Institutions marchandes

Makrand Mehta, Gandhi and Ahmedabad, 1915-20, in Economic and Political

Weekly , Jan. 22-28, 2005, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Jan. 22-28,2005), pp. 291+293-299

P 293: « An important feature of Ahmedabad's culture that its wealthy Jain and
Vaishnava bania merchants, who owned substantial commercial capital,
dominated the business and cultural life of the city. They developed the institution
of mahajan which cut across caste and the community lines. This is amply
demonstrated by the fact that the Muslim, Jain and Hindu merchants joined hands
in 1725 in order to express their city from being sacked by Maratha invaders.
These merchants had represented their respective mahajans. 0 On another
occasion (1781), Nagarsheth Nathusha and Muhammad Saleh, the 'patshahi
diwan', made a united effort to save their city from being looted by an English
army, led by General Goddard. They succeeded in making the army chief change
his decision.11 The institutions of mahajan and nagarsheth had evolved a
mechanism of arbitration and conciliation in trade disputes and often they acted
as a buffer between the state and the community performing many of the
functions of the modem government and municipality.”

YAGNIK A. et SHETH S., The Shaping of modern Gujarat, A Penguin Original, 2005

P26-27: « As trade activities expanded and intensified, commercial communities

got stratified and specialized. Vepari was a general term for traders; other
specializations were sharaf (banker or financier), nanavati (moneychanger), dalal
(middleman or broker to traders and bankers as well as between traders and
artisans), marfatia (agent) and adatia (commission agent). Along with these
specializations evolved supporting Systems such as bundi (letters of crédit) and
angadia (courier service which transported cash, documents or precious goods
such as diamonds). As the number of business groups grew and as trade
expanded, traders and artisans organized themselves into autonomous
organizations to regulate trade and traders.

Traders’ organizations hâve existed for over a thousand years. Jain texts of the
Chaulukya period refer to shrenis^ which were groups of artisans and craftsmen.
Another institution was panchkulay a board of five members, nominated by the
State and which included government officers and influentiai merchants of society.
The Pr^bandbacbintamani indicates that the panchkula performed various tasks
such as the collection of pilgrimage tax, supervision of construction work and
enforcemenr of non-slaughter measures. The Anavad inscription from Patan
reveals another institution, the paneba-tnukha- nagara or city council, which was
composed of the local panchkula, the priest and Mahajans which included sadbu
(merchant), sreshti (moneylender), thakura (variously thought

to refer to feudal chief, landowner, merchant), sont (goldsmith), kansara (utensil

manufacturer), vanijyaraka (travelling merchant) and nau-vittaka (shipowner).
According to the inscription, this group met to discuss the issue of additional taxes
on locals by buyers and sellers.

In pre-Chaulukya and Chaulukya times, Mahajan was used both in the sense of
‘great man’ and also as a body representing a group of people engaged in the
same commercial occupation, a governing council with an elected or hereditary
leader. The institution of the Mahajan as we know it now first appeared in the
Mughal period. It was a regulatory body which functioned for the higher économie
strata of merchants, bankers, agents and so on, and usually different commodities
had separate Mahajans, for example, the cloth merchants’ Mahajan or the grain
merchants’ Mahajan. The head of the Mahajan was the sheth and, as the
commercial class of Gujarat was diverse, Mahajans could hâve a varied
membership of Hindus, Jains, Sunni and Shia Muslims of local and foreign origin,
and Parsis. These Mahajans were usually concerned solely with commercial
matters, regulating prices, adjudicating disputes within the occupational group and
representing its members in disputes with other Mahajans or artisan groups. Such
Mahajans existed only in the large cities of Gujarat while in smaller towns and
villages people in the same occupation tended to belong to the same caste and the
caste panchayat regulated commercial matters. The regulatory body for artisans
was called Panch whose head was the patel. The membership of a Panch was
usually coterminous with the jati or occupational caste subdivision as people
practising a craft or skill were invariably of the same caste. Thus in such situations,
the jati panchayat or caste council regulated commercial affairs. We can get a clear
idea of the relative authority of the caste panchayat of the Panch and the Mahajan
from this instance.”
P28: “In the large cities, notably Ahmedabad, Surat and Baroda, was another sort
of Mahajan: a city council headed by the Nagarsheth who was usually a Vaniya,
Jain or Hindu. This was a citywide body on which, theoretically, sat représentatives
of ail the occupational Mahajans and occasionally a few Patels of the artisan
communities as well. In practice only the Vaniya and other upper castes formed
the Mahajan and the lower castes such as Luhars (blacksmiths), Suthars
(carpenters), Golas (threshers) and Ghanchis (oilpressers) were ignored. This
citywide Mahajan fixed rates of work, working hours and wages, decided hohdays
and so on. Jown feasts were organized by the Nagarsheth; he gave the ta 11 for
strikes and ordered the closing of shops on the death of a member of the ruling
house or eminent person.”

