Three Merchants of Bombay

Lakshmi Subramanian

Description

Three Merchants of Bombay is the story of three intrepid merchants who traded out of Bombay in the nineteenth century—Tarwady Arjunjee, Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy and Premchand Roychand—founding pioneering business empires based on trade in cotton and opium. Set against the backdrop of global and local economies undergoing rapid and unforeseen change, these stories stand as a microcosm for the history of indigenous capitalism in western India. In this succinct and lucid account, Lakshmi Subramanian traces that history and locates it in the greater narrative of the economic development of India, South Asia and the world.

Sujets

• Gestion et management

Informations

• Publié par: Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd
• Date de parution: 01 décembre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788184757217
• Langue: English

Extrait

LAKSHMI SUBRAMANIAN

THE STORY OF INDIAN BUSINESS THREE MERCHANTS OF BOMBAY
Business Pioneers of the Nineteenth Century
Introduction by Gurcharan Das
PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS
THE STORY OF INDIAN BUSINESS
Arthashastra: The Science of Wealth by Thomas R. Trautmann
The World of the Tamil Merchant: Pioneers of International Trade by Kanakalatha Mukund
The Mouse Merchant: Money in Ancient India by Arshia Sattar
The East India Company: The World s Most Powerful Corporation by Tirthankar Roy
Caravans: Punjabi Khatri Merchants on the Silk Road by Scott C. Levi
Globalization before Its Time: Gujarati Traders in the Indian Ocean by Chhaya Goswami (edited by Jaithirth Rao)
Three Merchants of Bombay: Business Pioneers of the Nineteenth Century by Lakshmi Subramanian
The Marwaris: From Jagat Seth to the Birlas by Thomas A. Timberg
CONTENTS
Introduction by Gurcharan Das
Chronology
Prologue
1. Merchants and Rulers in the Interstices of Empire
2. Trawadi Arjunji Nathji: The Honourable Company s Shroff
3. Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy: The First Parsi Baronet
4. Premchand Roychand: A Man for All Seasons
Epilogue: The Romance of Commerce
Author s Note
Notes
Bibliography
Follow Penguin
Copyright
PORTFOLIO
THREE MERCHANTS OF BOMBAY: BUSINESS PIONEERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
LAKSHMI SUBRAMANIAN is professor of history at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata. She has a PhD from Visva-Bharati (Santiniketan) and has previously taught at Jamia Milia Islamia, New Delhi, the University of Calcutta and Visva-Bharati.
GURCHARAN DAS is a world-renowned author, commentator and public intellectual. His bestselling books include India Unbound and The Difficulty of Being Good ; his newest book is India Grows at Night . A graduate of Harvard University, Das was CEO of Procter Gamble India before he took early retirement to become a full-time writer. He lives in Delhi.
Introduction
THE CRAVING FOR adventure and the love of profit are inherent in human nature. Hence they say exchange is natural and all-pervasive. But then, why does the commercial spirit flower in some places and at certain times, and not in others? Lakshmi Subramanian has narrated here, with elegance, the stories of three legendary merchant princes-Trawadi Arjunji Nathji, Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy and Premchand Roychand. In doing so she has breathed life into the business world of western India in the latter half of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries-a most unlikely time for the rise of animal spirits in the disturbed, lawless period of transition between the decline of the Mughal empire and the rise of the British Raj.
The relationship between commerce and the rise of cities and prosperity is an exciting tale that goes back in time to when the city first emerged in human history. It also goes to the heart of the question of wealth and poverty of nations-why some grow rich and others remain poor. These are the sort of questions that engage our unique multi-volume history of Indian business.
The Story of Indian Business
Three Merchants of Bombay is the fourth book in Penguin s The Story of Indian Business . The series seeks to unearth great ideas in business and economics that have shaped commerce in the Indian subcontinent while entertaining us with the romance of the high seas and the adventure in the bazaars. Leading contemporary scholars closely examine, in this series, historical texts, inscriptions and records, and interpret them in a lively, sharp and authoritative manner for the intelligent reader who may not have prior background in the field. Each slender volume offers an enduring perspective on business enterprise in the past, avoiding the pitfalls of simplistically cataloguing a set of lessons for today. The value of the exercise, if we are successful, will be to promote in the reader, a long-term sensibility which can help to understand the material bases for our present human condition and to think sensibly about our economic future. Taken together, the series as a whole celebrates the ideal captured in the Sanskrit word artha meaning material well-being, which was one of the aims of classical Indian life.
