791 / 822
1886,1893 and 1906. He died in Bombay
in 1917.
Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata
(1839-1904)
He was bom in a family of Parsi priests in
Navsari, Gujarat. At the age of 17 he joined
the Elphinstone College, Bombay from where
he graduated a couple of years later. In 1868,
at the age of 29, he started a private trading
firm with a capital of Rs. 21,000. He got the
idea of manufacturing cotton goods after
visiting Manchester and in 1877 the Empress
Mills was opened on the day Queen Victoria
was formally proclaimed Empress of India.
Jamsetji had decided to locate his mill at
Nagpur, the centre of the cotton growing area,
and not in Bombay where the other cotton
mills were located. In 1882 Jamsetji read a
report by a German geologist, Ritter Von
Schwartz, that there were iron ore deposits in
Chanda District in the Central Provinces, not
far from Nagpur. But the mining terms then
available were not favourable and Jamsetji
could not pursue the project he had in mind. It
was not until 1899 that Lord Curzon, the
Viceroy, liberalised the mineral concession
policy. A report was published at the same
time on the feasibility of establishing an iron
and steel works in India. The next year
Jamsetji visited England and saw the
Secretary of State, Lord George Hamilton,
who told Jamsetji he could expect support
from the Government of India. Jamsetji next
visited the United States where he studied
coking processes and in Pittsburg met the
world's foremost metallurgical consultant,
Julian Kennedy, who suggested Charles Page
Perm as the best man who could undertake the
survey. The Chanda field did not turn out to
be feasible as there was no coal nearby. An
iron ore field was finally discovered in 1907
in the Princely State of Mayurbhanj between
the rivers, Kharkai and Subarnareka, which
was to become Jamshedpur. Jamsetji had
passed away three years earlier at Bad
Manheim in Germany but his dream did not
die with him. Jamsetji was a nationalist long
before the term became fashionable. During
his travels wherever he saw anything good he
wanted to bring it to India. When he visited
Japan in 1893 he invited the Japanese to
establish the silk industry in Mysore. He had
discovered that in the past silk was a
flourishing industry in the state and that it had
the right climate for the industry. In 1898 he
offered his properties worth Rs.3,000,000 for
the establishment of a science university as he
saw that India could not modernise without
science education.
This was set up in 1899 in Bangalore as the
Tata Institute of Science. He studied
hydroelectric generation in America. And this
dream of his was realised in 1910 when the
Tata Hydro-Electric Power Supply Company
was established to supply power to the
growing city of Bombay. Jamsetji Tata was an
industrial seer who foresaw an industrialised
India.
Mahadev Govind Ranade
(1842-1901)
He was born in an orthodox household. An
extremely serious student he begged his father
to send him to school in Bombay to complete
his English education. He graduated from the
Elphinstone College. Became a teacher of
economics and later of history and literature in
the Elphinstone College. But he opted for a
judicial career and before he was thirty
received his first appointment as a subordinate
judge in Poona. As a judge Ranade worked for
the reform of such social evils as child
marriage and non-remarriage of widows.
Ranade was one of the early members of the
Prarthana Samaj (Prayer Society, modelled
after the Brahmo Samaj). Ranade's views on
economics grew from his study of Indian
problems. He concluded that their solution lay
in a vigorous policy of industrial and
commercial development under British
Government auspices.
Annie Besant
(1847-1933)
She was born in London. Her father was
half-Irish, half-English, her mother was Irish.
Her father, a doctor, died while she was still a
child. She was educated at Harrow Public
School. She later came under the care of Miss.
Marryat, sister of the writer Capt. Marryat,
whom she met in the house of a friend and
who offered to look after her education. In
1867 she married the Rev. Frank Besant but
the marriage was not a happy one and they
separated in 1873. She was instrumental in
starting the first trade union in London and
became famous because of her struggle in
connection with the improvement of the
working conditions of girls working in match
factories. She joined the Theosophical Society
in 1889 after reading Mme Blavatsky's "The
Secret Doctrine". After the death of Col.
Olcott she was elected President of the Society
in 1907, which position she held till her death
in 1933. She came to India in 1893. She
landed in Tuticorin, lectured in 12 towns in
South India and attended the annual
convention of the Theosophical Society at
Adyar in Madras.
She settled down in Banaras, completed her
translation of the
Bhagcivad Gita,
and in 1898
established the Central Hindu College at
Banaras which became the nucleus of the
Banaras Hindu University. She made Adyar
her permanent home in 1907. In 1914 she
purchased the
Madras Standard,
renamed it
New India
and through it propagated her views
on Home Rule for India. She believed that
India should have her freedom but should
remain within the British Commonwealth. She
was made President of the Calcutta Session of
the Indian National Congress in
1917
but soon found herself in a minority
over Gandhi's methods of Satyagraha and civil
disobedience. She believed in constitutional
methods and keeping within the law and
opposed massive law breaking however non-
violent. She concentrated on educational
work. In 1918 she established the National
University at Adyar, with Rabindranath
Tagore as Chancellor. She passed away on
September 21, 1933. She desired that her only
epitaph should be the words "She tried to
follow truth."
Surendranath Banerjea
(1848-1926)
Was one of the first Indians to be admitted
to the Indian Civil Service but was dismissed
for his failure to correct a false report
prepared in his name by a subordinate. He
went to London to appeal his case but when he
failed he appeared for the bar examinations
but was refused again. Returned to Calcutta,
determined to spend his life" redressing our
wrongs and protecting our rights, personal and
collective".
He
founded
a
patriotic
association, a newspaper and a college. When
he was jailed for criticising an English judge,
he started the tradition of welcoming the
imprisonment in order to demonstrate the
injustice of a governmental law or policy. He
insisted that only constitutional means be used
in the struggle for self-government. Twice
President of the Congress he left it in
1918
to head the All-India Liberal Federation
when the younger Congress leaders threatened
to obstruct the introduction of the Montagu-
Chelmsford Reforms. He earned the nickname
of "Surrender-not" Banerjea because of his
determination in continuing on his chosen
path.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak
(1856-1920)
Learned Sanskrit and English from his
father, a schoolteacher and deputy inspector of
education in a small town on India's west
coast. When he was ten, the family moved to