Dadabhoy Behramji Banaji

Dadabhoy Behramji Banaji is recorded as the first Parsi to have arrived in Kolkata from Surat in 1767. He came to Kolkata to trade and open commerce with East Asia. From then onwards Calcutta became a center of Parsi settlement in India. From the 19th century onward Bombay became the principal Parsi center and the headquarters of the Parsis of India.

The Parsis or Zoroastrians of India settled extensively across India from the time of their arrival in the subcontinent, which by Parsi tradition was in the 8th century. Dadabhoy Behramji Banaji is recorded as the first Parsi to have come to Calcutta from Surat in western India in 1767. Banaji came to Calcutta to trade in Bengal and open commerce with East Asia. The rise of the Parsis of Calcutta paralleled the consolidation of British power in eastern India. The British took possession of Calcutta in 1690, as an incipient center of trade and secured all of Bengal by 1765 through military conquest and the collaboration with Indians.

From the 17th century, the earliest of Parsis in contact with Europeans had functioned as supply agents, translators, and brokers. In the 18th century, Calcutta became the hub of the Eastern Triangular Trade between India, East Asia and Europe that witnessed Indian goods, principally opium, exported to China and other parts of East Asia towards the purchase of Chinese tea, which was then bound for India and Britain. The Parsis were an important component of this trading network and European commercial success in India.