The first three books were published in early 2012. The series began with Tom Trautman s sparkling interpretation for our times of the renowned treatise on the science of wealth, Arthashastra , which was authored over 2000 years ago and is considered the world s first manual on political economy. Our second work, Tirthankar Roy s radiant account of the English East India Company, taught us, among other things, how much the modern multinational corporation is a child of the much-reviled Company. In the third book, Kanakalatha Mukund took us into the beguiling world of Tamil merchants, whose lives she drew from the epics, Silappadikaram and Manimekalai and other historical materials, up to the end of the Chola empire.
Following these books lies a veritable feast-three more books shall cover the ancient and early medieval periods: Gregory Schopen presents the Business Model of Early Buddhist Monasticism based on the Mulasarvastivada-vinaya ; Himanshu Prabha Ray takes us into the maritime trading world of the western-Indian Ocean, along the Kanara and Gujarat coasts, using the Gujarati translation of the Sanskrit work, Lekhapaddhati ; and Arshia Sattar recounts the brilliant adventures based on Kathasaritsagara and other sources in The Mouse Merchant among other tales. Then Scott Levi takes off from the early modern period to the modern one with the over 500-year-old saga of Multani traders in their caravans travelling through central Asia, rooted in the works of Zia al-Din Barani s Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi and Jean-Baptiste Tavernier. Furthermore, the celebrated Sanjay Subrahmanyam and Muzaffar Alam transport us into the world of sultans, shopkeepers and portfolio-capitalists in Mughal India, while Ishan Chakrabarti traces the ethically individualistic world of Banarsidas, a Jain merchant in Mughal times via his diary Ardhakathanak .
The feast doesn t end there. Chhaya Goswami dives deep into the Indian Ocean to recount the tale of Kachchhi enterprise in the triangle of Zanzibar, Muscat and Mandvi from 1750 to 1900. Tom Timberg revisits the bold, risk-taking world of the Marwaris, and Raman Mahadevan describes Nattukottai Chettiars search for fortune. Then, Vikramjit Banerjee presents, through the works of Gandhi, Vivekananda, Nehru, Ambedkar and others, the competing visions of prosperity among the men who fought for India s freedom in the early twentieth century. Finally, Medha Kudaisiya rounds up the series by breathing life into the debates surrounding the Bombay Plan , drawn by eminent industrialists in 1944-45 who wrestled with the proper roles of the public and private sectors.
The privilege of reading these rich and diverse volumes has left me-one reader-with a sense of wonder at the vivid, dynamic and illustrious role played by trade and economic enterprise in advancing Indian civilization.
The Importance of Being Bombay
Lakshmi Subramanian s three masterly biographical portraits raise many intriguing questions, and in this introduction I shall explore one of them: the relationship between the growth of commerce, the rise of cities, and the rule of law. Which comes first? Do cities grow because they offer peace and the rule of law to merchants? Or is it the other way around? Does the growth in commerce create the resources for investing in better institutions of security, law and order? The rise of Bombay and the decline of Surat in western India in the 100 years between 1750 and 1850 is a good laboratory in which to examine these questions.
Charles II, king of England, received Bombay as dowry on his marriage to the Portuguese princess Catharine of Braganza in June 1661. More than a hundred years later, the original seven islets were still a dreary settlement resembling the backwaters that flowed into it, according to our author. Then it rose spectacularly and went on to become the financial capital of India. How did this come to be, especially in the troubled and warlike conditions of the eighteenth century-after the collapse of the Mughal authority, the rise of the formidable Marathas, and the growth of English power?
The island city rose after the decline of Surat because it offered a competitive advantage in governance. When the opportunity came by way of external stimuli from the global economy, the dreary settlement responded. Bombay offered the classical conditions of peace, security, and the rule of law, and it did this far better than its competitors. No one has expressed this better than its first Governor, Gerald Aungier, when he promised Bombay s inhabitants equality before the law and justice without fear, favour, in respect of persons . In a moving speech quoted by Mariam Dossal in Theatre of Conflict, City of Hope: Mumbai 1660 to Present Times , Aungier gave this advice to the first judge appointed in Bombay in 1672:
The inhabitants of this Island consist of several Nations and Religions to wit-English, Portuguese and other Christians, Moores, and Jentue, but you, when you sit in this seat of Justice and Judgement, must looke upon them with one single eye as I doe, without distinction of Nation or Religion, for they . . . have all an equal title and right to Justice and you must doe them all Justice, even the meanest person of the Island, and in particular the Poore, the Orphan, the Widow and the stranger . . .
Bombay also offered a great natural harbour with miles upon miles of deep, sheltered water, perfect for big ships. It had a vigorous naval police to safeguard commercial vessels from pirates on the high seas. It had the Mayor s Court, which enforced contracts between merchants of all races. The traditional Indian Bania appreciated the British conception of individual legal responsibility, which limited his financial liability only to himse