Rai Bahadur Thakur Jaiswal

Late Rai Bahadur Thakur Jaiswal was a prominent businessperson and a strong nationalist from Ranchi in Jharkhand. He was known as shellac king in Jharkhand. He immensely contributed towards the freedom movement donating land, gold and other things. Rai Saheb turned down the title of Raja Saheb by the British government following Gandhiji’s advice in 1938.

Second generation scion Laxminarayan, whose father Late Rai Bahadur Thakur had migrated to Ranchi from Uttar Pradesh, scaled up the business to great heights. In 1922, he became the first non-British to own a Ford car.

The Ford car owned by the business family once drove the father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi from Ranchi to Ramgarh for the famous Ramgarh Congress in 1938. Besides, it is also the most sought after vehicle for the elite families, especially those known to the Jaiswals, for taking out their marriage processions in this four-seater convertible Ford car.

The Mahatma’s connection with this vintage car imported from London in 1922 by the then Shellac King Late Rai Saheb Laxminarayan Jaiswal is the most precious possession of this family into liquor and shellac business. Besides the Mahatma, Indian Presidents Rajendra Prasad and Zakir Hussain too had had honoured the ride.

In 1938, when Gandhiji came to Ranchi, he visited ailing Rai Bahadur and then proceeded for Ramgrah in their Ford. Rai Saheb, also a strong nationalist, grabbed the opportunity and drove the Mahatma in his car.

Hantiya Bypoll

The business family is a traditional Congress supporter. Many of the family ancestors have been leaders of the party. Family campaigned with the vary car in the 2012 hatiya assembly bypoll for a congress candidate, brother of the then union minister of tourism Subodh Kant Sahai. The campaign started from Birsa Chowk and ended in Doranda, urging people to vote for the party,” the scion of the Jaiswal family, Aditya Vikram Jaiswal who boasts at least 15 vintage cars.

Ranchi Distillary-

In 19th century, the British government identified the potential of Madhuca longifolia and went a step forward to help the Jaiswal family in Ranchi to come up with the first distillery of the country named Ranchi distillery in 1875.

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