Chamber of change

Some months ago, I wanted to see the first annual reports of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce or Ficci, but was told that they aren’t traceable. This was sad. Ficci played a critical role in the freedom struggle, and most of the records cannot be accessed. But those who want to know what led to Ficci’s formation in 1926 can find some details in Gita Piramal’s Business Legends (Penguin, 1998), in the chapter on Ghanshyam Das Birla.

Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, Marwari businessmen had flocked to Kolkata, the commercial capital of the country. They had formed the Marwari Association to lobby for their cause. In the 1920s, it was dominated by Badridas Goenka. He was well-educated, urbane and professed good relations with the British in the city. Slowly, he began to clash with another young businessman and a member of the association, Birla. Unlike the senior Marwari, Birla was only a matriculate and a new-rich. More important, he was a nationalist. So long as India was ruled by the British, he was convinced, there was no way Indian business could prosper. The flashpoint came in 1921 when Birla was invited over other Marwaris by the government to become a member of the Fiscal Commission set up to discuss the monetary policy. That year, Devi Prasad Khaitan, an advisor to Birla, was elected secretary of the Marwari Association. Goenka struck back the next year and installed his protégé as the secretary.

For some time after that, tension simmered beneath the surface between the two. The Marwari Association had lobbied hard for representation in the Central Legislative Assembly. The two camps clashed again in 1923 over who should be sent to Delhi. When Birla’s suggestion was shot down by Goenka, he stormed out of the association. He then put all his energy to set up a rival organisation, the Indian Chamber of Commerce. That it could challenge the supremacy of the Marwari Association became clear soon when top companies like Anandji Haridas & Co., A C Banerjee & Co., Scindia Steam Navigation, Surajmull Nagarmull and Central Bank of India became its members. Many Marwari businessmen, too, left the Marwari Association and joined the Indian Chamber of Commerce.

From day one, the Indian Chamber of Commerce had a nationalist agenda. Its objective was to promote the interests of Indian businessmen. This was a bold move and appealed to all businessmen with a nationalist bent of mind. The Bengal Chamber of Commerce, in contrast, was not open to Indians. The Indian Jute Mills Association, another strong Kolkata-based industry association, let Indians in but was under the control of Scotsmen.

The success of this association pushed Birla to think of a rival to the Associated Chambers of Commerce, the lobby group for overseas businesses. Somewhat similar to the Indian Chamber of Commerce was the viewpoint of the Bombay Indian Merchants’ Chamber. Much could be achieved, Birla thought, if the two could come together. He sounded out Purushottamdas Thakurdas, the leader of the Bombay Indian Merchants’ chamber, in December 1923. Thakurdas was in agreement but did not know how to take it forward. Birla waited for the right opportunity. Ficci was born during the Kolkata session of the Congress from December 31, 1926, to January 2, 1927. Thakurdas was elected its first president. Apart from the Kolkata and Mumbai associations, in no time similar associations from Karachi, Chennai, Bangalore, Kanpur, Ahmedabad and even Burma became its members.

(bhupesh.bhandari@bsmail.in)