Bengali entrepreneurs, their history goes back to Dwarkanath Tagore who acquired the Raniganj collieries in 1836 from  an English agency house, Alexander & Co. This was followed with ventures  for operating tugboats, steamboat services connecting Kolkata and Allahabad, and a steam-powered floating ferry across the Hooghly, mainly to use the coal that was mined. Dwarkanath even envisaged a 160-km rail line from Raniganj to Kolkata, a project that the British authorities derailed for being promoted by a company under “native management”.

Rajendra Nath Mookerjee, a visionary and an industrialist whose engineering firm, Martin & Co, was at the turn of the 20th century executed major water-works stations, feeder railways and building projects all over India – including Kolkata’s magnificent Victoria Memorial. In 1924, this concern took over Burn & Co, which owned a pig iron ore unit that 15 years later began producing steel. Indian Iron & Steel Company (IISCO) became the flagship of the Mookerjee family-controlled Martin Burn group.

During the early part of last century: Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals, Calcutta Chemical Company, Bengal Immunity, Bengal Lamps, Bengal Waterproof, Bande Mataram Match Factory, Banga Laxmi Cotton Mills, etc. were born to promote Indian enterprise, spearheaded by men with superlative educational backgrounds. Bengal Chemicals’ founder, Prafulla Chandra Ray, had a chemistry doctorate from the University of Edinburgh. Bengal Waterproof’s Surendra Mohan Bose and Bengal Lamps’ Kiran Shankar Roy were fired by nationalistic zeal, even while studying at Berkeley and Oxford, respectively. Rajendra Nath Mookerjee was an engineer, who, in fact, presided over the Indian Science Congress session in 1921.

The decline of Bengali entrepreneurship, if anything, is more of a post-Independence phenomenon. One commonly held belief links it to the stranglehold that the Marwari community has historically exercised over business across Eastern India.

The Bengalis, no doubt, lacked the deep pockets or the kind of upcountry trading and money market networks that the Marwaris had, who took  over the businesses of European expatriate firms  be it jute mills in Howrah or tea estates in Darjeeling-Dooars  when their owners decided to pack up after 1947.

The bhadralok may not have been cut out for jute, tea and commodity or stock speculation. They were, however, significantly present in a host of other industries  from steel and engineering to drugs, personal care products or raincoats  where the Marwaris posed few threats.

But unlike the earlier Bengali industrialists — who, we saw, were truly renaissance personalities inspired by the ideas of Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Jagadish Chandra Bose — the current crop has been basically oriented towards services businesses, be it real estate, finance (in assorted avatars from chit funds and collective investment schemes to ‘potato bonds), films and media.

A few Bengali entrepreneurs whose brands are not only alive but daring to go far, even in the modern era.

Duckback – The Manufacturer of Swadeshi Waterproofs

For a Bengali, the brand Duckback rings a sense of nostalgia and  has been a consistent partner for a Bengali’s daily activities. The brand came up with a variety of waterproof products like raincoats, gumboots, waterproof ‘Railway’ holdalls, Dak Bags for postal officers, Nor’Wester caps, Overshoes worn by gentlemen over their shoes, Cyclists’ Caps, Rubber Heels for both ladies and men, Racket Cases, Gun Covers and Wellingtons. The catchy name of Duckback might have been derived from the term ‘Dak Bags’ that they supplied for the postal officers.

During the British Colonial Rule in India, the local market was flooded with imported, high-priced waterproof British products. The poor Indian soldiers died fighting for the British army under challenging terrains without waterproof jackets or gumboots to save them from rains.The Berkley and Stanford educated Bengali entrepreneur, Surendra Mohan Bose created his waterproof brand, Duckback by Bengal Waterproof Limited, it was established in 1940 as an answer to the British monopoly in the waterproof and textile trade in India.

Sulekha – India’s first Ink Business

Inspired by Gandhi’s Swadeshi Movement, Shri Satish Chandra Dasgupta, a Chief Chemist of Bengal Chemicals, prepared the first Swadeshi ink, “Krishnadhara,” and later gave the formulation to two brothers Shri Sankaracharyya Maitra and Shri Nani Gopal Maitra who set up an ink manufacturing plant at Rajshahi (now in Bangladesh) and later in several places in Kolkata and India. Established in 1934, ‘Sulekha’ is thus considered as a creation of the Self Reliance Movement initiated by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi during India’s freedom struggle.

