Honoring the Legacy of Jagannath Shankarsheth

When the University of Mumbai was incorporated in 1857 amidst the Indian Rebellion, Nana was nominated as a Founding Fellow and served on its inaugural Senate. He also co-founded the Sir J.J. School of Art in 1857, drafting its curriculum to bridge traditional Indian craftsmanship with modern techniques.

As a 15-year member of the Board of Education, Nana championed vernacular-medium instruction and conducted Bombay's first systematic educational survey in 1849, leading to subsidized primary schools for the poor. His social reform was radically inclusive: he defied orthodox taboos in the late 1830s by hosting a girls' school in his own Girgaum mansion, sending his own female relatives to study there, and later funding the Students' Literary and Scientific Society's schools. He also established a free school for the marginalized Koli fishermen's children at Girgaum Chowpatty. Following his death, his legacy was immortalized through the prestigious Jagannath Shankarshet Sanskrit Scholarship, established in 1866 with a Rs 30,000 endowment to reward linguistic excellence.

Jagannath 'Nana' Shankarsheth emerged as the principal architect of the city's modern public health infrastructure. In 1836, he co-founded the Bombay Native Dispensary, the city's first public clinic for the poor. To overcome deep-seated cultural fears of Western medicine, Nana personally went door-to-door in native quarters, persuading families to trust the doctors.

In 1858, he established the Shankarsheth Babulset Charitable Dispensary in Tardeo, backing it with a massive 30,000-rupee endowment. This clinic served South Bombay's working class for over 60 years; in 1921, the trust corpus was transferred to Nair Hospital to permanently fund a reserved bed in his name. Nana also revolutionized women's healthcare by co-founding the Sir Jamshetji Jeejibhoy Maternity Home in 1850, Bombay's first dedicated maternity hospital. To train native doctors, Nana spearheaded the creation of Grant Medical College in 1845, raising 50,000 rupees from the public. He used his immense social prestige to dismantle orthodox taboos against human dissection, and in 1861, he successfully lobbied for a Marathi-medium medical curriculum, donating 5,000 rupees for scholarships. When European officials tried to close the sacred Sonapur Cremation Ground, Nana raised 25,000 rupees to build a protective wall in 1847, and later led a peaceful march of 2,000 Kolis to the Governor's mansion to defeat the closure bill. His holistic vision of health extended to urban planning: he advocated for demolishing the Fort walls for ventilation, opened his private lake during the 1846 drought, championed the Vihar Lake piped water project, and co-founded the 33-acre Victoria Gardens (Rani Baug) and Albert Museum as a 'green lung' for the city.

When the London-based Great Indian Peninsula Railway (GIPR) sent John Chapman to survey the region in 1845, Chapman discovered a highly organized local syndicate already prepared with capital. This led to a historic 1849 merger, with Nana appointed as one of the only two Indian directors on the GIPR board. To accelerate construction, Nana housed chief engineer James Berkeley and his team in his Girgaon mansion (Wada) free of charge, making it the first de facto headquarters of Indian Railways.

On April 16, 1853, Nana rode in the first-class carriage of the historic inaugural train from Bori Bunder to Thane, holding a specially minted Golden Pass. The train, hauled by the locomotives Sahib, Sindh, and Sultan, was dubbed 'Chakya Mhasoba' (wheeled deity) by awe-struck locals. Nana's vision extended to maritime trade; on October 29, 1847, he co-founded the Bombay Steam Navigation Company (BSNC) with 10 lakh rupees capital, launching five steamships to connect Bombay with Gujarat, Karachi, and Ceylon. During the 1860s cotton boom, Nana leveraged his position in the Bombay Chamber of Commerce and the Legislative Council to lobby for modernized docks, gas street lighting, and underground drainage, while simultaneously fighting oppressive colonial tolls and cart taxes that targeted poor agrarian traders. His legacy is immortalized in a stone medallion on the facade of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT), carved by Thomas Earp, standing as an eternal testament to the true indigenous builder of Mumbai's transit network.

In an era when India's per-capita GDP was roughly $550, this liquid wealth functioned as a sovereign-level treasury, earning the trust of Arab, Afghan, and local merchants over European houses. When Jagannath 'Nana' Shankarsheth inherited this empire in 1822, he pivoted Bombay toward modern institutional finance. In 1842, he co-founded the Bank of Western India, serving as one of only two native directors alongside Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy.

This bank evolved into the Oriental Bank Corporation in 1845 with a capital of Rs 1 crore. Nana continued his institutional crusade by co-founding the Commercial Bank of India in 1852 with his son Vinayakrao, and the Mercantile Bank of India, London, and China in 1853/1854 alongside Cowasji Jehangir Readymoney. The Mercantile Bank's foundation was so resilient that it survived the 1860s crashes, eventually being acquired by HSBC in 1959, sold to Citibank in 1984, and later to the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in 1987. During the speculative frenzy of the 1861-1865 cotton boom (Bombay Share Mania), Nana remained a voice of prudence. He introduced a bill in the Legislative Council in 1863 to curb forward trading. When the market crashed on July 1, 1865, wiping out Rs 45.80 crore, Nana's conservative management completely insulated his estate and public trusts, preserving his legacy as the architect of Bombay's financial stability.

In 1834, he broke a long-standing European monopoly by becoming the first Indian appointed as a Justice of the Peace, which allowed him to advocate directly for native interests in the courts and on the Board of Conservancy. His infrastructure contributions were vast: he repaired and donated his own lake on Grant Road to alleviate water scarcity, championed the Vihar Lake piped water project, pushed for the demolition of the old Fort walls to expand the city, and successfully lobbied for the introduction of gas street lighting, which illuminated Mumbai's streets for the first time in May 1865.

Beyond physical infrastructure, Nana was a pioneer of cultural and political institutions. When native Indians were barred from European theatres, Nana donated his own land on Grant Road to build the Badshahi Natyagruha (Royal Theatre) in 1846. He personally cleared its debts and transformed it into a cradle for regional Indian drama, hosting pioneering Marathi and Hindi performances. His passion for public spaces led him to serve as President of the Agri-Horticultural Society for 35 years, culminating in the creation of Victoria Gardens (Rani Baug) and the Albert Museum (now the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum) through a massive public fundraising campaign. Politically, he founded the Bombay Association in 1852, the presidency's first political organization, which laid the groundwork for Indian representation in governance and ultimately paved the way for the Indian National Congress. Throughout his life, Nana remained a fierce defender of the working class, successfully leading protests against oppressive municipal taxes and cultural disruptions, such as the attempted relocation of the historic Sonapur crematorium.