Parsi Times presents a 5-part series on the entry, settlement and rise of the Parsi community in India, by Adil J. Govadia

The Parsis from Navsari held several prestigious public offices. In 1886 Seth Dinshaw Mullan was appointed public prosecutor in Navsari. Dastur Edulji N. JamaspAsa, in addition to being the Vada Dastur (High Priest) of Navsari, was appointed Customs Officer to the Nizam’s Hyderabad estate in the 1890s and Seth Burjorji Garda was Commissioner of Navsari Municipality. In 1900, Seth Sohrabji J. Taleyarkhan was made judge in Navsari by Maharaja Gaekwad.

Khan Bahadur Er. Tehmurasp Bajan, originally from Navsari, considered the landlord of Katni (Central Provinces), had generously contributed towards its development. During 1907’s great famine, he supplied food daily to over 200 famine-stricken individuals for over six months. He constructed a hospital ward and also a school in Katni named ‘Tehemuraspji Branch School’. Popularly addressed as the ‘Grand Old Man of Katni’, he was the Director, Treasurer and Hon. Secretary of Katni Co-operative Bank and Hon. Magistrate for several years.

Khan Bahadur Pestonji Sorabji migrated from Surat to Bombay in 1801 and then to Poona in 1814, setting up a shop selling European goods, before accepting the Government’s contract of horse-drawn mail between Poona, Aurangabad and Nagpur, as also between Poona-Bombay (1842). He owned over 700 horses and several more horse-mounted couriers for a daily effort of staggering 500 runs! His contract was terminated when the mail business was transferred to the railways in 1864.

Khan Bahadur Pestonji’s son, Sardar Khan Bahadur Padumji Pestonji, was the first Parsi Sardar (Persian synonym of the Arabic title Amir) of the Deccan and a very successful and respected mail contractor, who spread his family business of mail delivery to Madras Presidency. During the Indian Mutiny of 1857-58, when all mail lines were in disarray, Sardar Khan Bahadur Padumji arranged safe delivery of mail, for which he was awarded a Gold Medal by the British government. In 1875, he had the rare honour of reading the ‘Welcome Address’ to the then Prince of Wales King Edward VII, on behalf of Poona’s citizens. His public charities of over Rs. 100,000 helped many social causes. For their valuable services during the Indian Mutiny of 1857-58, the father-son duo was awarded Government medals and conferred the title ‘Khan Bahadur’ in 1860 by Sir George Russel Clerk, Governor of Bombay.

Ship-builder Seth Lovji N. Wadia’s great grandson, Seth Dossabhoy Merwanji Wadia, known for pioneering Indo-US business connections, was appointed Bombay’s Vice Consul of America, in 1852. After establishing M/s Dossabhoy Merwanji & Company (1839), he instituted the East India Spinning & Weaving Company and Prince of Wales Spinning Company. In keeping with Dossabhoy’s popularity, in 1879, he had the rare distinction of US President – Ulysis Grant, paying him a personal visit at his office, in Bombay’s Parsi Bazar Street. He gave freely to the poor and died at age 58. An Agiary and a school bearing his name are stand in Karachi, built posthumously in his memory by his nephew, Seth Sorabji Dhunjibhoy Wadia.

The resourceful and tenacious Seth Jamsetji Dorabji Naigaumwalla initially started his career at Bombay Docks as a carpenter, under Master builder, Seth Jamsetji Bomanji Wadia. He went on to become a contractor at Sewree’s salt works and completing several large projects in Bombay. The Great Indian Peninsular (GIP) Railway owes it to Seth Jamsetji Naigaumwalla for constructing the very first railway line from Bombay to Thana and also through the treacherous Western Ghats terrain. His technical and engineering brilliance was noteworthy, particularly when all important industrial contracts were a European-only monopoly.

The less known Seth Shapurji Dorabji Saklatvala, was a British politician of Indian Parsi heritage. Born in an affluent family to Seth Dorabji, a cotton merchant and Bai Jerbai, the younger sister of Jamsetji N. Tata, Shapurji Saklatvala was the third Indian to be elected to the British Parliament after Seth Dadabhai Naoroji and Seth Mancherjee Bhownagree. He was exposed to human suffering as a 22-year-old volunteer, working alongside Waldemar Haffkine in Bombay slums, treating plague victims, which profoundly influenced his decision to dedicate his life to India’s freedom struggle in England. He married waitress Sally Marsh in 1907 and had five children.

The horrors of the First World War and the aftermath of the Russian Revolution drove Seth Shapurji Saklatvala into full-time political association with the Labour Party. Driven by moral conviction than by material necessity, he used his position as MP to agitate on behalf of the nationalist movement. On his passing in 1936, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru called him, “the most important nationalist figure outside of the country.”

In 1888, 13-year-old, dynamic Seth Pestonjee Eduljee Dalal, started a small roasting and grinding coffee shop in Bombay. His coffee grew popular with British customers. Well established by 1910, when he learnt of the English army’s challenge of procuring butter from England, he set up a dairy in Kaira, Gujarat and launched the famous ‘Polson Butter’.

As his nickname being ‘Polly’, he astutely adapted it into the British-sounding brand-name ‘Polson Butter’. The Boer War at the turn of 19^th century and the two World Wars firmly established this brand but despite its success, the company did not partake in improving the condition of poor farmers. This led to the founding of a milk co-operative society in Kaira (1946), which eventually evolved into what is today known as AMUL, bringing an untimely end to the Polson brand (Ref Ruth Heredia’s ‘The Amul India Story’).

In 1916, Seth Nariman Ardeshir established the ‘Parsi Dairy Farm’ to serve south Bombay households and other districts of Mumbai. After catering to generations of Mumbaikars on its high-quality milk products and sweets, the labour strike, at the turn of 21^st century, crippled the dairy business. The company has however been successful in asserting itself by re-branding its products successfully.