Independence Day Special: Delve into India's growth stories

If somebody tries to tell you that India began shining as an attractive market for foreign companies only in the past few decades, take them back almost a century ago—to 1931. That’s when Bata Shoe Company, a footwear brand born in Austria-Hungry (today the Czech Republic) in 1894, was incorporated in India. British India was an attractive prospect: Of a population of 350 million, only an estimated 10 million had access to footwear. Clearly, footwear had to be made accessible and affordable, and Bata seized the opportunity.

If somebody tries to tell you that startups in India is a relatively new-fangled notion, take them back to the same decade—the 1930s. That’s when two young Danish engineers, Henning Holck-Larsen and Soren Kristian Toubro, stepped onto Indian soil. They came to work with a civil engineering company, but quickly sensed the opportunity to strike out on their own. As R Gopalakrishnan and Pallavi Mody write in How Anil Naik Built L&T’s Remarkable Growth Trajectory, “the duo could feel the heat of the freedom movement and knew that when Independence would be declared, the indigenous industry would offer them opportunities of a lifetime”.

Opportunities continue to present themselves in 2024—for Bata India, Larsen & Toubro (the company the Danish engineers went on to found), and a clutch of multinational and Indian corporations with origins in British India.

Forbes India’s special Independence Day package traces the evolution of business and industry over the past century. Many began as importers and suppliers but moved on to making in India to support the endeavour of India’s new political leadership of building Independent India.

Consider Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL), founded in 1933 as Lever Brothers India Ltd to make Sunlight soap. Like Bata, it’s easy to forget HUL is majority-owned by the London-based Unilever given that its soaps, detergents, cosmetics and foods are household names in India.