Noted Jain philanthropist, educationist and businessman, Shrenik Kasturbhai Lalbhai of the Lalbhai family, passed away on Thursday after a prolonged illness. Shrenikbhai, 89, breathed his last in the morning at his residence on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.

Shrenikbhai was the second generation of Kasturbhai Lalbhai, a business magnet of the pre-Independence era. Besides being a businessman, he made remarkable contributions towards education and preservation of Jain pilgrimage places.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted a condolence message on his personal Twitter handle on Thursday. “Shri Shrenik Lalbhai left a distinguished mark through his service to society. May his soul rest in peace.”

Modi also spoke with his son Sanjay Lalbhai in Ahmedabad to console the family and offered his condolences. Sanjay Lalbhai currently heads the denim major Arvind Ltd.

A widower, Shrenik Lalbhai lost his wife Pannben some years ago. The couple had two children, son Sanjay Lalbhai and daughter Kalpanaben.

After graduating from MIT and completing his MBA degree from Harvard University, his first task was to help the Lalbhai Group come clean on allegations of black marketing and tax evasion from Government agencies in 1948-49. He spent the first five years of his career extracting the family from its tax problems.

Shrenik Lalbhai successfully held the baton of the Lalbhai Group’s textile mills and succeeded in matters related to human relations by maintaining the highest standards on the business front.

Shrenik Lalbhai was a torchbearer on the academic front too. He served as Chairman of the Ahmedabad Education Society. He was also actively associated with institutes such as CEPT, ISRO, the Institute of Plasma Research (IPR), IIM-A and ATIRA.

On the philanthropy side, Lalbhai headed the Anandji Kalyanji Trust, a Jain trust involved in propagating and maintaining Jain temples in Western India, for three decades. Before him, his father Kasturbhai Lalbhai had headed the trust for about 50 years. Shrenik Lalbhai was instrumental in the reconstruction and restoration of over 1,200 Jain temples across the country.

Throughout his life Shrenik Lalbhai followed the Jain philosophy of simple living with minimum resources.

The f amily name: Lalbhai

The Lalbhais are heirs of Seth Shantidas Zaveri, one of the prominent financers of the Mughal era and trusted jewellers to the Mughal emperor. They were also known as the Nagar Sheth, the merchants of the city. The surname, Lalbhai, was derived from the first name of Kasturbhai’s father Lalbhai Dalpatbhai, who set up the first manufacturing company of the Lalbhai family, a cotton yarn unit Saraspur Manufacturing Company in 1897.

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