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From Crisis to Community Definition: The Dynamics of Eighteenth-Century Parsi Philanthropy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

David L. White
David L. White
Affiliation:
Appalachian State University
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Extract

India's Parsis as a group have long been noted for their entrepreneurial talent. Parsis have played an important role in the growth of Indian industry in the nineteenth century, pioneering cotton textile industries in western India. Parsis were first described by early European visitors like J. Ovington as the principal weavers of Gujarat who worked primarily in ‘silks and stuffs’. In the late seventeenth century, Parsis began to participate in trade as ‘a large number of Parsi merchants began to operate in Swally and some of them like Asa Vora bought pinnaces (small coastal ships) to transport their goods to Basra and other ports in the area.’

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , May 1991 , pp. 303 - 320
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

Earlier versions of this paper were presented in panels on mercantile elites and philanthropy in South Asia at annual meetings of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference of the Association for Asian Studies and of the Association for Asian Studies. I wish to thank the participants and discussants in these two panels—Douglas Haynes, David Rudner, Susan Neild Basu, Hanna Papanek, William Rowe, Arjun Appadurai, and Paul Greenough—for their comments and suggestions. Parts of the paper are based on research funded by a grant from the Fulbright Foundation.Google Scholar

1 Ovington, J., A Voyage to Surat in the Year 1689, ed. Rawlinson, H. G. (London: Humphrey Milford, 1929), p. 216.Google Scholar Many European travellers report on the activities of Parsis in western India including: Antonio, Monserrate, The Commentary of Father Monserrate, trans. and ed. Hayland, J. S. and Banerji, S. N. (London: Oxford University Press, 1922)Google Scholar; Jean-Baptiste, Tavernier, Travels in India, ed. William, Crooke, trans. Ball, V., 2 vols (London: Oxford University Press, 1925)Google Scholar; François, Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, ed. Archibald, Constable, trans. Irving, Brock (New Delhi: S. Chand & Co., 1972)Google Scholar; de Thevenot, M. and John, Francis Careri, Indian Travels of Thevenot and Careri, ed. Surendranath, Sen (New Delhi: National Archives of India, 1949).Google Scholar

2 Gokhale, B. G., Surat in the 17th Century; A Study in the Urban History of Premodern India, Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies Monograph Series, no. 28 (London & Malmo: Curzon Press Ltd, 1979), p. 127.Google Scholar

3 Pissurlencar, P. S. S., Portuguese Records on Rustumji Manockji, the Parsi Broker of Surat (Nova Goa: By the Author, 1933), p. 211Google Scholar; Harihar, Das, The Norris Embassy to Aurangzeb (1699–1702) (Calcutta: K. L. Mukhopadaya, 1959), p. 210.Google Scholar

4 Although I have been unable to locate any records capable of giving absolute figures, indications of Rustum's wealth can be gathered from references to monies paid or received by Rustum in other sources. For instance, in 1702 Rustum paid the East India Company Rs 20,000 to secure his position as E I C broker, Surat Factory Records New Company, 15 February 1704; in 1703 he paid an additional Rs 20,000 to underwrite losses caused by ‘pirates’ to Abdul, Ghafur, SFR 1 September 1703; in 1702 Rustum paid Rs 180,000 to help the EIC secure a farman for trade, SFR 6 May 1702Google Scholar, and Kavasji, Hodivala Shapurji, Seth Kandan Tavarikh (Bombay, 1931), p. 7Google Scholar; in 1703 Rustum purchased a garden in the environs of Surat, S F R 26 October 1703; in 1713 the EIC awarded Rustum Rs 418,065 to cover debts owed to him by the Company, Bombay Public Proceedings24 October 1713; shortly after his death the EIC Company complained that the family's wealth posed a threat to the Company's ability to function freely in Surat, BPP 19 April 1722.Google Scholar

5 For an analysis of economic conditions in early eighteenth-century Gujarat and particularly Surat, see Gupta, Ashin Das, Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat c. 1700–1750 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1979)Google Scholar; Muhammad, Ali Khan, Mirat-i Ahmadi: A Persian History of Gujarat, trans. Lokhandwala, M. F. (Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1965)Google Scholar; Gupta, Ashin Das, ‘Indian Merchants and the Trade in the Indian Ocean’, in The Cambridge Economic History of India, vol. I: c.1200–c.1750, ed. Raychaudhuri, Tappan and Habib, Irfan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 407–33.Google Scholar

6 Eisenstadt, S. N., Patrons, Clients and Friends: Interpersonal Relations and the Structure of Trust in Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Das Gupta has calculated the total value of Surat's trade in 1699 at Rs 16,320,000. That of 1746 at Rs 4,545,606. Gupta, Das, Indian Merchants, pp. 18–19.Google Scholar

