1. Parts of this chapter were previously published in Rudner (1989). [BACK]

2. For the classic statement of the nationalist argument, see Dutt (1950). For more modern versions and also for historians favoring one or another version of Western modernization theory, see Morris (1969). [BACK]

3. Other noteworthy studies that do address Indian commercial institutions include Habib (1960, 1969, 1982), Leonard (1979), and Das Gupta and Pearson (1987). [BACK]

4. For contemporary ethnographic accounts of capitalist exploitation of peasant farmers by moneylenders, see Breman (1974), Gough (1981), J. Harriss (1982), and Mencher (1978). [BACK]

5. I derived the ratio of British to Indian credit by comparing Vakil and Muranjan's (1927: 532) figures for loans and investments made by Madras Presidency and British exchange banks with those made by Indian joint stock banks. If a comparison of total deposits is made, the ratio is even higher: eight to one.

6. "Statement Exhibiting the Moral and Material Progress and Condition of India during the Year 1901-02, and the Nine Preceding Years" (Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers 1903 XLVI: 146-148, quoted in Bagchi 1972: 62). [BACK]

7. Evidence of the Nattukottai Nagarathars' Association and of C. A. C. Kasinathan Chettiar (MPBEC 1930 I: 101-118, quoted in Bagchi 1972: 207). [BACK]

8. In fact, Bagchi's (1972) argument stresses the collusive cooperation between British economic interests and colonial political authorities. But within this argument he accepts the colonial vision of India's financial underdevelopment. The actual availability of credit to Indian entrepreneurs would in fact underscore his primary argument about British monopolization of opportunities for industrial investment (see also Ray 1979). [BACK]

9. There are wide extremes of scholarly opinion regarding the exploitative nature of postulated jajmani systems. Some authors see them as ensuring a more or less egalitarian distribution of communal goods and services (Wiser 1936; Wiser and Wiser 1969). Others see jajmani as an overtly exploitative institution, operating with particular rigor against the interests of landless laboring castes (Breman 1974; Gould 1964; Orenstein 1962). For more recent "cultural" accounts, see Commander (1983), Fuller (1989), Good (1982), and Raheja (1988). [BACK]

10. By excess profits I here mean those above and beyond the amount required for subsistence and interest payments on back loans. [BACK]

11. As many as 90 percent of all loans to peasant farmers in Madras were made by a small number of wealthy peasants (see Nicholson 1895: 230; MPBEC 1930: 79). Washbrook (1981: 73) estimates that this rural elite made up no more than 2-4 percent of the landowning population. See also Baker (1984), Bayly (1981), Murton (1973), Musgrave (1978), and Washbrook (1973). [BACK]

12. For analyses of Indian bazaars see, for example, Fanselow (1986); Fox (1969), Hazelhurst (1966), Mines (1972), and Ostor (1984). See also Geertz (1963, 1979) for two influential essays on bazaar economy outside the Indian context. [BACK]

13. In other regards, the difference in focus between moneylenders in village settings and in market towns is significant. Barbara Harriss (1981), for example, sees village moneylenders as potential entrepreneurs, or at least as stimulating studies which portray them as entrepreneurs to the extent that they shift their investments away from villages and into towns. At the same time, Harriss finds that studies of money lending in market towns—that is, studies of bazaar economy—portray moneylenders not as entrepreneurs but as "powerless agents of stagnation" (B. Harriss 1981: 5-12). [BACK]

14. For studies of Saurastra, see Spodek (1976). For Gujarat, see Das Gupta (1979), Dobbin (1972), Gopal (1976), Haynes (1991), Morris

(1965), Pearson (1976). For the Malabar Coast, see Das Gupta (1967). For the southern Coromandal, see Appadurai (1974), Arasaratnam (1986), Basu (1982), Brennig (1977), Furber (1951), Raychaudhuri (1962), Suntharalingam (1974). For Golconda, see Siddiqui (1956). For all of southern India, see Subrahmanyam (1990). For India in general, see Chaudhuri (1978, 1985). [BACK]

15. I exclude recent work on commercial activity in the medieval period (ca. 900-1500), including Hall's (1980) work on marketing towns in Chola, South India, 900-1200; Abraham's (1988) work on medieval merchant guilds in the same period; and Mines' (1984) and Ramaswamy's (1985) work on medieval weaving communities. This important body of Indian historiography has obvious relevance for the arguments in the present book, but an adequate evaluation of its significance for the colonial period must await another opportunity. [BACK]

16. Baker's (1984) study of colonial and independent Tamil economy would also seem to call for comment, since it focuses explicitly on economic issues. But the overall orientation of his work bears more on issues in microeconomics than on the sociocultural issues that inform Bayly's (1983), Subrahmanyam's (1990), and my own work. To the extent that he does address such issues, Baker (1984: 282) explicitly mentions collective Nakarattar institutions that facilitated their emergence as a major commercial group in Tamil Nadu. He speculates that such institutions evolved in response to nineteenth-century economic conditions. But he does not describe them in detail, and he does not describe the pre-nineteenth-century institutions from which they evolved. [BACK]

17. In the text leading up to his conclusion, Bayly (1978) discusses two forms of caste organization: chaudhries of endogamous ritual units—"castes" or " jatis "—which, ''though they might consist of tradesmen were not chaudhries of trades," and chaudhries , which "exercised authority over both the economic and ritual life of trades where the 'guild' and 'caste' ( jati level) were coterminous" (181). Both of these organizations were integrated within a commercial system that also included organizations structured independently of caste. [BACK]

18. Arasaratnam's (1971) paper on three Tamil kingdoms represents a partial exception to historiographic blindness beyond the coastal margins. But even here, the focus on interior regions of South India emphasizes political rather than commercial organization. More recently, Subrahmanyam (1990) has attempted to remedy the omission, giving special attention precisely to inland commerce. This exceptional work represents the most comprehensive study to date and goes a long way toward remedying the kinds of omissions I have been describing. It also provides evidence of the difficulty in obtaining data about inland commerce relative to the availability of data for the coastal areas—a difficulty that no doubt contributes to the historiographic bias for coastal studies. Thus, even when

Subrahmanyam focuses on inland commerce, the inland merchants he highlights figure prominently in Indo-European commerce and are characterized by important political ties to Indian kings and European trading companies. See, for example, his treatment of a powerful family of Balija Chettis (1990: 300-314). [BACK]

19. On commercial actors before 1900, see, for example, Arasaratnam (1966, 1967, 1968, 1971, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1986), Brennig (1977), and Subrahmanyam (1990). [BACK]

21. My interpretation that there was little change in the dominant role of elite merchants since the seventeenth century differs from that of Arasaratnam (1979) and Brennig (1977), both of whom see the eighteenth-century dubash system as distinctly different from the preceding organization of merchants headed by "chief merchants." [BACK]

22. See discussion of Washbrook (1975, 1984) on caste in the preceding chapter. [BACK]

23. Moreover, Subrahmanyam's (1990) focus extends to Muslim merchants as well as Hindu merchants. [BACK]

24. Subrahmanyam (1990: 298-300) aligns himself on this issue with Arasaratnam (1986) and a Dutch author, H. W. van Santen, against Pearson (1976, 1987) and Chaudhuri (1985). He does, however, qualify this position geographically, leaving open the possibility that the situation in Southeastern India differed from that in Southwestern India, as described by Pearson (1976). [BACK]