In the turbulent 1930s, as nationalist fervour gripped India, three brothers - Suren, Kiran, and Hemen Roy - established Bengal Lamps Ltd. in Kasba, Calcutta, marking the birth of India’s first swadeshi electric bulb company . Suren and Kiran, both engineering professors at Jadavpur University, teamed with Hemen, an able administrator, to manufacture affordable incandescent bulbs locally .

Their initiative struck a chord amid growing calls to boycott foreign products. Bengal Lamps offered high-quality bulbs at half the cost of Philips imports, providing illumination to middle- and lower-middle-class Indian households. As demand soared, the company expanded, opening a second factory in Jadavpur l.

For decades, Bengal Lamps reigned as a trusted homegrown brand, even expanding to Bangalore by the 1970s . But with rising competition, internal strife, and inability to modernize, the firm gradually declined and finally ceased operations in 1989 . Today, remnants like its old gates and the “Bengal Lamps Pukur” stand as haunting reminders of an industrious swadeshi legacy.