India@75: Jamnalal Bajaj, the industrialist who fought for India's freedom

Jamnalal Bajaj was the most prominent industrialist who participated in India's freedom struggle. The founder of India's one of the largest business empires, the Bajaj Group. Jamnalal was even described as his fifth son by Mahatma Gandhi.   

Jamnalal was born in 1889 in a wealthy Marwari family at Sikar in Rajasthan. He was adopted as a child by a relative and rich businessman Seth Bachchraj of Wardha, Maharashtra. Jamnalal joined his adoptive father's business first and later set up his own sugar mill. The British government awarded Jamnalal the title Rai Bahadur for his donations during the 1st World war.

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With Mahatma Gandhi returning from South Africa and taking over the freedom struggle, many Indians were attracted to the national movement. Among them was Jamnalal. He became an ardent admirer of Gandhi and his ideals. Jamnalal joined the Congress and, along with his wife Janakidevi, became inmates of Gandhi's ashram at Sabarmati, Gujarat. 

In 1920, Jamnalal headed the reception committee of the Nagpur session of the Congress. Jamnalal participated in the non-cooperation movement the next year and surrendered his title, Rai Bahadur. He also participated in the flag satyagraha and salt satyagraha and courted arrest. In 1931, when Gandhiji left Sabarmati ashram, Jamnalal persuaded Mahatma to start a new ashram in his village, Wardha, on the land he donated. There came up Gandhiji's Sevagram ashram. 

Jamnalal also became a Congress Working Committee member and party treasurer during the 1930s. Jamnalal was active in Gandhian campaigns against untouchability and for the propagation of Khadi and Hindi. He campaigned against the ban on Dalits into temples. 

In 1928, he created history by throwing open his family temple, Lakshmi Narayan temple, at Wardha to Dalits, inviting hostility from the orthodoxy.

Jamnalal was at the forefront of Hindu Muslim unity also and was the founder treasurer of Delhi's Jamia Millia Islamia. He was among the founders of All India Hindi Sahitya Sammelan and Dakshin Bharath Hindi Prachar Sabha. Jamnalal died at the age of 52 in 1942. Today, the Bajaj Group Jamnalal founded has a market cap of Rs 8 lakh crore.

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