Chapter 3B: Concurrent to the concept of democracy was that of a joint stock company which did not have any promoters or owners. Tilak had created the Rupee Bank in 1908 in Pune. I visited some of its branches as late as 2024. India did not have any insurance companies.
The British had merged all its banking arms to create the Imperial Bank. It was based in an imposing building near Horniman Circle. SBI produced a coffee table book (which no one has seen) in the building. Ashwani Bhatia showed me his copy when he became a director. Many of my IiT batchmates have been board members but I think they ran out of print by then. This was in 1921.
BN decided to build a bigger bank by merging all the Punjabi banks. It was called the New Bank of India. It was headquartered in Lahore. It merged many banks and finally got nationalised. The Delhi branch of New Bank of India was in BNs Delhi building- L Block, Connaught Place. Eventually it became Punjab National Bank. And the BN inheritors spent 24 years litigating to get their properties vacated.
But his main play was insurance. Lala Lajpat Rai was funded to set up Laxmi Insurance Company. The entire area in Lahore where the company was located was called Laxmi Chowk. In Karachi, it had the tallest building of pre independence India. Less than hundred metres away from the Imperial Bank – the Laxmi Insurace Building was built on PM Road in Fort. This became the Bombay office of BN. Not too far away, one of the Parsi Baronets had built a house with a ice making plant. That house subsequently became Handloom House and then the office of the Videocon Dhoot group. It is an unlucky building and every occupant died in misery. Laxmi building was the opposite. Every occupant prospered. As is the case with Hansalaya in New Delhi where I worked out of for close to a decade.
Laxmi Insurance brought BN luck. It brought the Second World War. One man’s food is another man’s poison. Thousands were being massacred by Hitler. And Adolf Hitler was BNs client, friend and investor. The Jewish cartel had no time for Aga Khan or his schemes. The “others” trio of Nehru, Gandhi and others were down to a low cost frugal battle. Gandhis non violence was frugal and low budget.
Within the “Others” – BN had supported the intellectuals. Lal Bal Pal as they were called. Bal was dead. But the other two got going. Elections are about money. They always have been. Subhash Chandra Bose became the President of the Indian Natuonal Congress. After taking over leadership, his first public event was to inaugurate the Laxmi Insurance Building in Bombay. A private elevator took you to a corner cabin of BN on the fourth floor. He was not a board member. His ownership was hidden in layers of investment companies. To add diversity and get support for the elections – a new face joined the Board of Laxmi Insurance. That face was Motilal Nehru.
I was at the swearing in of the new Chief Minister in Patna. What you see is rarely what you get.
