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VIII. From Middleman Minorities to Industrial Entrepreneurs: The Chinese in Java and the Parsis in Western India 1619–1939

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2010

Christine Dobbin
Christine Dobbin
Affiliation:
Australian International Development Assistance Bureau
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Extract

A marked feature of the business and industrial élites of post-colonial India and Indonesia is the dominance within them of minority communities. An Indian government commission in 1965 reported that, of the top 75 business houses which controlled almost half of the non-governmental, non-banking assets in the country, Marwari houses occupied the apex with control of Rs 7.5 billion in assets, followed by the Parsis with Rs 4.7 billion and Gujaratis with Rs 3.8 billion. By 1980 the Parsi Tata group represented the largest industrial house in India, followed by the Marwari Birlas. In Indonesia it is the Chinese who overwhelmingly comprise the business and industrial ĺite. Despite problems with quantifiable data, it has been assessed that the Chinese own, at the very least, 70–75% of Indonesia's private domestic capital and that Chinese business conglomerates such as the Liem and Astra groups dominate medium and large-scale corporate capital.

Type
Article
Information
Itinerario , Volume 13 , Special Issue 1: India and Indonesia: General Perspectives , March 1989 , pp. 109 - 132
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 1989

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Notes

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