Basant Kumar Birla (12 January 1921 – 3 July 2019) was an Indian industrialist and philanthropist of the

Birla family The Birla family is an Indian business family connected with the industrial and social history of India. Foundations The Birla family's origins trace to the Maheshwari community of Bania Vaishya traders. The family was outcasted in 1922 when ...

. He was chairman of the Krishnarpan Charity Trust,

BK Birla Institute of Engineering & Technology B.K. Birla Institute of Engineering & Technology (BKBIET) is a private engineering college located in Pilani, Rajasthan, India. It was founded in 2007 by Krishnarpan Charity Trust, with Late Basant Kumar Birla as chairman. Description BKBIET, P ...

(BKBIET) and various educational

trust Trust often refers to: * Trust (social science), confidence in or dependence on a person or quality It may also refer to: Business and law * Trust (law), a legal relationship in which one person holds property for another's benefit * Trust (bu ...

s and institutes.

Biography

Birla, the youngest son of philanthropist

Ghanshyam Das Birla Ghanshyam Das Birla (10 April 1894 – 11 June 1983) was an Indian businessman and member of the Birla Family. Birla family history Ghanshyam Das Birla was born on 10 April 1894 at Pilani town in Jhunjhunu district, in the region known as ...

, was born on 12 January 1921. By fifteen years of age, he was already actively associated with a large number of companies and eventually became the chairman of Kesoram Industries. In this role, he concentrated on the industries of cotton,

viscose Rayon, also called viscose and commercialised in some countries as sabra silk or cactus silk, is a semi-synthetic fiber made from natural sources of regenerated cellulose, such as wood and related agricultural products. It has the same molecula ...

polyester Polyester is a category of polymers that contain one or two ester linkages in every repeat unit of their main chain. As a specific material, it most commonly refers to a type called polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Polyesters include some natura ...

and nylon yarns,

refractory In materials science, a refractory (or refractory material) is a material that is resistant to decomposition by heat or chemical attack and that retains its strength and rigidity at high temperatures. They are inorganic, non-metallic compound ...

, paper, shipping, tyrecord, transparent paper, spun pipe, cement, tea, coffee,

cardamom Cardamom (), sometimes cardamon or cardamum, is a spice made from the seeds of several plants in the genus (biology), genera ''Elettaria'' and ''Amomum'' in the family Zingiberaceae. Both genera are native to the Indian subcontinent and Indon ...

chemicals A chemical substance is a unique form of matter with constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Chemical substances may take the form of a single element or chemical compounds. If two or more chemical substances can be combin ...

plywood Plywood is a composite material manufactured from thin layers, or "plies", of wood veneer that have been stacked and glued together. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured boards, which include plywood, medium-density fibreboa ...

MDF Board Medium-density fibreboard (MDF) is an engineered wood product made by breaking down hardwood or softwood residuals into wood fibre, often in a defibrator, combining it with wax and a resin binder, and forming it into panels by applying high temp ...

, etc. In 1959, he established the Indo Ethiopian Textiles Share Company, which was the first major joint venture by any Indian industrialist. In response, the

Emperor of Ethiopia The emperor of Ethiopia (, "King of Kings"), also known as the Atse (, "emperor"), was the hereditary monarchy, hereditary ruler of the Ethiopian Empire, from at least the 13th century until the abolition of the monarchy in 1975. The emperor w ...

Haile Selassie I Haile Selassie I (born Tafari Makonnen or ''Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles#Lij, Lij'' Tafari; 23 July 189227 August 1975) was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He rose to power as the Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles, Rege ...

, awarded him the medal of the

Order of Menelik II The Imperial Order of Emperor Menelik II is an Ethiopian Order (decoration), order established in 1924 by then-Regent Haile Selassie, Tafari Makonnen, during the reign of Zewditu I of Ethiopia, Empress Zewditu I, in order to honor the memory of Em ...

, the highest Ethiopian award. On 13 April 1942, he married Sarala, the daughter of activist and writer Brijlal Biyani, after having been introduced to each other by

Jamnalal Bajaj Jamnalal Kaniram Bajaj (4 November 1889 – 11 February 1942) was an Indian businessman and politician. He founded the Bajaj Group of companies in the 1920s, and the group now has 24 companies, including six that are listed on the bourses. H ...

and

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethics, political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful Indian ...

in 1941. They had a son,

Aditya Vikram Birla Aditya Vikram Birla (14 November 1943 – 1 October 1995) was an Indian industrialist and philanthropist. Born into one of the largest business families of India, he oversaw the diversification of his group into textiles, petrochemicals and ...

and two daughters, Jayashree Mohta and Manjushree Khaitan. Birla died on 3 July 2019, at the age of 98.

Philanthropy

He was the chairman of the Krishnarpan Charity Trust, which runs an

engineering college Engineering education is the activity of teaching knowledge and principles to the professional practice of engineering. It includes an initial education ( Dip.Eng.)and (B.Eng.) or ( M.Eng.), and any advanced education and specializations tha ...

named

Pilani Pilani is a town located in the Jhunjhunu district of Rajasthan, India. The town is well known as the location of BITS Pilani. Demographics , Pilani has a population of 29,741 of which 51% are males and 49% females. The average literacy rate is ...

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; Literal translation, lit. 'Land of Kings') is a States and union territories of India, state in northwestern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the List of states and union territories of ...

, the Swargashram Trust, which administers a

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

school in

Rishikesh Rishikesh, also spelt as Hrishikesh, is a city near Dehradun in the Indian state Uttarakhand. The northern part of Rishikesh is in the Dehradun district while the southern part is in the Tehri Garhwal district. It is situated on the right bank ...

. He also established

Birla Public School Vidya Niketan Birla Public School Pilani is a boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging ...

Qatar Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...

and the Birla College of Arts, Science & Commerce in

Kalyan Kalyan (Pronunciation: əljaːɳ is a city on the banks of Ulhas River in Thane district of Maharashtra state in Konkan division. It is governed by Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation. Kalyan is a subdivision (Taluka) of Thane district ...

near Mumbai. He is the author of several books, including an autobiography entitled ''Svantah Sukhaya''. BK Birla also founded the Ashoka Hall group of schools in Kolkata under the aegis of whom they have 3 schools- Ashoka Hall, Mahadevi Birla Shishu Vihar and G.D.Birla centre of education.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Birla, Basant Kumar 1921 births 2019 deaths Businesspeople from Kolkata Founders of Indian schools and colleges Indian businesspeople in textiles Rajasthani people 20th-century Indian philanthropists Recipients of Order of the Holy Trinity (Ethiopia)

Biography

Philanthropy

See also

References