Birla Family
| Ethnicity | Marwari Maheshwari |
|---|---|
| Current region | Operating out of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata, India |
| Members | 1.Shiv Narain Birla 2.Baldeo Das Birla 3.Jugal Kishore Birla Rameshwar Das Birla Ghanshyam Das Birla Braj Mohan Birla 4.Gajanan Birla Madhav Prasad Birla Lakshmi Niwas Birla Krishna Kumar Birla Basant Kumar Birla Ganga Prasad Birla 5.Ashok Vardhan Birla Sudarshan Kumar Birla Aditya Vikram Birla Chandra Kant Birla 6.Kumar Mangalam Birla Yashovardhan Birla Siddharth Birla |
| Traditions | Hindu |
The Birla family is a family connected with the industrial and social history of India.
The Birla family belong to the Maheshwari subcaste of the Vaishya (trader) caste, and are Marwari since they hail from the Marwad region of present-day Rajasthan. Specifically, the family originates from the town of Pilani in the Shekhawati region lying between Marwad proper and Haryana state.
In Pilani during the early 19th century lived Seth Shobharam, grandson of Seth Bhudharmal, a local tradesman of modest means. It was his son, Seth Shiv Narain (1840–1909), who first ventured outside Pilani. At this time, Ahmedabad was the railhead which serviced trade from a large region of northwest India. Goods (mainly cotton) would be brought from the hinterland to the city and sent from there by train to Bombay for export to England and other countries. Several cotton ginning units were also set up in Ahmedabad, to clean the cotton before shipment to England. Shiv Narain Birla was one of the early Indian traders to participate in this cotton trade. Later, Britain vigorously fostered the trade of opium with China and developed the cultivation of poppy in India. The Ratlam-Mandsaur region (not far from Ahemdabad) became prime poppy cropland due to suitable soil and climate. Shiv Narain Birla and his adopted son, Baldeo Das Birla, made an enormous fortune by trading opium with China, and this formed the basis of the family's fortune. With growing wealth and increasing confidence, Shiv Narain Birla moved up the value chain and began chartering cargo ships in partnership with other Marwadi tradesmen to trade opium with China, thus by-passing British middlemen. To facilitate this, he moved to Bombay in 1863.
Shiv Narain Birla had one overweening sorrow in his life: he had no children. By the early 1880s, Shiv Narain had passed on the baton of his business interests to his adopted son, Baldeo Das Birla, established Shivnarayan Baldevdas, a trading house based in Bombay. His son, Baldeo Das Birla moved to Calcutta set up Baldevdas Jugalkishor in 1887. Baldeo Das was succeeded by four sons – Jugal Kishore, Rameshwar Das, Ghanshyam Das and Braj Mohan.
Baldeo Das was awarded the Raibahadur title in 1917. In 1920 he retired from business and started living in Banares pursuing religious studies. In 1925 he was awarded the title of "Raja" by the government of Bihar and Orissa. He was awarded D. Litt. by Beneras Hindu University.
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