1. For arguments that systematically examine the character and impact of law during the colonial period, see David A. Washbrook, "Law, State and Agrarian Society in Colonial India." For the role of British policy in reinforcing caste and community in an urban setting, see Frank Conlon, "Caste, Community and Colonialism: The Elements of Population Recruitment and Urban Rule in British Bombay, 1665-1830."

2. F. G. Bailey, Gifts and Poison: The Politics of Reputation, pp. 4-8. The term "moral community" has been used with great profit by C. A. Bayly in "Indian Merchants in a 'Traditional' Setting," pp. 185-87, though the application of Bailey's notion here is somewhat different than in Bayly's essay.

3. Bertocci, "Models of Solidarity, Structures of Power," pp. 97-126; C. Wright Mills, "Situated Actions and Vocabularies of Motive."

4. While I use jnati here as a rough equivalent for jati (endogamous unit of the caste system) in other areas of India, it must be recognized that in Gujarati the term refers to caste on many levels. It is also difficult to define the endogamous unit in the region neatly, since only the broadest of these levels approaches perfect endogamy. For the complexity of the caste system in urban Gujarat, and the difficulty of defining the endogamous unit, see A. M. Shah, "Division and Hierarchy." Shah suggests that in Gujarat there is no single endogamous unit but "several units of various orders with defined roles in endogamy."

5. Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, vol. 9, pt. 1 (hereafter Bombay Gazetteer ), p. xiv; Surat Gazetteer, p. 319, gives these figures by caste in 1872: 8,988 Brahmans, 11,559 Vaniyas, 3,717 Shravaks (Jains), 420 Kayasths, and several hundred members of other high castes.

6. Shah, "Division and Hierarchy."

7. Dhansingh Thakorsingh, "Suratno Prachin Itihas," vol. 2, provides a street-by-street breakdown of the castes and occupations of Surti residents. The pattern of residence in 1935 corresponds closely to that suggested for the eighteenth century by Das Gupta in Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, pp. 31-33.

8. Govindbhai Desai, Hindu Families in Gujarat, pp. 18-19, 181-82, discusses the overlap between Jain and Hindu social forms in Gujarat. Unfortunately, historians have never probed very far in discussing the cultural interaction between Jains and Hindus in the region.

9. This corresponds to Das Gupta's findings for the eighteenth century. Personal communication, 1981.

10. For the case of Thakordas Balmukandas Modi, who worked as a clerk in the firm of Atmaram Bhukan before becoming a prosperous cotton merchant and a major philanthropist, see I. I. Desai, Surat Sonani Murat, pt. 3, p. 204. For Naginchand Jhaverchand, see GM, 31 March 1918, pp. 12-13.

11. This discussion is indebted to C. A. Bayly, "Old-Style Merchants and Risk," and Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, chap. 10.

12. GM, 24 April 1890, p. 385.

13. For a discussion of dharma among the Vaishnavas in Gujarat that pays some attention to the flexibility of the concept, see N. A. Thoothi, The Vaishnavas of Gujarat, chap. 2.

14. The most important work on the ideology of Brahmanical Hinduism is Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus. Ronald Inden, Marriage and Rank in Bengali Culture, provides a case study on the ideology of caste in a specific regional and historical context.

15. For Jain philosophy, see Padmanabh S. Jaini, The Jaina Path of Purification; Dayanand Bhargava, Jaina Ethics. For sociological approaches to the Jains, see Marcus J. Banks, "Defining Division"; and Vilas Adinath Sangave, Jaina Community, esp. pp. 64-85, 194-298, 313-73.

16. For Gujarati Vaishnava belief, see Thoothi, The Vaishnavas of Gujarat, esp. chap. 5; for an anthropological study of Gujarati Vaishnava belief and practice, see David F. Pocock, Mind, Body and Wealth.

