The Guptas: South Africa's Most Hated Family

It could have been another inspiring immigrant story. Atul Gupta, a young man from Saharanpur in northern India, is sent by his father to find success across the ocean. He looks to South Africa and sees opportunity amid the political and economic turmoil of the country’s transition in the early 1990s. As his gamble pays off, his brothers join and he builds an empire in his adopted home. Instead, that story is now met with deep skepticism and open anger by South Africans who see the Gupta family’s ascent as symbolic of all that is rotten in local politics. Since 1993, the Guptas have established enterprises ranging from coal and uranium mining, the technology industry, and a national newspaper and 24-hour news channel, all under the holdings company Oakbay Investments. Rather than a bootstraps success story, the family’s close relationship with embattled president Jacob Zuma has made them the target of political lashings and satirical cartoons.