History of Freemasonry in India

English Freemasonry was introduced to India in 1728 when a deputation was granted to open a lodge in Bengal, leading to the appointment of a Provincial Grand Master for India and the Far East 1, as the Grand Lodge of India states. The earliest recorded English Lodge in India was Lodge East India Arms, constituted in 1730 at Fort William in Calcutta 1, where officers of the East India Company held meetings, as an article on the Regional Grand Lodge of Southern India's website records. Subsequent early lodges in Bengal included Star in the East (1740) and Industry with Perseverance (1761) 1.

Expansion across the subcontinent followed with the establishment of the first lodges in Madras in 1752 and Bombay in 1758 2. Provincial Grand Masters were appointed for Bombay in 1763 2 and Madras in 1766 2. In 1785, the Atholl (Ancients) Lodge at Madras joined the United Provincial Grand Lodge to form the Lodge of Perfect Unanimity, uniting Moderns and Ancients in India decades before the 1813 union in England, as an article on the Regional Grand Lodge of Southern India's website notes. Scottish Masonry also took root, with Dr. James Burnes designated Provincial Grand Master for all India by the Grand Lodge of Scotland in 1846 2.

Although originally confined to European merchants, military officers, and administrators 2, native Indians were gradually admitted. Omdat-ul-Omrah, the Nawab of Carnatic, became the first Indian Mason 2, while the first Hindu and Sikh members were admitted in 1857 and 1861 respectively, as an article on the Regional Grand Lodge of Southern India's website records. Dedicated lodges like Rising Star in Bombay were established in 1844 to facilitate Indian membership 2. In December 1960, a majority of eligible lodges voted to establish an independent sovereign body, as an article on the Regional Grand Lodge of Southern India's website notes, leading to the consecration of the Grand Lodge of India in November 1961, as the Grand Lodge of India states.