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2 - Banking in the Bazaar: The Nattukottai Chettiars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2020

By
David Rudner
Edited by
Ajay Gandhi ,
Barbara Harriss-White ,
Douglas E. Haynes  and
Sebastian Schwecke
Ajay Gandhi
Affiliation:
Universiteit Leiden
Barbara Harriss-White
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Douglas E. Haynes
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College, New Hampshire
Sebastian Schwecke
Affiliation:
Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta
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Summary

Under colonial rule, the Nattukottai Chettiar or Nakarattar caste organized themselves into a complex, segmentary network of interdependent family merchant-banking firms. Each firm traded individually in commodities trading, money lending, domestic and overseas banking operations, or industrial investment. But beyond this - making possible every other commercial venture in which it engaged - each family firm operated as a commercial bank: taking money on deposit and drafting hundis and other financial instruments for use in the transfer of loanable capital to branch offices and to other banks. As a result, every Nakarattar firm was tied together with all of the others to form a unified banking system, playing a major role in the credit markets of South Asia and the Indian Ocean rim.

Keywords

accountingbazaarscastecredit marketsinformal bankingmerchant castesNattukottai Chettiars
Type
Chapter
Information
Rethinking Markets in Modern India
Embedded Exchange and Contested Jurisdiction
 , pp. 29 - 53
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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