Philanthropy, Pharma, and Finance: A Letter Unveiling the Piramal Equation

Posted on 8th November, 2025 (GMT 05:12 hrs)

ABSTRACT

“Philanthropy, Pharma, and Finance: A Letter Unveiling the Piramal Equation” is an open letter that interrogates the moral architecture of “philanthropic capitalism” through the lens of the Piramal Group’s intertwined ventures in pharmaceuticals and finance. Drawing upon the language of public accountability and philosophical critique, it examines how narratives of “conscious” and “value-based” enterprise often conceal deeper entanglements of debt, profit, and political patronage. Blending forensic analysis with rhetorical irony, the letter situates Piramal’s corporate conduct within the wider ecosystem of India’s crony-capitalist order, where the boundaries between care and commerce, virtue and valuation, increasingly blur. Ultimately, it is both a document of resistance and a call for ethical introspection in an age where balance sheets masquerade as moral credentials.

लोभमूलानि पापानि व्याधयो रसमूलकाः।

स्नेहमूलानि दुःखानि त्रीणि त्यक्त्वा सुखी भवेत्॥

Lobha-mūlāni pāpāni vyādhayo rasa-mūlakāḥ।
Sneha-mūlāni duḥkhāni trīṇi tyaktvā sukhī bhavet॥

“Wrongdoings arise from greed; illnesses arise from excess indulgence.
Sorrow arises from attachment.
One who renounces all three — greed, indulgence, and attachment — becomes truly happy.”

(The contemporary custodians of conscience-less “conscious” capitalism seem to have specialized in all three domains.)

Sub: The Wound Remembers: A Letter to the Custodian of “Philanthropic Capitalism”

Dear Mr. Piramal (CBE),

We recently came to know about Piramal Pharma’s rather illuminating ₹99 crore loss in Q2 FY26 — quite the philosophical moment for an empire so often adorned with the halo of “family (including Mukesh Ambani) philanthropy.” We from OBMA are so saddened to hear about this loss, oh no! It seems your CDMO business has entered a contemplative phase of silence, pulling revenue down 9% to ₹2,044 crore and EBITDA 44% to ₹224 crore. The segment itself shrank 21%, while Consumer Healthcare, ever the well-behaved offspring, offered a 15% growth — a faint, embarrassed smile amid what must have been a rather meditative board meeting.

Meanwhile, in the adjoining sanctum, Piramal Finance appears to have discovered its inner guru. CEO Jairam Sridharan now extols the virtue of “patient” foreign investors — a delightfully yogic approach to capital, where “wait and watch” replaces “risk and reward.” The ambition to double AUM to ₹1.5 trillion by FY28 reads less like a financial roadmap and more like a mantra murmured to keep faith alive through the fiscal night. After all, all of this forms part of the chaosophical ambit of stock/share market!

But tell us, Mr. Piramal — is this patience, or penance? Are you not getting foreign investors? Are the markets losing confidence, or has Once in a Blue Moon Academia (OBMA) simply begun doing its quiet, spectral work — peeling away the gold leaf from the myth of “philanthropic” “conscious” capitalism (which turns out to be canni-ballistic, savage, pre-debt-or capitalism)? Perhaps the (im-)moral market didn’t take kindly to the latest “strategic realignment.” Or perhaps, just perhaps, the ghost of OBMA has been pacing through your balance sheets, whispering its inconvenient catechism — about transparency, corporate virtue, and that eternally slippery overlap between altruism and asset management.

As of the most recent filings, your Piramal Group’s total debt stands at an estimated ₹68,700 crore — combining Piramal Enterprises Ltd.’s borrowings of roughly ₹64,000 crore and Piramal Pharma Ltd.’s ₹4,700 crore liability. Quite the figure for a family once celebrated as the torchbearer of “value-based capitalism,” now emblematic of a system where liabilities grow faster than lessons. After all, in the same crony-monopoly continuum, May 2025 saw reports of the BJP government quietly facilitating a ₹33,000 crore LIC investment to prop up the Adani Group when foreign lenders clearly backed away — a timely reminder of how conveniently “national interest” tends to align with corporate distress these days!

What your numbers reveal, then, may not be loss at all — but a reckoning. The quiet recognition that even the most pious empires eventually face the irony they so lovingly finance.

Well, these things, Mr. Piramal, have certainly not unfolded in a vacuum. A great many currents have converged here, haven’t they? You’ve had to knock on the doors of the courts time and again, pleading for blanket stay orders— hai na? That, of course, demands energy, persistence, and perhaps a certain flair for institutional choreography. The endless mergers, de-mergers, and re-mergers, the artful politics of naming and renaming your ever-expanding web of companies— some existing, some not quite— must have been quite the performance.

Allow me, then, to take stock of what we’ve done so far regarding Piramal Pharma. And yes, we will continue— not out of personal spite, but out of an unwavering commitment to exposing the crony-corporate nexus that has thrived under the current dispensation. The BJP-led regime’s entanglement with vote manipulation, institutional capture, and the DHFL’s RBI-sanctioned CoC-led CIRP is not a private misfortune—it is a national tragedy, affecting the other 98% who bear the burden while the creamy layer floats comfortably above the wreckage.

