About The Book
The Nattukottai Chettiars were the most prominent traditional business community from the Tamil region. Their enterprising spirit led many of them to seek their fortunes overseas, facing many setbacks and successes along the way, conditioned by contemporary historical circumstances. Trust, alongside risk and courage, was central to the entire saga of the Chettiar wealth generation. The lynchpin of their overseas business was the unique intra-community banking structure they developed. Over time, the breakdown of the old business and social networks led to a great deal of transformation and diversification within the community. In a sense, their story is a thread that connects south India, Burma and Southeast Asia across the Bay of Bengal. It is equally one that spans the British imperial era and that of the modern nation state. This book provides valuable lessons for students of history and business, and modern entrepreneurs. It underlines the perils of over-commitment to a single line of activity, and the importance of gauging the economic winds of change and diversifying into emerging and promising investment sectors when such opportunities arise.
RAMAN MAHADEVAN is a senior economic and business historian. His scholarly contribution lies in the broad area of industrial and capitalist development in colonial south India. He has co-edited Shaping India: Economic Change in Historical Perspective (2011) and The South Indian Economy: Agrarian Change, Industrial Structure and State Policy, c. 1914-47 (1991). Now an independent scholar, he is based in Bengaluru.
Introduction
The region popularly known today as Chettinadu sprawls across Ramanathapuram district, a most backward district, and the former princely state of Pudukkottai, in southern Tamil Nadu. Its vast, arid and dusty flatlands, reminiscent of Marwar and Kutch, have historically been home to the Nattukottai Chettiars, spread over seventy-eight villages and a few small towns. This is where their story of wealth generation began. The inhospitable conditions here provided the impetus for the Chettiars to be inherently mobile and to be drawn to mercantile pursuits. to Even today, visitors Karaikudi, Devakottai, Kanadukathan, Kottaiyur and Pallathur, and even to smaller towns, can find a few mansions and even smaller homes with magnificent inner courtyards, Burma teak and Ceylonese satinwood pillars, door and ceilings, a mix of Italian marble and the local ornamental Athangudi floor tiles, besides Belgian mirrors and stained glass-a testimony to the Chettiars' dynamism as traders and businessmen. These edifices stand out amid the dilapidated homes of the Chettiars in general. Even when I visited these towns in the early 1970s, they presented a sad picture. The once grand mansions were crumbling and stripped of their valuable teak frames and doors and their marble flooring. With most of the Chettiars having moved to urban centres in search of a better life, the dwellings were sparsely populated. It was a vivid reminder of how mercilessly the tide had turned against large sections of the community at some point in the past. Forty years later, when I visited in 2014, the general picture was pretty much unchanged. The few homes of the wealthy still around were being maintained, more as heritage sites to provide tourists a pop glimpse into the Chettiars' history and culture (lately, some of these homes have been converted into boutique hotels, where one can get a feel of the Chettiar culture, especially its traditional cuisine). One is left to imagine what the region was like during its heyday before the 1920s, when incomes from overseas were periodically remitted through the hawala shops in these Chettinadu villages and kept homes and hearths warm. Since the bulk of their capital, close to 70 per cent, was invested in Burma, the unexpected turn of events there and the sheer velocity of changes during and after the Second World War dealt a body blow to the Chettiars' fortunes. The events in Burma had such a destabilizing and unnerving effect on the renowned Chettiar commercial spirit that a majority of the small and medium Chettiar firms became reluctant to continue in their traditional line of business. They were the ones worst hit by the enormous losses incurred in Burma. They were reduced to not only pledging their valuables, but even to stripping their homes of their teak doors and frames, in order to support their families.
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