Jehangir Bomanji Petit: The capitalist who wove Gandhi into Bombay’s mills

Born on 21 August 1879 into one of Bombay's most affluent Parsi families, Petit inherited not just mills but also a legacy of entrepreneurial grit that traced back to his grandfather, Sir Dinshaw Maneckji Petit, a pioneer of India’s textile industry. Dinshaw had begun with a modest cotton gin in 1854, before scaling into mills that profited from the American Civil War’s cotton shortage, helping to establish Bombay as a textile hub.

By the time Jehangir assumed charge, the family controlled assets such as the Maneckji Petit Mills, a cornerstone of Bombay’s economy. His father, Bomanjee Dinshaw Petit, had expanded the empire so extensively that Jehangir’s entry into business was less gamble than coronation.

The Petit lineage read like a roll call of Parsi aristocracy. Jehangir was grandson to a baronet who socialized with British viceroys, cousin to activist Mithuben Petit, and kin to the ill-fated Rattanbai Petit—who married Muhammad Ali Jinnah, linking the family tree to a future adversary across the border. The Petits were no strangers to titles and estates, with palatial bungalows such as Mount Petit on Pedder Road underscoring their standing.

In business, Jehangir was steady if not transformative. As chairman of the Bombay Mill Owners’ Association in the 1920s, he represented an industry that at its height employed more than 100,000 workers in Bombay and contributed significantly to India’s GDP.

Under his stewardship, Petit Mills rode this boom, though precise revenue figures have not survived. His skill lay in steering through labour unrest and British tariffs, keeping mills profitable even as Swadeshi activists called for boycotts.

Measured in today’s terms, the Petit fortune would likely have run into several hundred crores, thanks to mill equity and sprawling real estate. Exact numbers remain elusive—Petit was not one to parade accounts—but his philanthropy offers clues. In 1907, he convinced his father to donate the Cumballa Hill Family Hotel, then valued in lakhs, for the establishment of the Bomanjee Dinshaw Petit Parsee General Hospital. Its modern equivalent is a facility worth roughly ₹135 crore, reflecting wealth built on cotton but redirected to community welfare.

In an ironic twist, this scion of colonial collaborators became a staunch Gandhi ally, funding movements that directly challenged the empire his forebears had courted. Jehangir hosted Gandhi at his bungalow when the Mahatma returned from South Africa in 1915, and organized receptions that blended elite soirées with revolutionary fervour.

Even as his mills produced fabrics competing with Manchester imports, Jehangir bankrolled campaigns promoting hand-spun khadi—the antithesis of mechanized mills. Was this shrewd hedging or genuine conviction? History suggests the latter. Jehangir attended Gandhi’s 1922 trial as a gesture of solidarity and in 1943 published The Superiority and Colour Complex, a pamphlet critiquing racial hierarchies that nearly faced a ban for inflaming class tensions. It was an unusual move for a man whose family wealth had long rested on British patronage.

His aspirations soon extended beyond balance sheets. As a member of the Bombay Legislative Council in 1927, he represented mill owners while infusing his politics with nationalist undertones. His early support for Gandhi included serving as secretary of the South African Indian Fund and joint secretary of the Passive Resistance Fund.

Jehangir was also associated with the Servants of India Society and Friends of India, aligning with causes of social reform and independence.

Philanthropy, again, marked his arc. He revitalized the Frere Fletcher School, renaming it J.B. Petit High School for Girls in 1915, while insisting it admit students across caste lines. The hospital he helped build from a converted hotel remains a Parsi institution, a reminder of luxury repurposed into care for the ailing.

Jehangir died in 1946, just before India's independence, leaving behind mills that would later fade with globalization but charities that endure to this day. He was not a disruptor on the scale of the Tatas, nor a revolutionary in the mold of Gandhi. But he occupied the paradoxical middle: a capitalist with idealism, whose acumen ensured survival while his ideals pushed toward change.

His mills may have embodied the very industrial might Gandhi sought to decentralize, but Jehangir bridged that contradiction with quiet finesse—proving that in India’s freedom struggle, capitalists, too, played their part.