Indian commercial and industrial family of the Marwari or Hindu merchant caste. The best known member of the family was Ghanshyam Das Birla, who became Mahatma Gandhi’s principal financial backer, paying most of the cost of the ashram (retreat), the Harijan organizations, the peasant uplift campaign, and the national language movement, as well as supporting many other Gandhian welfare projects. It was at Birla House, New Delhi, that Gandhi was killed. The Birla family has continued to manage a successful business empire.