From ‘dirty Indian’ to titan of industry: The rise of Gujarmal Modi

livemint.com:

The unravelling of a financial titan: Ravi Parthasarathy and the IL&FS scandal His destiny was that of the quintessential entrepreneur. Ram Baksh Modi, his great grandfather, supplied grain to the British army. His father Multani Mal was equally successful but opposed formal education.

So when his son forgot to pay his Std X fees he was happily inducted into the family business as a munim. Gujarmal, though, devoured books on engineering, marketing and commerce while also picking up a formal education from private tutors hired by his father. The education paid off as he persuaded his father to switch to modern accounting methods and cannily insured his flour mill, too.

That proved a saving grace when the flour mill perished in a fire. In 1932, after skirmishes with the maharaja, who refused to let him set up a cloth mill or vanaspati factory, he decided to leave Patiala for good. Armed with the princely sum of ₹400 he embarked on a mission to set up a business empire.

In his quest he chanced on Begamabad, about 50 km from Delhi, where set up his first sugar plant. However, a bumper sugarcane harvest led to overproduction that year, resulting in depressed prices. But Gujarmal wasn’t discouraged.

In 1939 he set up a vanaspati plant and then a soap unit to use the sludge from the vanaspati factory. He diversified into bathing soaps, which became hugely popular since they used no animal tallow, a no-no for many Hindus. Sensing another latent opportunity, he then set up a tin plant to make containers for packing the soap.