Sumati Morarjee need never have worked. Indeed, in the era when she was growing up, women did not work. Born into an affluent Bombay merchant family of Mathuradas Gokuldas in 1909, she was married to Shanti Kumar Morarjee, the only son of shipping tycoon Narottam Morarjee, who co-founded Scindia Steam Navigation Company Ltd in 1919 along with three other industrialists—Walchand Hirachand, Lallubhai Samaldas and Kilachand Devchand.
Narottam Morarjee, though, wasn't just another industrialist steeped in orthodoxy and patriarchy. His keen eye spotted his daughter-in-law’s sharp intellect and hunger for learning. Vitally, she was interested in the family business. So, in a move unheard of at the time and rare even today, she joined the company’s managing agency at the tender age of 20.
The father-in-law’s intuition and the family's support didn't go in vain. Over the next five decades, along with her husband, she steered the shipping company adroitly, ultimately building a fleet of 43 vessels, the largest in India at the time. Remarkably, she looked upon shipping as more than just a business activity, seeing in it the potential for cultural exchange and for carrying Indian thought and spirituality to the world.
More than just business
Indeed, ships and shipping meant more to her than just business. She called the vessels her daughters and believed India deserved a place in the world of shipping. In 1969, she set up the Narottam Morarjee Institute of Shipping, a vital addition to the country's growing maritime ambitions, which needed a regular cadre of trained seamen.
A quote in the 1984 issue of Yojana magazine summed up her philosophy: “Our maritime history is not a matter of chance or of casual growth; it is a heritage, but it is a heritage that must be guarded jealously and studied carefully in all its phases.”
Sadly, a major slump in global shipping through the 1980s meant that Scindia Steamship, which had posted record profits in 1974-75, found itself in deep financial distress. Weighed down by heavy debt and operational issues, it was taken over by the government, and its ships were sold off in 1987.
A subsidiary, The Scindia Shipyard, set up in the early 1940s at Visakhapatnam as a shipbuilding facility, was taken over by the government in 1952. It was renamed Hindustan Shipyard Ltd and continues as a public sector undertaking. But the company that had planted the Indian flag in international waters in 1919 came to an ignominious end. By then, others like Great Eastern Shipping and Essar Shipping had stepped in to fill the breach.
The setback did little to dim the lustre of Sumati Morarjee, even though she had to single-handedly manage the decline after her husband's death in 1982. Her work had already won her laurels. In 1957, she was elected president of the Indian National Steamship Owners’ Association (INSOA), perhaps the first woman anywhere to head a shipowners' organization.
Global honour followed: in 1970, the World Shipping Federation elected her as a vice president. It was a singular honour in an industry that was almost completely dominated by men representing European and North American shipping interests. The recognition extended to the UN, where she became the vice-chairman of the General Transport Commission of the International Chamber of Commerce.
The biggest honour, though, came in 1971 when the Indian government conferred the country’s second-highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan, on her. Once again, this slightly built woman whose pictures reveal a ready smile but a fierce determination, was breaking barriers as the first and until then the only Indian businesswoman to receive the award.
Shipping pioneer
That might have been enough to secure her legend. But Sumati Morarjee was more than just a business leader. She and her husband were close associates of Mahatma Gandhi and, under his guidance, took an active part in the freedom struggle, particularly the underground movement, where her fluency in English, Hindi and Marathi must have been a big asset.
The family’s home in Mumbai hosted Gandhi after he fell ill following the death of Kasturba in 1944. The company’s ships were also used to rescue Indians stuck in Pakistan during the partition riots.
Sumati Morarjee entered a man's world as a teenager and spent a lifetime running one of India's pioneering shipping companies with the conviction that ships didn’t just carry cargo but also a country’s culture and thoughts. Few women of her generation sailed quite so far.
For more such stories, read The Enterprising Indian: Stories From India Inc.