Tales from the vaults

Ashen assets The funeral ash of Mahatma Gandhi was sent in small urns to provincial capitals across India for immersion in the rivers. The ash in the urn that went to Cuttack, then capital of Odisha, was not immersed. The State government placed the urn in a sealed wooden box and deposited it in the Imperial Bank of Indian Branch at Cuttack, where it remained for 46 years. The Mahatma’s great grandson Tushar Gandhi thereafter immersed it in Allahabad.

The Tagore connection In 1817, Rabindranath Tagore’s grandfather, Prince Dwarkanath Tagore, borrowed a princely sum of ₹60,000 from the Bank of Bengal (which rechristened State Bank of India on July 1, 1955 ), with which financed his business empire in India and abroad. For the bank, which was then British in character, this triggered a big growth in business. Nearly two centuries later, Dwarkanath’s statue ( above ) greets visitors at the State Bank of India Archive and Museum at the bank’s registered headquarters on Strand Road in Kolkata. “It’s a mark of respect to his contribution to the growth of the bank,” says U Ramesh, Senior Archivist-cum-curator. \

No concessions Believe it or not, the bank returned a cheque issued by Governor-General William Bentinck ( right ), for exceeding the credit limit by just four annas (25 paise). Bentinck, who was instrumental in the abolition of sati, had applauded the bank for its diligence. “This is the bank to do business with, which would not violate its rules in the smallest particular for the Governor-General himself,” he had said.

The philosopher’s NPA One of the names of the bank’s list of defaulters is that of Pandit Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, the 19th century philosopher. Pandit Vidyasagar had borrowed ₹6,200 from the Bank of Bengal in 1873 after tendering government securities worth ₹7,100, but failed to repay the loan.

Frauds, forgeries In 1824, a company’s paper on which the Bank of Bengal had already advanced ₹40,000 was found to have been repledged to the Bank. How it happened could not be ascertained and the case was dismissed in the Supreme Court for want of evidence. Another fraud occurred circa 1826 when Rajkishore Dutt, a businessman in Calcutta, availed of a ₹3.5 lakh loan from the Bank against forged papers. The Bank incurred losses and it withheld payment of dividend to shareholders for the half year ended June 1834. The whole of the profits for that period was written off.

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