THE YEAR IS 1919. The whole of India is engulfed with the patriotic spirit and the rising demand for a British-free India. In the same year Jeevan Das, Seth Bal Chand Pamanani and Seth Mangha Ram Pamanani embark upon an industrial venture with JB Mangharam Biscuit Factory in Bagh Hayat Ali Shah area of Sukkur, Sindh (present-day Pakistan). In addition to making biscuits, the factory also made candies and cakes among other things such as sweet and sour medicinal pills.
One would wonder what is so special about a biscuit company of the British era. What’s so special about biscuits in the first place? Haven’t we been having biscuits forever? Well, the history of biscuits and biscuit-making in India is rather quite interesting. One must remember India at that time was also dealing with rampant caste and religious prejudices despite being oppressed by the hands of the British. While flatbreads and baked cookies of various forms have been part of the Indian culinary scene for centuries, the origins of the present-day tea-time biscuits can be traced back to the British era. Initially, they were imported from England and sold in the stores. Perhaps, that’s the reason why the snack so loved today was nearly forbidden by the caste Hindus of the bygone era. Like most prejudices and perceptions around foreign goods, the upper-caste Hindus, the dominant section of the Indian populace decreed biscuits as “impure” and consumption of it only meant societal degeneration. Over the years, due to social reforms and Western appeal, biscuits also entered the upper-caste milieu, of course, marketed with a prominent label of them being “Hindu biscuits”. By the early 1900s, the biscuit industries were mushrooming all across the country notably around the presidencies of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras, and of course the capital city of Delhi.
Thus it is a point to note that the JB Mangharam Biscuit Factory was owned by three Hindu men in a considerably smaller town of Sukkur, and not the obvious choices such as Lahore or Karachi. Records suggest that the Sukkur factory also dabbled in the manufacturing of metal utensils and thus provided employment to a wide range of people including women. Within a few years, the biscuits from the factory attained massive popularity among people all over India, owing to which the owners opened a larger factory to meet the growing demands. They also opened branches in Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta.
The astronomical rise of this small biscuit factory in the erstwhile undivided India’s Sindh region also garnered the attention of the British regime. During the Second World War, the factory, which by then was also one of Asia’s largest biscuit producers, was assigned the responsibility of making glucose-milk-based energy biscuits for the British Army. This further took the profits to even greater heights for the company, and that continued for quite a while. Post World War II, these energy biscuits were made especially targeting children, and with it came unprecedented popularity and record financial gains. The ad copy read: “Growing children expend energy every minute of the day… as they run and play and in the very process of growing up. They need a diet that replenishes energy and builds strong healthy bodies. This is why J.B. Mangharam’s Energy Food Biscuits are so good for the children – they are made of sun-ripened wheat, milk and glucose. Every ingredient rich in vitamins and energy.”
And then Partition happened. Like most people and businesses, it meant abrupt displacement and major upheaval in the everyday course of life. Just a few years ago, JB Mangharam Biscuit Factory also moved its base to India in Gwalior along with one of the owners, Mangha Ram Pamanani. The factory in Pakistan’s Sukkur was handed over to Seth Mohammed Yaqoob, who owned the Yaqoob Biscuit Factory, as an evacuee property. In 1951, the Gwalior branch was established and owing to JB Mangharam biscuit factory’s reputation, this new base took off in no time. The strategic location of Gwalior only aided in expanding the business gradually.
During the 1950s and 1960s, JB Mangharam’s biscuit and sweet tins, adorned with striking depictions of characters from Indian mythology like Shakuntala, Meerabai, and Krishna, along with illustrations of famous landmarks such as Mumbai’s Victoria Terminus and the Golden Temple, became iconic. These brightly painted tins, once a staple in Indian homes have now gained status as nostalgic and collectable pieces of cultural history.
Mangha Ram Pamanani breathed his last in 1969, and after a few years in 1977, the company was restructured. And, in 1983 the company dissolved permanently after a merger with Britannia Industries, and with that, the brand JB Mangharam also came to an end.