A NOTE ON THE BUSINESS COMBINE IN INDIA with Special Reference to the Nattukottai Chettiars 1.

. SHJI IT Article first published online: 6 MAR 2007 Issue DOI: 10.1111/j.1746-1049.1966.tb00484.x

The Developing Economies

Volume 4, Issue 3, pages 367380, September 1966 Additional Information(Show All) How to CitePublication History

* This article is primarily based on the data up to 1963. For this study I am much indebted to Dr. V. Shanmugasundram, Head and Professor of the Department of Economics, University of Madras for his kind guidance and encouragement, especially when I was his student there between 1961 and 1963.

Abstract
The history and present position of the business combines controlled by members of the Nattukottai Chettiar community in southern India have not been elucidated so far. Their business combines have many aspects common to the well-known business combines of northern India. But they possess distinct peculiarities relating to the leaders' characteristics. Through analysis of these peculiarities the present writer insists that there have been some defects in viewpoints and methodologies of the studies done so far on Indian business combines. Footnotes

1 The Nattukottai Chettiar (or Chettyar) caste is the distinctive sub-caste of the Chetti (or Chetty) caste in southern India which is again a sub-division of the Vaisha order. 2 Edgar Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Madras Government Press, 1909; W. Francis, Madras District Gazetteer, Madras Government Press, 1906, etc. 3 The Madras Province Banking Enquiry Committee Report, 1930; V. Krishnan, Indigenous Banking in South India, The Bombay State Cooperative Union, 1957; L. C. Jain, Indigenous Banking in India, London, Macmillan, 1929, etc. 4 Phillip Siegelman, Colonial Development and the Chettyar: A Study in the Ecology of Modern Burma, 18501941, University of Minnesota Ph. D. Thesis (University Microfilm Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan), 1962; J. S. Furnival, Colonial Policy and Practice, New York, New York University Press, 1956; John F. Cady, A History of Modern Burma, New York,

Cornell University Press, 1958; U Tun Wai, Burma's Currency and Credit, Calcutta, Orient Longmans Ltd., 1953; etc., etc. 5 Shǒji Itǒ, Indo no Chǔshǒ Zaibatsu no Sǒsei to GenjǒChetia no Baai (The Rise, Development, and Present Condition of the Smaller Financial Groups in India), Parts I and II, Ajia Keizai, Vol. V, Nos. 1112 (November-December, 1964). 6 The report of the so-called Mahalanobis Committee, which was charged with the task of looking into the concentration of economic power in India, deals with as many as 25 large and small business combines, but not one of the business combines of the Nattukottai Chettiars is included. (Report of the Committee on Distribution of Income and Levels of Living, Part I: Distribution of Income and Wealth and Concentration of Economic Power, Planning Commission, New Delhi, February, 1964.) All that is available even in the recent so-called Monopoly Commission Report (Report of the Monopoly Inquiry Commission, New Delhi, 1965) is the simple information regarding two Nattukottai Chettiars combines. 7 L. C. Jain, p. 30. 8 V. Krishnan, p. 31. 9 The Madras Banking Enquiry Committee Report, Vol. I, pp. 185 ff. 10 M. S. Natrajan, A Study of the Capital Market of Madras Presidency, Calcutta, 1936. 11 The indigenous bankers are a separate entity intermediate in nature and scale of operation between the money-lenders and the joint-stock bankers. The carry on all the business of a modern bank, but their scale of operation is small, and the form of the enterprise is that of the traditional firm. For details, see L. C. Jain, op. cit., etc. 12 Phillip Siegelman, op. cit. (microfilm), Chapter VII. 13 With the Chettis every married member is supposed to live on his own, with Vaishas all the married members live a common lifeall benefiting in the gain and suffering in the loss that befalls to any individual member. The manifest result is that the Chettis are independent and self-reliant, the Vaishas dependent on one another. (L. C. Jain, p. 32.) 14 Of all the indigenous bankers the Nattukottai Chettis are the most perfectly organised. (L. C. Jain, p. 36.) 15 A Savannatha Pillai, Written Statement of Evidence, in The Madras Province Banking Enquiry Committee Report, Vol. III, pp. 1170 ff. 16 Regarding such matters as their family backgrounds, the foundation and growth of the modern enterprises, and their economic power, see S. Itǒ, op. cit. 17 D. R. Gadgil, Indian Economic Organisation, in Simon Kuznetz ed., Economic Growth: Brazil, India, Japan, Durham, N. C., Duke University Press, 1955, p. 460. 18 For the types of industry controlled by the business combines of northern India and their relative importance I am principally indebted to the following source. R. K. Hazari, Ownership and ControlII,The Economic Weekly, Bombay, December 3, 1960, pp. 1755 ff. 19 Helen B. Lamb, Business Organisation and Leadership in India Today, Centre for International Studies, MIT, 1956, p. 1.