In January and December 1944, A Brief Memorandum Outlining a Plan of Economic Development for India, popularly known as the Bombay Plan, was published in two parts. Authored by nine individuals who were business leaders and technocrats, it was an ‘economic blueprint for a postcolonial independent nation’.The authors were Sir Purshottamdas Thakurdas, J. R. D. Tata, G. D. Birla, Lala Shri Ram, A. D. Shroff, Ardeshir Dalal, Kasturbhai Lalbhai, John Matthai and P. S. Lokanathan. In some quarters, it was also known as the Tata–Birla plan. What is glaringly obvious in the Bombay Plan is the absence of a Muslim name. Members of the Chinoy, Rahimtoola and Currimbhoy families were well-known captains of industry besides being associated with bodies like the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Indian Tariff Board.Three major Indian industrial houses—CIPLA, Wipro and Wockhardt—have their roots in Bombay, and by the 1940s, though not as successful as now, the family patriarchs of at least the first two companieshad acquired prominence. The other possible Muslim contenders could have been Sir Adamjee Dawood and the Ispahanis,but they were closely associated with the Muslim League.

It is surprising that economic and business historians have found nothing amiss in the absence of Muslims in the Bombay Plan. Around the same time as the Bombay Plan was brought out, the Muslim League had constituted a Planning Committee to outline economic and industrial policies for the Pakistan zones. Among its members were Hasham Premji and Mahomed Ali Habib, two Bombay-based business magnates who had reluctantly joined the committee.While the Muslim League’s Planning Committee ended up in the ‘dustbin of History’,the Bombay Plan continues to attract interest among historians.