Lord Swaraj Paul is a Britain based business magnate a philanthropist. He was born in 1931 in Jalandhar, India. Swaraj Paul founded the multinational company Caparo—the UK-based steel and engineering group. Swaraj Paul went to Britain in 1966 and started his business in 1968. From acquiring
one steel unit, he went on to acquire more units and founded the Caparo group in the year 1978. Swaraj Paul’s company developed into one of the leading producers of welded steel tube and spiral welded pipe in the UK. He was knighted by the British Queen in the year 1978 and became the Lord Paul of Marylebone and a member of the House of Lords.
Lord Paul has received various awards. He has written the biography of Indira Gandhi and was awarded the Padma Bhushan by her in 1983. He was also bestowed with many prestigious honours including the Pro-Chancellorship of the Thames University (1998) and its Governorship (1992-97), Chancellorship of Wolver Hampton University and the Bharat Gaurav award by the Indian Merchant’s Chamber. He is a member of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Foreign Policy Centre Advisory Council and MIT’s Mechanical Engineering Visiting Committee.
His father ran a small foundry, making steel buckets and farming equipments. Swaraj Paul was educated at the Punjab University and later obtained a Master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US. On his return to India, Swaraj joined the Appeejay Surendra Group, which his father had founded. It was a twist of fate that he had to visit London to get his daughter cured of Leukemia. But this trip made him to stay in London forever. Lord Swaraj Paul stepped down from the management of the Caparo group in 1996, handing over his empire to his three sons.
Despite being one of the richest persons in the U.K, Lord Paul practices a very simple life. In his memoirs, Beyond Boundaries, Lord Paul reflects the main events of his life. It contains the details of his business career, including his run-in with DCM and Escorts and his association with the famous and the mighty including Indira Gandhi, Sanjay and Rajiv. Beyond Boundaries is a window into the making of one of the most outstanding success stories of modern times.