P29-30: “Often the Nagarsheth was also the religious head of his community, as in
the case of Virji Vora, who was the head of the Jains of Surat in the seventeenth
century, and Shantidas Jhaveri, who was the head of the Jain community of
Ahmedabad.”

MENNING Garret, Ethnic Enterprise in the Decentralised Textile Industry of Surat,

India

Retenir le terme «  ethnic enterprise  », il constitue à la fois une force sociale et

économique, il existe des réseaux à la fois concurrentiels et complémentaires. Ces
réseaux d’entrepreneurs sont capables de moderniser et d’adapter les méthodes
indigènes pour répondre aux besoins du marché (// Surat qui a émergé en tant que
centre de production industrielle textile  : œuvre de communautés qui n’étaient pas
au départ voué au commerce). les bénéfices de ce réseau informel ne sont pas
donnés à tous les membres, ils sont réservés aux membres dont la probité est
reconnu d’où l’intérêt de se montrer honnête et philanthrope. Ces réseaux
ethniques sont vecteurs de flexibilité et de dynamisme. Son caractère informel le
rend fluide. Ces réseaux de caste semble résister à l’émergence de classes dans une
logique capitalistique. // patronage

The paper explores the role of ethnic networks in the contemporary art silk
industry of Surat, Gujarat, India’s largest production centre of synthetic fabrics. It
is argued that one of the secrets of its success is a system of ethnic
entrepreneurship in which business people rely on informal networks based on
ties of kinship, caste, sect and place of origin. Participation in these flexible
networks gives merchants and manufacturers access to community resources, and
allows them to minimise costs, adapt to market fluctuations and avoid
government restrictions. Examples are given from four business communities to
illustrate how the industry functions.

The deep involvement of distinct cultural communities in creating specific

economic niches is not unique to Surat. Certainly, ethnic enterprises-to use a term
popularised by Ivan Light-are common enough throughout India.2 The fact that
members of particular. castes, sects and geographical regions have historically
tended to excel in business in different areas across India is well-known.3 In recent
decades, a number of historical and anthropological studies of various mercantile
groups in India have emerged. These include the Chettiars’ and Kaikoolars’ in
south India and communities like the Marwaris,‘’ Jains’ and Parsis’ in western
India. Yet ethnic enterprise is not equally important everywhere in India. Rather, it
seems to flourish only under certain socio-economic conditions. In Surat, the
expansion ofthe art silk industry was the result of a favourable confluence of
complementary social and economic forces. Local urban commercial culture and
social organisation have traditionally encouraged and accommodated the activities
of many different communities of artisans and merchants who have been drawn
by the city’s prosperity from all over South Asia. Members of these groups have
successfully applied their traditional craft and mercantile skills to the new
challenges of decentralised industrial manufacture. In other words, social relations
of production based around a system of ethnic enterprise have been fruitfully
linked to a particular physical organisation of manufacture founded upon the
powerloom. The product of this fortunate union has been the booming
contemporary art silk industry

Dalals (brokers) and adatiyas (commission agents) work to expedite the

distribution of yam and cloth throughout the manufacturing sequence.

As the descriptions of the study communities indicate, these ethnic networks are a
source of material capital as well as knowledge, training and social support among
merchants and manufacturers from these groups. By using networks to locate
buyers and suppliers and to recruit employees, they minimise or eliminate the cost
of formal advertising. The exchange of privileged information between co-ethnics
can allow members of particular groups to react quickly to market fluctuations.
Networks of informal contacts can also provide sources of free or low-cost training
and loans to entrepreneurs. Ethnic ties often replace systems of formal rules,
contracts and secular institutions as the primary means of regulating the conduct
of business and supporting its growth. Precisely because these bonds between
business people are based on deep-rooted cultural commonalities and feelings of
shared morality rather than narrow contractual obligations and systems of rules,
they offer many advantages which are often not available from the more formal
educational, financial and legal-bureaucratic structure.

Charitable organisations provide a particularly important form of assistance to

members of each business community.