When these “others,” the dispossessed, dare to raise legitimate questions, they are conveniently branded “anti-nationals”. How familiar, how farcical!

Oh wait, you also appear as perhaps an “anti-national”, with your pharma’s Shanghai sourcing office, why did you not choose BJP’s “Boycott China” FDA atmanirbharta? Mistake, mistake!

Anyway, here’s the list I was speaking of— without much ado:

1. The Skin Remembers Capital: Piramal Pharma, Dermatological Capitalism, and the Pharmakon of Neoliberal Care⤡
2. Nixit and the Pharmaco-Capitalist Soul: Hauntings Under Piramal Pharma⤡
3. Between Cosmetic Grooming, Pharmacology and DHFL Haircut: Ambiguities in the Case of Bohem by Piramal Pharma Limited⤡
4. Where Have All The Flowers Gone? Disclosing Piramal Pharma’s “Little’s” ⤡
5. From Itching Skin to Itching Palms: Calamities of Lacto Calamine of Piramal Pharma’s Pharmakon⤡
6. Piramal’s Supradyn: Illusory Vitality and Expensive Urine⤡
7. Sloan’s “Promise”: Heritage Brand or Hazard in a Bottle?⤡
8. Urgent Call to Reassess Piramal Pharma’s Tetmosol Soap⤡
9. Piramal, Tetmosol, and DHFL: The Itch of Conscience-less “Conscious” Capitalism⤡
10. Piramal, Polycrol, Pesticides, and the Politics of Stomachs⤡
11. The Pharma-Politics of Headache: Saridon, Piramal, DHFL⤡
12. The Pharmacological Garden of Paramavaiṣṇava Ajay Piramal: A Case Study⤡

Since your ever-evolving entity — “awaiting foreign investment” Piramal Finance, also known at various times as Piramal Enterprises Ltd. and Piramal Capital & Housing Finance Ltd. — has already filed its share of defamation suits (remember that delightful “Cancelled” stamps from the Bombay High Court, perhaps?), I now find myself waiting, almost expectantly, for a similar gesture from Piramal Pharma.

After all, our collective, Once in a Blue Moon Academia (OBMA), has dared to ask a few inconvenient questions — grounded in publicly available evidence and animated by the spirit of open inquiry — about the “pharmacological legitimacy” of several OTC products emerging from your so-called “pharma” domain.

And yes, we’re expanding — far beyond our 10+ platforms — into Amazon. Not the rainforest, alas, but the company. The terrain may be algorithmic, but rest assured: our voice will not be lost in it.

Now, our Once in a Blue Moon Academia (OBMA) is gradually turning its gaze toward Mouthshut once again— no, no, not in the spirit of shutting mouths or silencing truth-tellers (we’ll leave that art to your favourite BJP-led crony oligarchy, which seems to have perfected it) in the midst of undeclared emergency in India⤡, but rather to speak even louder. We intend to use the platform Mouthshut precisely to open up conversations— to question, to unmask, and to discuss your so-called “pharma” ventures with the clarity and courage that public truth deserves:

And so, Mr. Piramal, let us consider this not a confrontation, but a continuation — a continuation of inquiry, of conscience, of the citizen’s right to ask, to doubt, and to counter-document. The empire may speak in balance sheets and board resolutions, but we, the dispossessed, speak in the language of the wound — and the wound remembers… and the confessions of the wounded flesh? They continue to tell stories. Stories of resistance.

If there is anything left of the word ethics in BJP-ruled corporate India, perhaps it begins here: not in your annual reports, but in our persistence to hold a mirror. We invite you — not to litigate, but to listen. Not to silence, but to respond.

Because every number hides a story, and every story, when told fearlessly enough, can still change the status quo order of things.

With spectral regards,

नमस्ते अस्तु मा मा हिंसीः

लड़ेंगे या मरेंगे!

इंक़लाब ज़िंदाबाद!

Debeprasad (sic) Sadhan (patriarchal insertion?!) Bandopadhyay (sic)
Once in a Blue Moon Academia (OBMA)
“Forensic philosophizing for the post-truth age.”

P.S. We continue to hold within our archives a set of research findings and analyses that may further illuminate certain “aspects” (if you know what I mean) of your pharma, realty, and finance operations. The question, then, is not if they will be shared, but how — whether through a comprehensive public release or a gradual, evidence-based exposition. In any case, rest assured, our approach remains guided by transparency, accountability, and the principles of fair and responsible inquiry.

COPY TO:

• Shri A.H. Laddhad, Prothonotary and Senior Master, Bombay High Court (With reference to Case No. S/42/2025)
• The Union Minister, Ministry of Finance, Government of India
• Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India
• Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI / CDSCO)
• Chairperson, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI)
• Secretary, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)
• Director General, Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS)
• President, All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN)
• Director, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI)
• President, Indian Medical Association (IMA)
• Secretary, Indian Pharmacological Society (IPS)
• Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO) / WHO Essential Medicines Division
• UN Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights
• Director, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)
• Executive Director, Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA)
• Chairperson, Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI)
• Prasar Bharati (Chairman, CEO, Member-Finance)
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
• European Medicines Agency (EMA)