Feb. 16 – The East India Company, the British colonial business that oversaw much of the British Empire’s trade in India and China, is to be relaunched.

The East India Company was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China. The oldest among several similarly formed European East India Companies, the firm was granted an English Royal Charter, under the name Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies by Queen Elizabeth in December 1600.

It enjoyed as a result protection by the British government and navy, and traded mainly in cotton, indigo, spices, and with China, tea, silk and opium. However, it also came to rule large swathes of India, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions, to the gradual exclusion of its commercial pursuits. The company rule of India which effectively began in 1757 after the Battle of Plassey, lasted about 100 years until 1858, when, following the events of the 1857 Indian Rebellion, and the Government Act of India of 1858, saw the British Crown assume direct administration of India in the new British Raj. The East India Company itself was finally dissolved on January 1, 1874 as a result of the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act. The Company legacy amongst Indians is therefore somewhat controversial as it represented both the best and the worst aspects of Britain’s colonial era.

Next month, Mumbai-born entrepreneur Sanjiv Mehta plans to relaunch the East India Company after strenuously acquiring shares in the firm that once ruled India. With a US$15 million investment and input from a range of experts, from designers and brand researchers to historians, Sanjiv Mehta plans to open the company store in Conduit Street of the main Regent Street in the heart of London’s shopping district.

“I have this huge feeling of redemption, this indescribable feeling of owning a company that once owned us,” Mehta said. The entrepreneur has been traveling around the world, visiting former East India Company trading posts and museums, reading up records and meeting people who understood business of that time. “There was a huge sense of responsibility,” he said. “I did not create this brand, but I wanted to be as pioneering as the merchants who created it.”