Among the Memons, there is a Memon Cooperative Bank, which was founded as a
Cooperative Credit Society in 1947.

« Access to community benefits is not guaranteed to all members, however. The

strength of an individual’s ethnic network depends on his community standing as
an honest and moral person. Business people are, therefore, anxious to behave in
public and loathe to risk damaging their reputation within the community.
Although everybody acknowledges that business people are to make money,
merchants and manufacturers are anxious not to appear greedy or insensitive to
the needs of the community at large. In addition to simply appearing as a good
neighbour and an honest person, they often reinvest profits within their ethnic
group to show their altruism, religious devotion and public spirit. Philanthropic
efforts providing support for community institutions are common strategies for
achieving public repute in Surat.

Conversely, if a business person acquires a reputation for cheating, unfair business

practices or other immoral behaviour, he stands to lose the many advantages
accruing from community membership. Ethnic networks are thus an exemplary
means of social control, providing informal devices for regulating business
transactions and punishing cheats that are frequently more effective than legal
contracts and state regulations. While tight community bonds can shield members
from unwanted meddling by government officials and other outsiders, the
informal sanctions exercised within an ethnic group can be every bit as dire as the
controls and punishments imposed by the police and courts. The threat of
isolation and censure swithin the community, therefore, promotes a measure of
accountability among its members. »

METHA Makrand, The Ahmedabad Cotton Textile Industry: Genesis and Growth,
Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 17, No. 45 (Nov. 6, 1982), pp. 1814-1815

La révolution industrielle entraîne la conversion de groupe à vocation commerciale

à l’activité industrielle textile à Ahmedabad dont l’activité commerciale de la ville
était monopolisée par les Vaishnav et les Jain Vania (Bania) qui ont developpé un
système sophistiqué d’institutions bancaires, des guildes commerciales et l’arbitre
de disputes commerciales. Aujourd’hui encore, ils continuent à dominer ce secteur
économique bien que d’autres groupes aient intégré le secteur tels que les Parsis et
les Musulmans.

Les institutions traditionnelles telles que la caste et la religion apportent le soutien

social, communautaire et économique pour encourir les risques d’un lancement
d’un nouveau marché dans le domaine de l’industrie textile. Ces réseaux
«  traditionnels  » ont donc contribué à l’émergence d’une économie moderne.

« Commercial enterprise in the city was monopolised by castes who had

developed a sophisticated system of banking, occupational guilds (mahajans) and
arbitration of economic disputes »

« Although the industry continued (and still continues) to be dominated by the

erstwhile trading com- munities, a large number of new entrepreneurs were from
non-trading castes as well as from the Parsis and the Muslims »

« Indeed, traditional institutions such as caste and religion provided to the

entrepreneur much- needed social and economic support to wade through the
risks involved in the new business. »

NADRI Ghulam, Chapter Title: «  The English and Dutch East India Companies and
Indian merchants in Surat in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Interdependence, competition andbcontestation  », in The Dutch and English
East India Companies  », Adam Clulow and Tristan Mostert, Published by:
Amsterdam University Press, 2018

P 131-132: “The meanings and functions attached to the office of the broker also
changed over the period. Brokering, originally a purely commercial intermediation
aimed at bringing buyers and sellers together and facilitating a smooth transaction
in return for a commission from both sides, had by the mid-seventeenth century
acquired social and political significance.21 It had become a privileged position,
with the result that some merchant families competed to obtain these roles,
sometimes leading to a protracted struggle, as happened between the families of
Tapidas Parekh and a Parsi merchant, Rustamji Manikji, in the early eighteenth
century. The companies too, it seems, preferred to employ different generations
of the same family as their brokers because it ensured stability and longevity for a
relationship that was considered crucial to their success in Asia.”

HEITMEYER Carolyn, Identity and difference in a Muslim community in central

Gujarat – India Following the 2002 Communal Violence, London School of
Economics and Political Science, University of London, 2009

P 154: “As noted by Laidlaw, one’s reputation of ‘creditworthiness’ (to use

Laidlaw’s term) impinges strongly not only on a family’s business alliances but
likewise on potential marriage alliances given that, as Laidlaw goes on to argue,
business practice depends heavily on trust, and a person’s moral conduct and
financial liability are regarded as interdependent. In other words, if a family is seen
to have a bad reputation with regard to the conduct of its women or an
ostentatious lifestyle, such qualities are assumed to also reflect on its
trustworthiness in business alliances.”

