THE MERCHANT CASTES OF A SMALL TOWN IN RAJASTHAN (a study of business organisation and ideology) CHRISTINE MARGARET COTTAM A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. at the Department of Anthropology and Soci­ ology, School of Oriental and African Studies, London University. ProQuest Number: 10672862 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10672862 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 2 ABSTRACT Certain recent studies of South Asian entrepreneurial acti­ vity have suggested that customary social and cultural const­ raints have prevented positive response to economic develop­ ment programmes. Constraints including the conservative mentality of the traditional merchant castes, over-attention to custom, ritual and status and the prevalence of the joint family in management structures have been regarded as the main inhibitors of rational economic behaviour, leading to the conclusion that externally-directed development pro­ grammes cannot be successful without changes in ideology and behaviour. A focus upon the indigenous concepts of the traditional merchant castes of a market town in Rajasthan and their role in organising business behaviour, suggests that the social and cultural factors inhibiting positivejto a presen­ ted economic opportunity, stimulated in part by external, public sector agencies, are conversely responsible for the dynamism of private enterprise which attracted the attention of the concerned authorities. Thus traditional ideology is negative towards externally directed change> not economic change as such. The entrepreneurial acumen of the private sector indicates a resourceful, adaptive community and externally perceived structural weaknesses in managerial traditions are organi­ sational strengths when viewed in the context of a known social environment where the attitudes of the people are ascertainable. The ambiguity of indigenous concepts permits certain interpretations to prevail at any particular time. This depends upon both internal and external factors and is related to the encapsulating politico-administrative framework. 3 The development of small-scale industry has been accompanied by partial reinterpretation of ideology and the emergence of a new elite entrepreneurial group connected with external political processes. The proble­ matic issues of parallel systems of prestige and status has implications in local systems of leadership, which is reflected in marriage alliances. Concerted, community decision-making is precluded because the interests and independence of the Mahajan family is perceived as endangered. CONTENTS Page Preface 9 INTRODUCTION 16 1. MANDI AND ITS REGION 37 2. THE SOCIAL CONTOURS 73 3. THE ECONOMIC CONTOURS 100 4. THE MERCHANT COMMUNITY 128 5. INDIGENOUS BUSINESS IDEOLOGY 166 6. BUSINESS ORGANISATION 203 7. THE MERCHANT FAMILY 251 8. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND PRIVATE GAIN: AN ANALYSIS 2 95 CONCLUSION 322 Footnotes 338 Bibliography 359 5 TABLES Page 1.1 Trade, commerce and industry, by ranking 40 1.2 Wards and mohallas 6 5 2.1 Decadal variation in population since 1901 74 2.2 Ward-wise distribution of houses and households 75 2.3 Castes and tribes resident in the Notified Area 82 2.4 Traditional occupational specialists, custo­ mary payments and present status 92 3.1 Land values and rents in Mandi 108 3.2 Characteristics of the business property market 112 3.3 Property-letters by caste 113 3.4 Differential control of property between newcomers and residents 114 3.5 Castes of newcomers 116 3.6 Permanent business in Mandi 117 3.7 Caste monopoly of business 120 4.1 Caste segmentation amongst Mahajans in Mandi 131 4.2 Prohibited, permitted and preferred food items 141 6.1 Mandi cooperative: working figures, 1965 207 6.2 Caste composition of the Municipal Board through time 242 7.1 Joint families and multi-businesses 265 7.2 Multi-business families by caste 266 7.3 Successive marriage alliances in an industrial family 287 7.4 Successive marriage alliances in a non­ industrialist family 288 6 MAPS Page 1.1 Land use within the Notified Area 4 2 1.2 Temples, shrines and sacred places 46 1.3 Administrative functions 56 1.4 Wards and mohallas 66 3.1 Industrial and commercial functions 105 DIAGRAMS 5.1 The spatial arrangement of the shop 179 7.1 Examples of complex households 253 7.2 Simplified genealogy of the Patni khandan 2 74 FOR BRIAN In a private debate, the scholar Salih Awami said to Sufi Rahimi: "What you have just said lacks references and proofs through quotations from ancient authority". "Not at all", said Rahimi, "for I have them all here, chapter and verse". The scholar went away, saying, "That was what I wanted to know". The next day he