New Delhi, Jan 3 . When Sir Shri Ram, one of early 20th-century India’s most forward-looking industrialists, set up the Commercial Education Trust in 1920, the country was still under colonial rule, its economy an appendage to Great Britain’s, its ambitions restrained by the need to serve the empire.
Shri Ram had the ability to dream of a quietly radical institution that would treat commerce not as a subsidiary skill, but as a national necessity, a discipline capable of producing economic self-reliance.
This was the period when India’s newly emergent leadership was keen to foster economic nationalism and produce a class of entrepreneurs who would set up the new “temples of modern India” – factories, mines, research institutes – which would create a more prosperous India.
Along with his brother-in-law Lala Sher Singh, his friend Lala Diwan Chand, and a small circle of associates, Sir Shri Ram believed that education in trade, finance, and economics could help shape this modern India long before political freedom arrived.
Commerce, in their view, was not merely about profit, it was a vital instrument in building the new India that people wanted to see emerge.
In 1926 that idea took shape with the founding of the Commercial College, operating modestly out of a hired house in Delhi’s Daryaganj, with just 12 students on its rolls. In 1951 it was rechristened the Shri Ram College of Commerce and three years later it shifted to its present campus at Delhi University’s North campus.
The inauguration of the campus by Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, then Vice-President of India and later President, marked a recognition that commerce education had arrived and was being placed at the heart of India’s intellectual life.
There were no grand buildings, no promise of prestige, a mere idea rooted in discipline, rigour, and relevance to the real economy. A century later, that experiment with a dozen students has evolved into Shri Ram College of Commerce, or SRCC as its students and alumni call it, with more than 3,000 students and nearly 150 academic staff.
Universally regarded as India’s premier institution for commerce and economics, it is increasingly seen as one of the country’s most meaningful contributors to India’s economic leadership.
Over the decades, SRCC has produced a remarkable roster of alumni who have shaped boardrooms, markets, policy corridors, and newsrooms, both in India and abroad.
Arun Jaitley, who would go on to become one of India’s most influential finance ministers, was among its most prominent graduates. So were Anshu Jain, former co-chief executive of Deutsche Bank, Pramod Bhasin, the founder and CEO of Genpact; Amitabh Jhunjhunwala of the Reliance ADAG Group; and Rajat Sharma, the founder of India TV.
Its alumni occupy senior leadership roles across global corporations, at Bharti Airtel, Dalmia Cement, Deloitt, extending into the worlds of finance and policy.
Ruchir Sharma, now chairman of Rockefeller International, is among its best-known global voices on emerging markets. Judges of the Supreme court – Arjan Sikri and Rohington Fali Nariman – were also among those who are part of this college’s alumni.
Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, represents its imprint on contemporary policymaking. Political figures such as Jitin Prasada and Vijay Goel further underscore the institution’s reach beyond economics into governance.
Taken together, they form an influential network that mirrors India’s own economic rise from a controlled economy to a globally celebrated one. That ascent has gathered fresh momentum in recent years.
On Friday, this alumni toasted the success story of their alumni at a glittering function at their alma mater with Delhi University’s vice Chancellor Yogesh Singh describing the collage a “globally recognised brand” whose contribution cannot be measured just by rankings. “A hundred years is long enough to build institutions, shape generations and influence the journey of a nation. SRCC has done all three,” he said.
India’s emergence as the world’s fourth-largest economy, surpassing long-established industrial powers, has revived attention on the institutions that quietly supplied the country and the world at large with trained minds to lead its growth story.
Universities and colleges, economists and administrators, these are not usually the stars of economic narratives. But without them, growth stories tend to collapse under their own weight. . JRC