Comment les Gujaratis sont devenus les meilleurs entrepreneurs du monde, in

«  Courrier international – The Economist  », n° du 28/01/2016

Les guildes des marchands

« Outre les hasards de la géographie et les impératifs de la religion, les institutions

que sont les mahajan, l'équivalent des guildes européennes, ont concouru à
l'ascension du commerce. Ils se sont développés au début de la période moghole,
au xvi siècle. Ils étaient multiethniques et multireligieux, rassemblant musulmans,
hindous, jaïns [adeptes du jaïnisme, mouvement religieux indien] en une seule et
même classe de commerçants. »

HARDIMAN David, « Usury, Dearth and Famine in Western India », in Past &
Present , Aug., 1996, No. 152 (Aug., 1996), pp. 113-156 Published by: Oxford
University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society

P 119-121: “In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century India, the purchase, storing,

trading and transport of grain took place largely in the sphere of commercial
capital. Unlike in China, the State exercised only a loose control over this sphere,
and did not maintain State granaries or regulate merchants to any great extent.
The trade in grain was dominated by members of mercantile castes and
communities, the most important of which by far was that of the Baniyas.
Members of this and related communities operated their own networks which
stretched from village to State capital. Baniya traders-cum-usurers acquired
agrarian produce from the peasantry and transported it to the towns, keeping
some in private grain-stores (often in the merchants’ own houses), and selling
some on the market. Artisanal manufacturers — notably the large numbers of
handloom weavers who found employment in India — were advanced loans in
cash and kind by dealers, and in return handed over the manufactured product.
Foodstuffs and manufac-tured commodities were transported for sale in large
quantities over long distances in packs on the backs of bullocks, horses and
camels. These animals, normally owned by members of the Banjara mercantile
community, were driven in caravans, often made up of thousands of animals.
Merchants in small towns-maintained banking and credit arrangements with larger
mer¬chants in the cities, with payments being transmitted by bills of exchange.

This allowed for the operation of an elaborate System of credit, in which small
merchant-usurers borrowed capital for their own operations at low rates of
interest, repaying the loans through the sale of the crops or manufactured goods
on which they had a lien. Likewise, the larger town-based merchants and dealers
took loans from bigger city-based bankers, again repaying through the sale of
exported produce.

State rulers and officials worked in close co-operation with this mercantile
structure. The chief form of tax was that on agrarian produce, levied on the
peasant family unit according to either the size of its crop or the amount of land
cultivated. The money to pay this tax was often provided by the village traders-
cum-usurers, with a bill of exchange of equivalent value being handed over to an
official. This was then treated by the usurer as a debt, to be collected from the
peasant family at a later date in cash or kind. The officials took the bills of
exchange to a local town, where they presented them to a larger merchant
banker, who would normally provide a Consolidated bill of exchange which could
in turn be presented to a city banker. These top-level bankers acted as the chief
financiers to rulers, in effect running their financial affairs. By this means, the tax
System operated without the need for the exchange and transport of much actual
cash.15

The chief feature of this System was the close interlinking of usury, banking,
manufacture and the storage and marketing of crops, in particular food-grain. The
occupational term for people engaged in a cluster of such activities was sahukar.
The sahukars who advanced credit to particular peasant families tended to be
clustered in towns and large villages, serving a number of smaller villages round
about. They would normally keep a shop, stocked with grain, cloth, vegetable oil,
salt, ironware and other necessities, which were advanced to their clients — along
with small sums in cash — as and when needed. Larger loans were provided to
cover the State demand for land-tax, and to pay for new livestock or agricultural or
manufacturing equipment, for the celebration of births and marriages, for
mourning at times of death, and for religious rites. In return, clients had to hand
over a large proportion of their produce. The normal practice was for a sahukar to
corme at harvest time with his carts to the threshing- floor used by a client family
and demand that they hand over the greater proportion of the harvested crop. To
maintain their future credit, the family had little choice but to comply. By this
means, the usurers expropriated the fruits of much of their clients’ labour.”

P122: “The occupation of sahukar seems to have emerged around the fourteenth
century, being associated with a growth of trade and a greater extension of State
authority and State taxation under the Delhi sultanate. 19 The State provided full
support for commercial capitalists who advanced loans to peasant and artisan
producers, enabling a great expansion of agriculture and manufacturing to take
place. In return, the sahukars ensured that a proportion of the surplus found its
way into the State coffers.”

