty biscuits, Sabina blackcurrant or Golden Country, for example. And his boast that they are just as good as the market leader is demonstrably true – they are precisely the same product but with different branding and packaging. 'It's the same quality without the frills… the markets are too small for the big corporations to do on their own so we market their products for them under different names,' says Rami.
'In this country supermarkets go for the economy pack. We go for the top end and we have a different niche. People who buy British products in third world countries are a rich elite; money is no object for them. Like a good doctor who knows which heart should go into which body, we identify the right product for the right market' – for Rami Ranger as in business so, too, in politics.
top |
