Partners in Empire: Indigenous business, imperial technology, and the Indian Radio Telegraph Company

Abstract

This article examines the introduction of the beam wireless system to India as part of the Imperial Wireless Chain, which enhanced communication links between Britain and India. It attributes the pioneering role in establishing the beam wireless service and laying the foundation for commercial radio broadcasting to a Bombay-based Ismaili Khoja family—the Chinoys—who secured necessary patents from Marconi and established the Indian Radio & Telegraph Company (IRTC). Departing from prevailing scholarship that frames Gujarati Muslim trading communities of Khojas, Bohras, Memons and groups such as Sindhis and Chettiars primarily as migrant transnational merchants (unlike Marwaris and Jains), this study foregrounds their role in a strategic, technology-driven infrastructure sector. It traces how the IRTC, born from colonial Bombay, created an unprecedented alliance of Parsi, Hindu and Muslim capital, exemplifying the city’s distinctive model of cosmopolitan capitalism.