The brand name was christened ‘Sulekha’ by none other than Rabindranath Tagore. The name ‘Sulekha‘   means ‘beautiful writing.’ The ink was good in quality that it quickly became a symbolic attack against the British regime as it broke the monopoly of British Ink brands like Quink. There were hardly any college-goer or office ‘babu’ then in Kolkata who had not used Sulekha ink in the fountain pens they carried.

Sulekha Works Limited is a Bengali enterprise that was started in the pre-independence period in undivided Bengal. It re-started its journey again in 2006 with a diversified line of Home Hygiene Products, Solar power solutions, ink, and stationery.

 

Bengal Chemicals –  India’s first pharmaceutical company

Bengal Chemical’s Cantharidine hair oil to keep your hair silky. Bengal Chemical’s Phenyle to clean and disinfect your home.   Bengal Chemical’s Naphthalene balls to keep your woollens moth-free.

Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Ltd., formerly Bengal Chemical & Pharmaceutical Works Ltd. (BCPW), is a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) in India. Established in Kolkata in 1901, it is the first Pharmaceutical Company of India, founded by Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray, the Father of Indian Chemistry.

Eminent Doctors like Dr. R G Kar, Dr. N R Sarkar, Dr. S P Sarbadhikari, Dr. Amulya Charan Bose, etc. came forward and patronized the products whose quality met the British Pharmacopoeia standard. The company manufactured quality Chemicals, Drugs, Pharmaceuticals, and Home Products, employing indigenous technology, skill, and raw materials.

Their swadeshi products included fire extinguishers, surgical & hospital instruments, talcum powder, toothpaste, glycerin soap, carbolic soap, etc. which were very popular at the beginning. Later their focus shifted to industrial chemicals like aluminum sulphate, pharma products in the form of tablets and capsules like ciproben, raymox, etc., oral liquids like Aqua Ptychotis (Anti-Flatulent Digestive), Kalmegh (Hepato-Biliary Herbal Tonic), Benkoff (Cough Remedies), etc., antiseptics like Bensol, Lesol, etc. The more popular are the household products like bleaching powder, phenol, Klin Toilet (toilet cleaner), Liquid Soap, Cantharidine Hair Oil, White Tiger (Floor cleaner), and many more.

More Swadeshi products in Bengal

Clyde Engineering Company Limited by Kshirode Bihari Chakraborty was the first electric fan manufacturing company set up by a Bengali entrepreneur in 1918.

Gour Mohon Dutta, a Bengali Merchant, defied the British through the creation of a Swadeshi antiseptic cream brand Boroline in 1929 manufactured under the aegis of  GD Pharmaceuticals Pvt Ltd’s

There were other smaller ones like Bengal Immunity and Dey’s Chemicals in pharmaceuticals, Bengal Lamps in electric lightning products, Bande Mataram in matches, Banga Laxmi Cotton Mills in textiles.

Calcutta Chemical Company, established in 1916 by Bengali entrepreneurs K.C. Das, B.N. Maitra, and R.N. Sen during the time of the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal. It is a pioneering brand.

The decline of Bengali entrepreneurship, if anything, is more of a post-Independence phenomenon. One commonly held belief links it to the stranglehold that the Marwari community has historically exercised over business across Eastern India.

The Bengalis, no doubt, lacked the deep pockets or the kind of upcountry trading and money market networks that the Marwaris had, who took  over the businesses of European expatriate firms  be it jute mills in Howrah or tea estates in Darjeeling-Dooars  when their owners decided to pack up after 1947.

The bhadralok may not have been cut out for jute, tea and commodity or stock speculation. They were, however, significantly present in a host of other industries  from steel and engineering to drugs, personal care products or raincoats  where the Marwaris posed few threats.

But unlike the earlier Bengali industrialists — who, were truly renaissance personalities inspired by the ideas of Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Jagadish Chandra Bose — the current crop has been basically oriented towards services businesses, be it real estate, finance (in assorted avatars from chit funds and collective investment schemes to ‘potato bonds), films and media.