P122: “Therefore, although Baniyas were considered “respectable”, there was

also a sharp awareness of the disreputable methods they used to augment their
earnings and accumulate capital.
Baniyas maintained a strong corporate organization, with their own Systems
of self-regulation and self-government through town-based or regional caste
councils. These ensured that members of the caste adhered to a high standard
of business probity in dealing with other Baniyas, as well as conforming to strict
standards of social behaviour, including marrying only within particular
endogamous Baniya sub-castes, avoiding dining with members of other castes,
and observing rigid dietary rules, including abstinence from meat. Because of
this, the Baniyas tended to stand apart from other groups in society. They were
also known for their strong adherence to the Jain religion or the Vallabhacharya
Vaishnavite sect, both faiths that validated the pursuit of wealth while enjoining
charitable behaviour as a means of winning divine merit.”

P123: “In India, by contrast, no stigma was attached to the occupation of

professional usurer. Being closely connected with ruling authority, usurers had
acquired strong cultural validation for their activity. This is reflected in the
etymology of the word sahukar itself, which stems from the words sadhu (“a
good, righteous and holy person”) and kar (“a doer”). Thus the sahukar was “a
doer of good and righteous deeds”, a person who provided “help” to the needy
in the form of loans.23 In Rajasthan and much of north India, the sahukar is also
known as mahajan or “great man”, a title with similar connotations. The
terminology itself thus provided the occupation with a strong stamp of
respectability.
The profession was dominated in western India by members of the Baniya
caste. This caste was indigenous to Gujarat and Rajasthan, where commercial
capital was particularly strongly developed from the fourteenth century
onwards, but was not found very early in Maharashtra, where commerce was
relatively undeveloped before the seventeenth century. Baniyas migrated from
 Gujarat and Rajasthan to Maharashtra from the seventeenth century, and by
the end of the eighteenth century were playing a key role in the expansion of
business and usury there. In Maharashtra, Baniyas were known as “Gujars” if
they came from Gujarat, or “Marwaris” if they came from Rajasthan, as most of
these Rajasthani Baniyas had migrated from the Marwar area of that region.”

P122-124: “The typical Baniya business was a family concern, controlled by a male
head of household. Business ethos and skills were inculcated amongst male
members of the caste from an early age, with boys being required to sit in the
family shop in a subordinate position in order to learn the trade. Baniya women
were not expected to play an active role in the business, and were practically ail
illiterate. Boys were taught to be frugal — and to know how to seize the least
chance to turn a situation to financial advantage. This included various forms of
swindling and short- changing of clients: a feature common to most bazaar-style
markets, in which goods are typically unbranded and sold loose, and where profits
tend to be made by adulteration and short measure rather than by price
competition.”

P125: “Although they dispensed with the services of the large indigenous
commercial bankers and established their own treasuries, the British continued to
depend on local-level usurers to supply the bulk of credit to the peasants. Until
well into the second half of the nineteenth century, colonial tax-collectors often
took the tax directly from the sahukars, who then took the money along with their
own debt-servicing instalments directly from their clients. Although this meant
that the usurers were enriching themselves at the peasants’ expense, the British
did not try to provide any alternative Systems of credit such as government loans,
which were felt to be cumbersome and expensive to operate.”

P126: “The British refused to exercise any such Controls over markets. They were
guided in this by the writings of Adam Smith, who held that high prices in a bad
year were beneficial because they fostered frugality and thrift among consumers,
thus (as it were) acting to ration scarce resources, as well as providing an
incentive to merchants to import grain from elsewhere. 30 In this, there was no
 appreciation of the corporate power of commercial groups such as the Baniyas,
who could control whole regional markets to their advantage with no difficulty at
all if not checked by the State. The implementation of the policy of laissez-faire in
the market — supported if necessary, by the deployment of soldiers and police
to prevent popular disturbance — provided the sahukars with a strong
institutional backing for their profiteering. Not surprisingly, they took full
advantage of this situation.”

MALONI Ruby, « Europeans in Seventeenth Century Gujarat: Presence and

Response », in Social Scientist , Mar. - Apr., 2008, Vol. 36, No. 3/4 (Mar. - Apr.,
2008), pp. 64-99

P72: “superior social stratum in the city. 45 Old established ‘family firms’ of Hindus
and Jains formed influential groups. 46 There were four hundred and nine
Mahajans or merchant guilds in seventeenth century Ahmadabad, which
continued to be prominent in the nineteenth century. The Nagarseth or chief of
merchants was well recognized and respected. Shantidas Javeri was a
contemporary of Virji Vora, the ‘merchant prince’ of Surat. The survival of
institutions like the Nagarseth and Mahajan testify to the resilience of indigenous
mercantile systems. Their pressure tactics on European factors as well as the state
bureaucracy continued into the colonial era. Displeasure was frequently
demonstrated by threatening to migrate to other areas. Highly respected Sarrafi
families of Ahmadabad dealt in Hundis or bills of exchange, acted as army
paymasters and financiers to princes and as farmers of tolls.”

