Alamohan Das was an

industrialist A business magnate, also known as an industrialist or tycoon, is a person who is a powerful entrepreneur and investor who controls, through personal enterprise ownership or a dominant shareholding position, a firm or industry whose goods or ser ...

in pre-independence and post-independence Bengal. He ventured into various industries like jute, cotton, heavy machinery, drug, banking etc. He is known for his role in the India Machinery Company, one of the earliest indigenous machine making industries of India. Alamohan das statue

Early life

Alamohan Das was born in a middle-class

Mahishya Mahishya (IAST: Māhiṣya) is a Bengali Hindu traditionally agrarian caste, and formed the largest caste in undivided Bengal. Mahisyas were, and still are, an extremely diverse caste consisting of all possible classes in terms of material con ...

family in Khila-Baruipur,

Howrah district Howrah district (, ) is a district of the West Bengal state in eastern India. Howrah district is one of the highly urbanized area of West Bengal. It has thousands of years of rich heritage in the form of the great Bengali kingdom of Bhurshut. ...

West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...

, India. He had little formal education as a child, except attending a village pathshala and a middle primary school. But as he hailed from a business minded

family, he came to Kolkata at the age of 15 and started his business career by selling parched rice, small things, but gradually switched over to industrial items. He started to read avidly to acquire knowledge for his betterment and fulfilling his ambitions. He was very much influenced by Bankim Chandra's Anandamath and Tagore's 'Banglar Mati Banglar Jwal'. He took the spirit of

Swadeshi movement The Swadeshi movement was a self-sufficiency movement that was part of the Indian independence movement and contributed to the development of Indian nationalism. Before the BML Government's decision for the partition of Bengal was made public i ...

in his heart.

India Machinery Co.

In 1930, he founded the India Machinery Co., which, according to Government reports, was one of the few companies that produced machines of grade 1 category. Amongst the products of the company were

lathes A lathe () is a machine tool that rotates a workpiece about an axis of rotation to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, deformation, facing, threading and turning, with tools that are applied to the ...

, weighing machines,

textile manufacturing Textile manufacturing or textile engineering is a major industry. It is largely based on the conversion of fibre into yarn, then yarn into fabric. These are then dyed or printed, fabricated into cloth which is then converted into useful good ...

machines, and

printing Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ...

machines. In 1937, he started Bharat Jute Mill.

Political career

independent India Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in Pennsylvania, United States * Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist ...

's first election in 1951, he won from the Amta North assembly constituency in the

West Bengal state assembly The West Bengal Legislative Assembly (ISO 15919, ISO: ''Paścimabaṅga Vidhānasabhā'') is the unicameral legislature of the Indian state of West Bengal, located in eastern India. It consists of 294 members directly elected from single-seat ...

, contesting as an independent candidate.

Works

*Howrah Chemical Works *Bengal Weighing Scales Co.(1921) *Paul Engineering Works (1934) *Bharat Jute Mills (1937), inaugurated by Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray *Dasnagar (1937), Dass's namesake industrial town *India Machinery Co. (1940) *Dass Bank Ltd. (1940) *Howrah Insurance Co. Ltd. (1941) *Asia Drug Co. Ltd. (1942) *Dass Sugar Corporation (1942) *The Great India Steam Navigation Co. Ltd. (1945) *Arati Cotton Mills (1948)

Gallery

File:Alamohan Dass with Prafulla Chandra Roy.jpg, Karmavir Alamohan Dass with Acharya

Prafulla Chandra Ray Sir Prafulla Chandra Ray (also spelled Prafulla Chandra Roy; ''Prôphullô Côndrô Rāẏ''; 2 August 1861 – 16 June 1944) was an Indian chemist, educationist, historian, industrialist and philanthropist. He established the first moder ...

and management of India Machinery Co. File:Dass Bank Ltd.jpg, Alamohan Dass founded Dass founded Dass Bank Ltd. Despite initial success he was forced to close it due to unfavourable political condition before

Partition of India The partition of India in 1947 was the division of British India into two independent dominion states, the Dominion of India, Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan. The Union of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Paki ...

File:Alamohan Dass with Lady and Lord Mountbatten.jpg, Karmavir Alamohan Dass with Lady and

Lord Mountbatten Admiral of the Fleet (Royal Navy), Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (born Prince Louis of Battenberg; 25 June 1900 – 27 August 1979), commonly known as Lord Mountbatten, was ...

, last

Viceroy A viceroy () is an official who reigns over a polity in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory. The term derives from the Latin prefix ''vice-'', meaning "in the place of" and the Anglo-Norman ''roy'' (Old Frenc ...

of India File:Alamohan Dass with Governor and Union Minister.jpg, Alamohan Dass with then West Bengal Governor

Kailash Nath Katju Kailash Nath Katju (17 June 1887 – 17 February 1968) was a prominent politician of India. He was the Governor of Odisha and West Bengal, the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, the Union Home Minister and the Union Defence Minister. He was ...

and Dr.

Syama Prasad Mukherjee Syama Prasad Mookerjee (6 July 1901 – 23 June 1953) was an Indian barrister, educationist, politician, activist, social worker, and a minister in the state and national governments. Noted for his opposition to Quit India movement within the ...

, then Union Minister of Commerce and Industry. Dr. Mukherjee inaugurated Dass's Arati Cotton Mills in 1948 File:Alamohan Dass with Megnath Saha.jpg, Alamohan Dass with Dr.

Meghnad Saha Meghnad Saha (6 October 1893 – 16 February 1956) was an Indian astrophysicist and politician who helped devise the theory of Thermal ionization, thermal ionisation. His Saha ionization equation, Saha ionisation equation allowed astronomers to ...

, when he visited Dass in Dassnagar File:Alamohan Dass sharing stage with Prafulla Chandra Sen.jpg, Alamohan Dass sharing stage with then Chief Minister

Prafulla Chandra Sen Prafulla Chandra Sen (10 April 1897 – 25 September 1990) was an Indian politician and freedom fighter. He was the Chief Minister of West Bengal from 1962 to 1967. Background Prafulla Chandra Sen was born in the village Senhati in the Khulna ...

References