Tagore Family

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Tagore Family

Dwarakanath Tagore (1794–1846), the scion of Tagore family of Calcutta, was the most prominent of the entrepreneurs and businessmen in eastern India in the 1830 and 1840s. His goals were twofold: first, to carry over the commercial partnerships and other organizational forms of the mercantile age into the industrial age; second, to import the Industrial Revolution into India and to adapt the steam engine to commercial use. He organized the first coal-mining company and the first steam-tug and river-steamboat companies. He was also one of the country's pioneer railway promoters. In order to facilitate these enterprises he launched a commercial bank and insurance companies. Simultaneously, he ventured into ocean shipping, and tried to apply modern technology and organization to tea planting, salt manufacturing, and sugar refining. In all these enterprises he associated British partners.

In 1829, with the failure of the Commercial Bank, he was instrumental in opening the Union Bank. In 1834 he launched his own agency house—Carr, Tagore, and Company—in partnership with William Carr, and thus entered into a new stage of his career as a man of business. The agency house was mostly engaged in the production and export of country products such as indigo, sugar, and silk. Dwarakanath's insurance business started with the New Oriental Life Insurance Company in 1834. He embarked on the production of indigo in 1821 and of raw silk in 1835. Although his operations in sugar production were not quite successful, he produced rum (as a byproduct of sugar) for export. But the heart of his business empire was coal mining in Raniganj, 130 miles from Calcutta. Finally, his firm was also involved in ocean shipping. He himself owned major shares in at least six ships, and Carr, Tagore, and Company acted as agent for five others.

Most of Dwarakanath's enterprises, though brilliantly conceived, failed or nearly failed in the long run because of poor management. Dwarakanath himself was so much preoccupied with other things that he could not devote much time and attention to his commercial enterprises. In addition, his British partners came and went away too quickly, and they were involved in too many ventures to give careful attention to management. Yet, in the short term, his record of success was quite impressive. He was a shrewd, realistic, and imaginative businessman, and his idealism provided him with just the right amount of readiness to explore new economic opportunities.

None of the descendants of Dwarakanath, except one of his grandsons, Jyotirindranath Tagore, was involved in any business ventures. Jyotirindranath started with indigo plantation, and though this enterprise failed because of the advent of synthetic indigo, he earned a sizeable profit from his firm. He utilized this for his new enterprise—a river transport service. With the ship Sarojini he opened a steamer service between Khulna and Barisal in East Bengal in 1884, then he bought four more ships for service in the same sector. A British enterprise, the Flotilla Company, entered into the same business and there followed intense competition. To combat this, Jyotirindranath reduced the fare so much at one stage that his company suffered huge loss. Ultimately, he had to wind up his business.

SEE ALSO Balance of Payments; Banking; Bengal; Boycott; Bullion (Specie); Calcutta; Correspondents, Factors, and Brokers; Drugs, Illicit; East India Company, British; Empire, British; Empire, Mughal; Finance, Credit and Money Lending; Gold and Silver; India; Imperialism;Indian Ocean; Industrialization;Mercantilism;Nationalism;Partnership;Ships and Shipping.