8 Gupta, Das, Indian Merchants, pp. 158–69Google Scholar; Marshall, Peter, East Indian Fortunes: The British in Bengal in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), p. 61.Google Scholar

9 Gupta, Das, Indian Merchants, pp. 134–77.Google Scholar

10 Ibid., pp. 197–240.

11 Neither Muhammad Ali nor Abdul Ghafur earlier were successful in their attempts at seizing control of the Surat government.Google Scholar

12 Pissurlencar, Portuguese Records, pp. xxiii and xxv.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., p. 211; Gokhale, Surat, p. 127; Das, Norris Embassy, p. 210; Commissariat, M. S., A History of Gujarat, vol. 1: 1573–1758 (Bombay: Orient Longmans, 1957), p. 391.Google Scholar

14 The features of Rustum's career can be gleaned from several sources including: Pissurlencar, Portuguese Records; Hodivala, Seth Kandan Tavarikh; Bomanji Byram, Patel, Parsi Prakash: A Record of Important Events of the Parsi Community in India Chronologically Arranged from the Date of Their Immigration into India to 1860 (Bombay: Duftar Ashkara Press, 1888), p. 29Google Scholar; and White, David L., ‘Parsis as Entrepreneurs in Eighteenth-Century Western India: The Rustum Manock Family of Surat and Bombay’ (PhD Dissertation, University of Virginia, 1979), pp. 66–117Google Scholar, which uses relevant material from the Surat Factory Records (SFR) 1700–1722 and the Bombay Public Proceedings (BPP) 1713–1722.Google Scholar

15 Commissariat, M. S., ‘The First Parsee in England (1724–25): Nowrojee Rustom Manek of Surat and his Relations with the East India Company’, In M. D. Kharegat Memorial Volume I: A Symposium on Indo-Iranian and Allied Subjects, ed. Masani, R. P. et al. (Bombay: Trustees of the Parsi Panchayat, 1953), pp. 221–45Google Scholar; Patel, Parsi Prakash, pp. 24–7; SFR, 28 September, 5 October, and n.d. (6–14?) October 1725; BPP 11, February 1726; White, Parsis, pp. 120–47.Google Scholar

16 B P P 31 March 1736; 16 March, 1 April 1737; SFR 21 March 1737; White, Parsis, pp. 183–93.Google Scholar

17 White, , Parsis, p. 197.Google Scholar

18 Ibid., p. 193, 197–203; Mayor's Court (MC) 1 July 1730; 1 May 1734; 14 June, 18 December 1734; 17 December 1735; 28 January, 26 May, 15 September, 15 December 1736; BPP 10 February 1738.

19 By ‘mechanics’ I mean the methods and procedures accompanying the act of giving, i.e. answers to the following questions: Is the gift given at times of crisis or routinely? What is the catchment area—scale of the group to whom the gift is made? What is the scale of the donating group? Is the gift one of goods or time or both?Google Scholar

20 Ovington, , A Voyage, p. 222.Google Scholar

21 Hodivala, , Seth Kandan Tavarikh, pp. 12, 75.Google Scholar

22 Ibid., pp. 11, 70.

23 Ibid., pp. 9, 22.

24 Ibid., pp. 12, 70–1.

25 Ibid., p. 9.

26 Patel, , Parsi Prakash, p. 13; Hodivala, Seth Kandan Tavarikh, pp. 5, 12.Google Scholar

27 Hodivala, , Seth Kandan Tavarikh, p. 78.Google Scholar

28 Haynes, Douglas E., ‘From Tribute to Philanthropy: The Politics of Gift Giving in a Western Indian City’, Journal of Asian Studies 46 (05 1987): 339–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Others who have investigated gifting in other parts of South Asia are: Nicholas, Dirks, ‘Political Authority and Structural Change in Early South Indian History’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review 13 (04–06 1976): 125–57Google Scholar; Arjun, Appadurai, ‘Kings, Sects and Temples in South India, 1350–1700’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 14 (01–03 1977): 47–74.Google Scholar

29 Patel, , Parsi Prakash, p. 26; Hodivala, , Seth Kandan Tavarikh, p. 112.Google Scholar

30 Patel, , Parsi Prakash, p. 27; Hodivala, , Seth Kandan Tavarikh, p. 112–13, 126.Google Scholar

31 Hodivala, , Seth Kandan Tavarikh, p. 112.Google Scholar

32 For an analysis of the important connection between kinship and credit networks among India's Marwari's see Timberg, Thomas A., The Marwaris: From Traders to Industrialists (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt. Ltd., 1978).Google Scholar For further elucidation of the same connections among eighteenth-century Parsis see White, David L., ‘Parsis in the Commercial World of Western India, 1700–1750’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review 24 (04–06 1987): 183–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 BPP 16 March, 1 April 1737.Google Scholar