Did you know that a century ago India’s first tech unicorn was led by a Khoja Ismaili Muslim family from Mumbai and funded by a multi-religious coalition? Danish Khan, a historian and journalist based in London, tells us in this article the history of the Chinoys, a Khoja Ismaili Muslim business family from Bombay. It is a remarkable story. Mr Khan writes:
“Like many Bombay merchant families, the Chinoys began in maritime trade. Their patriarch, Meherally Chinoy, started in the mid-nineteenth century as an apprentice to the Khoja merchant prince Jairazbhoy Peerbhoy. Through repeated voyages to China and Japan, he built a reputation for commercial acumen and established both capital and credibility. His sons consolidated and expanded this base.
By the 1920s, the family firm – Fazalbhoy Meherally (F.M.) Chinoy & Co. – had diversified into wheat, pearls, kerosene, postal contracts, cinema exhibition and, most famously, the Bombay Garage, one of India’s earliest and most successful motor car agencies.”
With their base built, the Chinoys then made a big bet. Specifically, they bet on technology:
“By the early twentieth century, the British Empire faced a strategic challenge: the submarine cable network, long considered the Empire’s “nervous system”, was overstretched. Radio communication offered a faster and cheaper alternative. The Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company proposed in 1910 an ambitious ‘Imperial Wireless Chain’ linking London to its colonies through long-wave radio….
In 1921, Sultan Chinoy travelled to England to negotiate with the Marconi Company and secure rights for India. It was a bold move; a single Bombay firm seeking to collaborate with one of the world’s pre-eminent technology companies was far from routine. But the Chinoys had two advantages: capital and credibility. Marconi demanded stringent terms, including a steep price for patents and proof that at least half the investment would be raised in India.”
It was at this point that the Chinoy’s built a coalition of the great and the good of early 20th century Mumbai. Luminaries from various religious groups dipped into their pockets to create a remarkable business:
“Understanding that they needed support beyond their own family, the Chinoys assembled a board that looked like a snapshot of Bombay’s commercial elite: the Parsi industrialists Cusrow and Ness Wadia, the Hindu financier Sir Purshottamdas Thakurdas, and the respected Muslim leader Ibrahim Rahimtoola, among others.
This coalition reassured the colonial state that the venture was both financially stable and politically broad-based. The resulting company, the Indian Radio Telegraph Company (IRTC), represented one of the most ambitious examples of cross-community capitalist cooperation in the late Raj….
In 1925, the IRTC secured a ten-year licence from the Government of India. But just as the long-wave system was ready to proceed, Marconi announced a breakthrough: shortwave or “beam” wireless, capable of transmitting messages 95% cheaper and three times as fast. The IRTC pivoted immediately, abandoning the long-wave model in favour of the beam system. By 1927, the India–England beam service opened to great fanfare.
Within a week, message traffic exceeded expectations; within a year, the company handled millions of words of international communication. Beam wireless rapidly undermined the older cable telegraph companies, leading to a merger in 1932.
The new entity, the Indian Radio and Cable Communications Co. (IRCC), managed virtually all of India’s external traffic. In short order, an Indian-led company had assumed control of India’s most sensitive international communication infrastructure.”
However, the Khoja’s were not done with taking tech risks. They backed yet another tech venture. Although this one was less commercially, its echo reverberated through the entirety of the 20th century:
“The Chinoys also led the Indian Broadcasting Company (IBC), launched alongside the IRTC. But while beam wireless thrived, the IBC collapsed. The reasons were structural. The government could not agree on the scale and scope of broadcasting, the sector required heavy infrastructure investment. Besides, the company was undercapitalised.
By 1930, it was liquidated; by 1936, its successor became All India Radio. Yet even this failure generated influence. Sir Rahimtoola Chinoy became president of the All India Radio Merchants’ Association, a powerful industry group, positioning the family at the centre of radio trade and regulation.”
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