17. Gokhale describes the Vaniya life-style in seventeenth-century Surat in Surat in the Seventeenth Century, pp. 35-45.

18. See Edalji Barjorji Patel, Suratni Tavarikh, for early information on the panjrapol.

19. For this point, I am grateful to discussions with Hanna Papanek.

20. Bombay Gazetteer, vol. 9, pt. 1, p. 72.

21. Ibid., passim; Surat Gazetteer, p. 183-84.

22. For the notion of "symbolic capital," see Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, p. 195.

23. Thakorsingh, "Suratno Prachin Itihas," vol. 2.

24. I. I. Desai, Surat Sonani Murat, pt. 3, p. 203.

25. Ibid., pt. 1, p. 134; Thakorsingh, "Suratno Prachin Itihas," vol. 1, p. 232.

26. I. I. Desai, Surat Sonani Murat, pt. 3, p. 143.

27. See pp. 121-26.

28. See, e.g., Bayly, "Old Style Merchants and Risk," and Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, chap. 10; Susan Nield Basu, "Pachaiyyappa Mudaliar"; David West Rudner, "Religious Gifting and Inland Commerce in Seventeenth-Century South India"; Susan Lewandowski, "Merchants and Kingship."

29. Though Bayly's work on northern India suggests the existence of powerful cross-caste merchant organizations there as well. See "Indian Merchants in a 'Traditional' Setting," and Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, pp. 174-83.

30. Shirin Mehta, "The Mahajans and the Business Communities of Ahmedabad," p. 182.

31. William Foster and Charles Fawcett, eds., English Factories in India, 1668-9, 13:190-92, 205; M. N. Pearson, Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat, p. 122; Sushil Chaudhury, "The Gujarati Mahajans." See also chap. 5. Less concrete evidence suggests the existence of these organizations several decades earlier; see Pearson, Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat, p. 125.

32. Das Gupta, Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, p. 87, and "Indian Merchants in the Age of Partnership," pp. 35-36.

33. Tripathi and Mehta, "Class Character of the Gujarati Business Community"; Pearson, Merchants and Rulers of India, p. 123.

34. GM, 16 November 1913, p. 3.

35. GM, 15 October 1899, pp. 3-4.

36. Hopkins, "Ancient and Modern Hindu Guilds."

37. GM, 16 November 1913, p. 3.

38. Hopkins, "Ancient and Modern Hindu Guilds," p. 188.

39. Ibid., p. 195.

40. Ibid., p. 189.

41. Ibid., p. 193.

42. Das Gupta, Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, pp. 87-88n.

43. GM, 15 October 1899, pp. 3-4.

44. Hopkins, "Ancient and Modern Hindu Guilds," p. 191.

45. Ibid., p. 193

46. Pearson, Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat, pp. 123-24; Hopkins, "Ancient and Modern Hindu Guilds," p. 180.

47. GM, 3 March 1912, p. 18.

48. GM, 10 August 1902, p. 11; 23 August 1903, p. 6. For the Nagarsheth Family, see I. I. Desai, Surat Sonani Murat, pt. 3, pp. 209-14.

49. Surat Sonani Murat, pt. 3, pp. 207-8.

50. For newspaper accounts of Mahajan meetings, see GM, 30 September 1900, p. 16; 14 October 1900, p. 8; 9 December 1906, p. 3.

51. Hopkins, "Ancient and Modern Hindu Guilds," p. 180.

52. Ibid.

53. GM, 30 September 1900, p. 16.

54. At times the competition to feed the mahajan was considerable. See GM, 8 April 1906, p. 3.

55. GM, 18 February 1912, p. 3.

56. GM, 1 April 1906, p. 4; 24 April 1910, p. 11; 8 May 1910, p. 7.

57. GM, 30 September 1900, p. 16; 14 October 1900, p. 8.

58. Das Gupta, Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, p. 69.

59. M. K. Gandhi, An Autobiography, p. 40.

60. GM, 8 April 1906, p. 3.

61. GM, 30 September 1900, p. 16; 14 October 1900, p. 8.

62. GM, 17 September 1899, p. 15; 1 July 1900, p. 8; 28 January 1900, p. 2.

63. E. P. Thompson, "The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century."

64. The 1795 protest has been examined in great depth by Subramanian, "Capital and Crowd in a Declining Asian Port." For the protest of 1848, see

Source Material for a History of the Freedom Movement; on the 1891 protest, see GM, 22 February 1891, pp. 196-98.

