Beyond Racism: The Story of Prakash Tandon and Unilever India

The noted British historian G. M. Trevelyan observed that “without social history, economic history is barren and political history is unintelligible.†The autobiographical volumes of Prakash Tandon, one of twentieth-century India's great business leaders, have been hailed as extremely important works of social history. The Times Literary Supplement had this to say about Tandon's Beyond Punjab (1971): “Everyone who is interested in factors which have shaped India today should read this book.†But business historians have rarely cited Tandon's work. This is not entirely surprising, given the state of business history in India. Apart from a few scholars, including Dwijendra Tripathi and the authors in this special issue of Business History Review, research on business history has been limited. To some extent, politics has been the all-consuming passion in India. Yet Tandon's work contains remarkable insights into important aspects of business history, both in India and globally.