The company was established by Mohamed Hasham Premji in 1945. He was a leading rice merchant and commission agent in Bombay. When Mohammed Ali Jinnah set up the planning committee of the Muslim League (on the lines of the national planning committee of the Indian National Congress) in September 1944, he invited Hasham Premji to be a part of it. But Premji did not want to join the League formally for ‘personal and business reasons’. He was then assured by Jinnah that he could serve without publicly signing the Muslim League pledge¹.
“Jinnah reportedly sought out Premji once again when he was forming the first cabinet in Pakistan to serve as his fnnance minister. But Premji rejected the offer and decided to stay on in India and nurture his oil business².”
¹ Ian Talbot, “Planning for Pakistan: The Planning Committee of the All India Muslim League 1943-46″, Modern Asian Studies, 1994, pp 875-89
² Rohit Saran, The World’s Richest Indian, India Today, 6 March 2000