Leather industry’s charity champion in India dies, but his legacy will live on
12/04/2013
CU Shah was born in 1918 in Gujarat, Western India and died in Mumbai on January 31, 2013 at the age of 94.
He was a Jain, an ancient religion whose essence is the concern for the welfare of every being in the universe and for the health of the universe itself with three guiding principles or ‘jewels’: right belief, right knowledge and right conduct. “CU Shah lived by these principles and the convictions of his faith,” Forestal Mimosa managing director, Nigel Payne, said of him in the weeks following his death.
After completing his primary schooling he went to Ahmedabad where he passed his Matriculation and then enrolled on a law degree course at Pune Law College, specialising in Company Law. Surprisingly on graduation he did not join the legal profession but chose to go into business and this is where his long, successful and influential journey and involvement with the leather industry in India began.
After graduation he moved to Kenya having joined the business of Mr M P Shah, a great philanthropist and then owner of the Kenya Tanning Extract Company (KTE) in Thika. His time in Kenya was brought to an end by his father’s illness and in 1944 he returned to Mumbai. Due to the war he was not able to obtain passage on a regular vessel so he boarded a dhow, a traditional sailing vessel, in Mombasa which was headed for Mumbai, a perilous journey which took over a month to complete.
Back in India he set up a company, the Tannin Industries Pvt Ltd, later to become Raitan Private Limited. He obtained a restricted import licence for the import initially of wattle bark and then extract from East Africa, once factories were established. This business flourished with Raitan becoming the Indian agents for Forestal Mimosa in the mid 1950s. This included the agency for Unitan, a producer of quebracho extracts from Argentina. CU Shah was often referred to as the “father” of wattle extract in India.
In 1953 he married Dr Sadgunaben who as well as being a medical doctor also became an important spiritual leader within the Jain community. She died in 2004.
“While business was his passion, philanthropy was his addiction,” Nigel Payne continued, “and at the time of his death he had set up or was supporting 105 different charities focusing on medical, educational, engineering, sporting needs of communities, as well as care for senior citizens’ institutions, and others.”
While most of this charitable work took place in his home area of Surendranagar in Gujarat, he also established or supported various institutions in Ahmedabad, Chennai and Mumbai. His charitable activities go back to 1950 and continued until his death and, as was his wish, will continue into the future with any profits from his continuing business enterprises being channelled into his many charities.
One of his biggest achievements, and possibly his favourite, was the setting up of the CU Shah Medical College and Hospital in Surendranagar, which was not only a training college for doctors but also a fully-fledged operational hospital to which he was continually adding further specialist departments.
“Throughout his life he never lived extravagantly, having a comfortable but minimalistic apartment in Mumbai and always travelling in economy despite his personal wealth,” Nigel Payne concluded. “He was generally a reserved and sensitive man with a strong will and great conviction, never wanting to be in the spot light and never seeking fame for his charitable work.”
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