Biren Mookerjee

Son of pioneering industrialist Sir Rajendra Nath Mookerjee and Lady Jadumati, he studied engineering at Bengal Engineering College before proceeding to Trinity College, Cambridge, from where he did his B.A. and M.A. On return to India in 1924, he joined Martin & Co. in 1924. He was knighted in 1942.[1]

With the death of Sir Rajen Mookerjee in 1936, the mantle of industrial entrepreneurship fell on Sir Biren. He made his debut as Chairman of the Steel Corporation of Bengal, which set up the steel making facilities, adjacent to the iron making plant set up earlier, at Burnpur. SCOB was later merged with IISCO.[2] In December 1953, Sir Biren, along with other representatives of his company signed a loan agreement in Washington for US $ 31.5 million, to cover the foreign exchange requirement for the expansion of the plant. It was the first instance when the World Bank had advanced any loan to any industry in the private sector.[3] he signed another loan agreement with the World Bank in 1956. What was most remarkable was that around 75% of the requirements of expansion were met by internal cash generation.[4]

Sir Biren was an imposing leader with a dynamic personality galvanising a team at Burnpur to produce results. The team consisted of diverse elements such as J. McCracken, F.W.Lahmeyer, S.L.Moffat, I.S.Puri, and N.R.Dutt.[5]

Sir Biren faced high drama when in 1968, Ramnath Goenka of the Indian Express Newspapers Ltd. tried unsuccessfully to take over IISCO. Sir Biren had survived with government support, since he held only two per cent of the shares of the company.[6]

With persistent labour trouble in his plant in the late sixties, Sir Biren was a broken man. He said, “I see before my eyes a vast industrial complex, with which I was associated for nearly 40 years crumbling to dust.” IISCO was taken over by the government in 1972.[7] It was a somewhat sad end for a man who had led the company to its pinnacle of glory. During those troubled times, he also went to Nadia-nagar Shri Basu Acharya who advised him to take to active communism. But Sir Biren declined the advice and continued to fight the odds alone and with his own ideas.[8] He did not court the establishment which cost him dearly.[9]

In 1925, Biren Mookerjee married Ranu Adhikari, daughter of Phani Bhusan Adhikari, a professor of philosophy of the Banaras Hindu University. Ranu (1907- 2000), was one of the exquisite beauties of her time, one of Rabindranath Tagore's closest associates since her childhood days, and later became a great connoisseur of art and culture. Lady Mookerjee as she became after her husband was knighted, was (and still is) popularly referred to as 'Lady Ranu' although this is not strictly correct since her father did not hold the rank of an Earl or higher in the British peerage system. She established the Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata in 1933.[10] She and Sir Biren Mookerjee had two daughters and one son. Sunil Gangopadhyay's 2012 novel, Ranu & Bhanu is partly based on her unfinished autobiography.[11]

• Kaushik Rana, Tarun Kumar Rana. "The Mookerjees of Martin Burn". Retrieved 19 February 2007.