Book Review: D.K. Taknet,The Marwari Heritage

About 65 years ago, D.R. Gadgil, a most respected scholar of his times, attributed the rise of capitalistic enterprises in India to the exploits of what he called business communities. Though Gadgil made this observation in a proposal for further research which never got completed, many others following his lead accepted it as an established thesis. The fact, however, is that the Marwaris are the only one in Gadgil’s list who are a purely business community; all others—Gujarati, Parsee, Punjabi and so on—stand for both a business group and a regional, linguistic, social or cultural collectivity. Even the Chettiars, generally considered to be the Marwaris’ counterpart in South India, connote a caste group as well as an occupational category. True, within Rajasthan itself the term has a regional connotation signifying persons belonging to Marwar region of the state, but in the rest of the country it represents all Rajasthanis, irrespective of caste background, who are engaged in some kind of business. This is because it is the business explorers from Marwar, the dry and thinly populated region of Rajasthan, who showed the way to seek fortunes elsewhere. Calcutta became their stronghold, but other areas too with business potential attracted their attention. The result was that much before independence, the Rajasthani diaspora, all called Marwari irrespective of their place of origin, had become an all-India phenomenon.

Trade, brokerage, speculation and offering services to expatriate firms as middlemen, called banias, were their preferred lines of business in colonial India. A few daring spirits had registered impressive presence on the industrial front as well, but their number was limited. After independence, however, a large number of Marwaris entered the industry either through promoting new enterprises or by acquiring on-going concerns particularly those controlled by the expatriate elements who found it difficult to cope with new business environment. The result was that the Marwaris shed off the traders’ tag that had been long attached to them. Their transition from petty trading to impressive individual empires has been one of the most exciting chapters in the business history of free India.

It is a rather unsavoury reflection on the state of historical research in India that such a significant development has been either ignored altogether or treated only perfunctorily. The volume under review should be seen against this backdrop. Though meant to be a coffee-table book, it goes much beyond its stated objective. Like all coffee-table books, it seeks to educate the reader about its subject matters primarily through pictures with appropriate captions. But as a backup to the pictures, it also has a comprehensive text written by D.K. Taknet who, with his previous work on the Marwaris, has impeccable credentials for the job. After giving a brief account of the state of business in ancient and medieval times, the author describes in great detail how the merchants and traders from Marwar, and to a lesser extent from other places in Rajasthan, moved to other parts of India in search of business opportunities while continuing to maintain links with their homeland. They also retained their distinctive lifestyle and social, cultural and linguistic ties among them. This was a perfectly natural reaction to the hazards of living in unfamiliar lands. The result was the rise of Marwari ghettos in particularly all major business centres in the country. Although the author seems to suggest that the rise of the British power in India had an adverse impact on the fortunes of the Marwari traders, his own account indicates that the expansion of the British hegemony and the infrastructure developments that occurred in its wake facilitated the Marwari spread and business consolidation in the subcontinent. And by the time the British departed from the scene, the Marwaris had developed sufficient strength to emerge as a most powerful group on the business horizons of independent India.

The text provides a competent and comprehensive account of this transition. Particularly interesting are the case studies given in special boxes of prominent Marwari houses, such as the house of Jagat Seths, Mirzamal Poddar, Govindram, Seksaria, Seth Dulichand Kakrania, Jamnalal Bajaj, Bhaghirath Kanoria and many others. A most valuable section is on the business exploits of Marwaris, who have emerged on the national, even international scene, in recent years. Prominent among them are Anil Agrawal of Vedanta Resources and Strategic Industries; Bhavarlal Jain, the founder of the Jain Irrigation Systems that pioneered the concept of micro-irrigation; Laxmi Niwas Mittal, the head of the largest steel company in the world, ArcelorMittal; Manish Kejariwal, one of the founders of private equity firm, Kedaar Capital; Narendra Kumar Baldota, the head of a group of companies with diverse business interests in iron ore, wind power, steel, shipping, aviation, chemicals and exploration of minerals; Navratan Kothari, one of the largest distributors of coloured gemstones and diamonds in the world; and Kamal Morarka who successfully combines political and business interests.

Along with the business side, the volume also draws attention to the Marwari contribution to the political and social life of the country. We have had some knowledge of the Marwari support to Mahatma Gandhi and the causes he championed. But it is not generally known that Marwari support to freedom movement started as early as the revolt of 1857 and continued until the end of the British rule. As for the Marwari support to social and religious causes, a whole chapter, ‘Marwari Art of Living’, has been devoted to it.

A major criterion to judge a coffee-table book is the quality of illustrations and the manner in which they are managed. The volume reflects a signal success in this respect. Not a single page in this 500-and-odd-page tome is without some illustrations reflecting manners, ways of living, social and business practices and money power of the Marwaris. Printed on matt art paper, the pictures are so systematically arranged and so well captioned that a reader can easily get a clear sense of the book by just looking at them, even without reading the full text. The appendices given at the end of the book serve a similar purpose. One of them listing the caste groups constituting the Marwari community shows how diverse is the social composition. Although four castes—Agarwal, Maheshwari, Oswal and Khandelwal—dominate the list, it includes three Brahman families as well. Another appendix provides a comprehensive list of Marwaris with signal achievements in various fields.

The volume, however, is not without a few blemishes. Under a picture of Gandhi with Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, popularly known as Frontier Gandhi, on page 165, the caption is ‘Mahatma Gandhi with Maulana Abdul Kalam, the Frontier Gandhi’ and on page 177, the name of Lala Lajpat Rai, who was a Punjabi Khatri, has been included in the list of Marwari freedom fighters. But such minor lapses are few and far between. On the whole, The Marwari Heritage is a signal contribution to the study of the evolution and accomplishment of one of the most successful business communities of India.