65. Bombay Gazetteer, vol. 9, pt. 1, p. xiv. Thakorsingh, "Suratno Prachin Itihas," vol. 2, passim.

66. Harry Borradaile, Borradaile's Gujarat Caste Rules. Many of these castes no longer accept the names by which they were known in the late nineteenth century. The Golas, for instance, are now called the Ranas; the Kanbis term themselves Patidars. As far as I have been able to determine, these names were not in general use in Surat before World War I.

67. For instance, see Bombay Gazetteer, vol. 9, pt. 1, p. xiv. Interviews with contemporary residents strengthened these impressions.

68. Thakorsingh, "Suratno Prachin Itihas," vol. 2, passim.

69. See A Report of the Surat Riot Case with Opinion of the Local Press.

70. GM, 16 September 1906, pp. 2, 12.

71. Bombay State, Source Material for a History of the Freedom Movement, p. 12.

72. Haynes, "The Dynamics of Continuity in Indian Domestic Industry."

73. Bombay Gazetteer, vol. 9, pt. 1, p. 183.

74. For a similar argument, see Gyan Prakash, "Becoming a Bhuniya."

75. A. B. Trivedi, "The Gold Thread Industry of Surat."

76. Hopkins, "Ancient and Modern Hindu Guilds," pp. 193-97; Thoothi, Vaishnavas of Gujarat, p. 192.

77. Thoothi, Vaishnavas of Gujarat, pp. 126-30; Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency: Gujarat, vol. 4, Ahmedabad (hereafter Ahmedabad Gazetteer ), p. 112.

78. Surat Gazetteer, p. 321; see also Hopkins, "Ancient and Modern Hindu Guilds," p. 192.

79. In 1906, members of a Bhavsar jnati living in Sagrampura, traditionally dyers of cloth, appealed in court that the headman's monopolization of caste vessels was unfair, arguing that all members should have the right to use the vessels. GM, 12 July 1906, p. 13. The position of the headman was supported in court.

80. GM, 16 September 1906, pp. 2, 12.

81. GM, 20 November 1910, pp. 10-11.

82. In a memorandum, Frederick Lely, once a district officer in Surat, wrote: "When I was Collector of Surat, the Hindu Ghanchis made a caste-law that the drinking of liquor at their feasts be stopped. It was a common notoriety at the time that the Government contractor of the district, or his agent, when they came to know of this, bribed the caste leaders by offer of free liquor and otherwise to abandon their position." "Memorandum by the Hon. F. S. P. Lely, 10 Jan. 1904," in BA, RD, 1905, vol. 9, comp. 729, p. 209.

83. Satish C. Misra, Muslim Communities in Gujarat, esp. chaps. 6 and 7.

84. Das Gupta, Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, pp. 75-77; N. Benjamin, "Arab Merchants of Bombay and Surat (c. 1800-1840)," demonstrates that Arab merchants were still important participants in the trade of western India in the early nineteenth century. By the mid-nineteenth century, there seem to have been few Arab merchants remaining in the city.

85. Bela was a small principality in the Deccan. In the late nineteenth cen-

tury, the nawab of this kingdom married one of the daughters of the Nawab of Surat and moved to the city. The so-called Nawab of Surat was not a direct descendent in the male line from the old rulers of the city but had established ties with the immediate family of the Nawab through intermarriage. See Desai, Surat Sonani Murat, pt. 3, pp. 245-47.

