Merchants to Moguls is an important effort to bring back into public memory the stories of Bengal’s pioneering entrepreneurs and industrialists. Through the lives of these remarkable individuals, Sarojesh Mukerjee highlights how enterprise, resilience, and social responsibility together shape institutions and society.

The book reminds us that Bengal’s contribution to India’s growth was not limited to literature, art, or intellectual thought, but also extended to business, industry, and nation-building — often under extremely difficult circumstances.

It also reflects an important idea: that business success and social responsibility are not separate pursuits — they are, at their best, the same endeavour.

The journeys captured in this book carry valuable lessons for young entrepreneurs and professionals today, and to every young Bengali who has been told that business is not for people like us.

I hope this book inspires more people to rediscover and take pride in this important chapter of our history.

Chandra Shekhar Ghosh
Founder and Chairman, Bandhan Group
Founder and former MD & CEO, Bandhan Bank

Merchants to Moguls restores to history the Bengali entrepreneurs who built fortunes, founded institutions, and quietly challenged colonial structures—yet have been largely forgotten. Mukerjee’s scholarship is meticulous, his storytelling assured. This is business history at its best: analytically sharp, full of empathy to these remarkable characters, and attentive to the wider world they both inhabited and shaped.

Dr Jayanta Sengupta
Historian, Author & Columnist

Merchants to Moguls fills a long-overdue gap in the literature on colonial economic history. I am struck by how thoroughly this book reframes the Bengali businessman—not as a peripheral figure, but as a sovereign economic actor operating under extraordinary structural adversity. Sarojesh Mukerjee brings to life six titans—from Ramdulal Dey’s maritime ingenuity to Rajendra Nath Mookerjee’s industrial vision—and demonstrates, with impressive archival rigour, the process of indigenous capital formation under colonial constraints. The sections about their lives, their contributions to charitable, social and educational causes, and their influences also make for very interesting reading.

Arkadev Chatterjea, PhD (Cornell)
Former Professor, IIM Calcutta