P78-79: “In Surat and Ahmadabad the Dalal or Bania broker was the hero, the
creator of values and the custodian of civic conscience. The term Bania was used
by Europeans to denote all Hindu traders. Contact with artisans was largely
through brokers who arranged matters through the putting out system or ad hoc
purchase of goods, and established links with a wide network of inland production
centres. For the Europeans, these agents were indispensable as they could procure
commodities of the right quality, at the right price and at the right time. The
collection of piece goods for export required an elaborate organization. To ensure
a steady supply, money was advanced to the weavers which was the broker’s
function. Generally brokers employed Gumastas or clerks in the production
centres, to see that the weavers abided by their contract. The English paid a
commission of approximately 3 per cent on all sales and purchases. 81 Along with
the commission, association with Europeans opened up new commercial
connections.”

P79: “them, brokers were much maligned in European records. Helpless in

ignorance, both of language and commercial customs, Europeans were suspicious
of the brokers’ tampering with musters, account and ledger books.”

P81: “Gujarati merchants was quite emphatic. A vertical linkage of common

mercantile and pecuniary interests existed between the government and
merchants. An example is that of Shantidas Javeri who as a jeweller and financier,
was closely connected with the Mughal aristocracy.”

P88: “Language was an instrument in crossing barriers. Pietro della Valle met
some Gujarati merchants who knew fluent Portuguese and an “old Brahmin with
spectacles who explained Pythagorus”. 124 The problem of language necessitated
a dependence of the European traders on brokers. Without them no
transactions were possible with the network of inland production centres. Many
brokers acquired a working knowledge of one or more European languages.
Along the west coast which had become a concourse of different merchants
from different nations, faint traces of the development of a commercial
language can be seen.127 In comparison with other European languages there
was a reasonable degree of acceptance of Portuguese, indicating the impress of
this culture on the indigenous people. In 1609 the English met some local
merchants in Gandevi who spoke in Portuguese.”
MEHTA Makrand, The state of Gujarat economy and business in the XVIIth
century as seen by French travellers, in Les relations historiques et culturelles
entre la France et l’Inde XVIIe-XXe siècles, Acte de la Conférence Internationale,
France Inde, 21-28 juillet 1986, AHIOI

P25: “The Gujarati artisans were hard-working and skillful. They had organized
guilds, but since the artisans' professions were based on castes, their guilds
exercised their authority on the socio-religious issues also (2). The Hindu artisans
came from the lower castes and they were also poor and illiterate. Taking
advantage of their helplessness, the Gujarati merchants ("banians") belonging to
the higher caste strata, exploited them by making advance payment for the
purchase of raw-material. The banian exercised his authority on the artisan
through the mechanism of advance money.”

P26: “The merchants, by and large, were a richer lot. They operated as traders, brokers,
shroffs or currency dealers, bankers, insurance agents, and ship-owners. They would often
combine various functions. As they held large liquid capital they exercised a commanding
position in the domestic and foreign trade. Virji Vora of Surat and Shantidas Zaveri of
Ahmedabad were powerful Jain merchants who often figured in the contemporary
European travel literature as ’’merchant-princes” of India. They were the heads of the
mahajans or the merchant guilds (3). These guilds were profession-based ; the merchants
belonging to heterogeneous socio-religious groups constituted a mahajan to promote their
common interest. Not infrequently the members of different guilds would unite to meet
the exceptional challenges. For instance, in 1618-19 the English and the Dutch pirates
looted Gujarati ships on the Indian Ocean. The Surat Mahajans thereupon, saught co-
operation of the Mughal authority to punish the English and the Dutch resident-merchants
at Surat. At the same time the guilds took the xdecision to stop the supply of textile and
other goods which the English and the Dutch had needed (4). On another occasion (1636),
the Mughal governor of Surat himself took the initiative. He formed a committee of
influential Hindu, Jain and Muslim merchants and government officials to settle an account
with the English who had seized and sacked two Gujarati ships (5).”