86. For a discussion of the Muslim communities of Gujarat, see Bombay Gazetteer, vol. 9, pt. 2; Misra, Muslim Communities of Gujarat; for residential patterns in Surat, Thakorsingh, "Suratno Prachin Itihas," vol. 2.

87. For sharif culture, see Lelyveld, Aligarh's First Generation, pp. 24-26, 35-36.

88. For a short description of the Mughal aristocracy's way of life in Surat during the seventeenth century, see Gokhale, Surat in the Seventeenth Century, pp. 53-54.

89. Desai, Surat Sonani Murat, vol. 1, p. 17; Surat Gazetteer, pp. 157, 188; Das Gupta, Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, p. 35; GM, 12 August 1906, pp. 16.3, 16.4.

90. "Letter from Nawab to Chief of English Factory at Surat," in BA, Surat Factory Diary 33 (1795): 360.

91. Abdul Kadir Kafiz Nuruddin and Sharafuddin N. Sharaf, The Patani Co-operative Credit Society Souvenir, pp. 83-87.

92. SMR, 1873, p. 19.

93. Ali Ashgar Engineer, The Bohras, pp. 152, 161; Bombay Gazetteer, vol. 9, pt. 2, p. 28; Karim Muhammad Master, Mahagujaratna Musalmano, pp. 133, 143; Mianbhai Mulla Abdul Husain, Gulzare Daudi for the Bohras of India, pp. 87-89.

94. For the nature of the Bohra theology, see Engineer, The Bohras, pp. 36-61; Misra, Muslim Communities in Gujarat, pp. 14-19.

95. Engineer, The Bohras, pp. 117-22, 135; S. C. Misra, Muslim Communities of Gujarat, chap. 2, passim; Theodore P. Wright, Jr., "Competitive Modernization within the Daudi Bohra Sect of Muslims and Its Significance for Indian Political Development," p. 153.

96. Engineer, The Bohras, pp. 159-61.

97. Henry G. Briggs, The Cities of Gujarashtra, p. 47.

98. Engineer, The Bohras, pp. 28, 156-59.

99. Bombay Gazetteer, vol. 9, pt. 2, p. 32.

100. GM, 5 July 1903, p. 18; 27 December 1903, p. 15.

101. Surat Gazetteer, p. 319.

102. David L. White, "Parsis in the Commercial World of Western India, 1700-1750." For the case of Rustomji Manekji, see Das Gupta, Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, p. 81; also I. I. Desai, Surat Sonani Murat, pt. 3, pp. 240-42.

103. Gordon, Businessmen and Politics, pp. 49-50; Christine Dobbin, Urban Leadership in Western India; esp. pp. 2-3; Dosabhai Framji Karaka, History of the Parsis, 2:47-145; Delphine Menant, The Parsis of India, 1:71-89, passim.

104. I. I. Desai, Surat Sonani Murat, pt. 3, pp. 234-38; for one important family which made the transition from commerce to government service, see Karaka, History of the Parsis, pp. 21-23.

105. Ovington, A Voyage to Surat, p. 218.

106. Karaka, History of the Parsis, 1:205; for an explanation of Parsi philanthropic traditions, see two essays by White, ''Parsis in the Commercial World of Western India," and "Eighteenth-Century Parsi Philanthropy."

107. Karaka, History of the Parsis, 2:8-39.

108. For the Parsi Panchayat of Bombay, see Conlon, "Caste, Community and Colonialism," pp. 196-98; James Masselos, Toward Nationalism; Karaka, History of the Parsis, 1:205-42; Dobbin, Urban Leadership in Western India, pp. 99-112; Henry G. Briggs, The Parsis, or the Modern Zerdusthians.

109. Bombay Gazetteer, vol. 9, pt. 2, p. 244.

110. Karaka, History of the Parsis, 2:19-20; also Robert Laming, Representative Men of the Bombay Presidency, p. 116.