made his famous speech on Rahimi which began: "The lecture which you are about to hear from Sheikh Rahimi lacks conviction. Why, he is so unsure of himself that he has actually adducted (sic) written proofs and authorities to what he says". IDRIES SHAH 9 PREFACE When research was initiated, I had envisaged a period of one year's fieldwork in Madhya Pradesh studying indigenous res­ ponse to economic development, particularly with regard to migration trends. However, soon after arrival in Delhi in late summer, 1974, various events (including widespread riot­ ing in Madhya Pradesh) conspired to alter the focus. Contacts suggested the Shekhawati area of Rajasthan as a more suitable field locale. The region has been characterised by extensive migration movements for many years. The State Government was planning a variety of schemes to attract the Marwaris back to Marwar. The relative scarcity of anthropological research in Rajasthan suggested challenging ethnographic possibilities. Visits to Shekhawati uncovered mercantile out-migration so extensive that certain small towns and villages consist of large empty mansions, guarded by watchmen, and no people. However, in one small market town, not far away from Jaipur, the State Capital, there had been in recent years a sizeable increase in population accompanied by .the development of small scale industries, which the State Government hoped to stimulate. This proved more suitable than anywhere else visi­ ted in preliminary investigations, which included field trips to the south of Rajasthan in the vicinity of Udaipur and Kotah. It was compact, relatively isolated and with a pleas­ ant atmosphere. 'Mandi1 is not the real name of the settlement and it means a market place, especially for food grains. A small town possesses neither the anonymity of the villages nor of the big cities therefore its name has been changed, as have the names of informants and family firms, in order to shield them from possible embarrassment. Administrative and other place names have also been altered in certain circumstances for the same reason. Nonetheless the identity of the town 10 and of key informants can be discovered by determined sleuths. Therefore I have excluded much data which could prove damag­ ing to local people's interests and included nothing which was not common knowledge. If the consequence is that the social unity of the Mahajan (merchant) population acquires an unwarranted precedence as a theme this is regrettable but unavoidable. Perusal of Fox's studies of the Banias of Tezi- bazar (especially Fox, 1969, chapters six and ten) may pro­ vide necessary correctives upon small town politics. Fieldwork was not easy. The climate is harsh and water was always in short supply. Rajasthan at that time was a declared famine area. Food was monotonous, unpalatable,and ,■ scarce. In order to be socially acceptable, my diet could not be supplemented by preserved food of any kind. I returned to England suffering from muscular wastage and an acute, persistent chest infection associated with nutritional dep­ rivation. Living in the field was as gruelling psychologic­ ally as it was physically. The problems of the female anthro­ pologist in a purdha society require their own book. There is no concept in such a society of the 'lone woman1. Several months elapsed before I was judged sufficiently respectable to meet any Mahajan women. The mental stress and anxiety involved in returning to one's own society and culture and re-adjusting to ordinary life after an intense experience arei actually worse than the initial 'culture shock' in the field . I mention these considerations because I fully agree with Lewis (1976, p. 27) that in this type of work the re­ searcher's personality bulks large. Not enough is known, he argues, about the complex interaction between the field- worker and the fieldwork situation, which ought to be taken into account in evaluating reports. Akbar S. Ahmed (1980, p. 18) makes a similar plea, and describes in some detail the difficulties he faced in Waziristan. 11 Quite early in fieldwork.it became apparent that carry­ ing out a formal survey by means of a questionnaire and a statistically representative sample would-be prejudicial to longer term interests. Two kinds of arguments are gener­ ally put forward to show why social anthropologists have not made much use of statistical and quantitative methods in collecting fieldwork material. These are: i) lack of time, absence of adequate documentation, and the need to establish and maintain rapport; ii) the unsuitability of much anthro­ pological material for statistical analysis. Both the diffi­ culty of obtaining the data and the question of its relevance were important.