Ejemplo: “Como no seas buena chica te vas con la tía Clara”.

degree of clannishness. The Scottish managers and supervisors of the

Calcutta jute mills did not owe their position to any special skills or

qualification, as Bagchi has duly noted,^^^ but to their 'connections'.

One VJilliam Ure, who was interviewed by Sir Edward Benthall of Bird and

Company for employment with them in Calcutta, had no special qualifications

'apart from a course in Book-keeping' that he had taken 'through the

International Correspondence people'. Benthall even noted that 'he [did]

not read, except in the winter, when he [read] chiefly thrillers'. But

what made him eligible were that he knew 'Anderson in Hooghly Mill and

the two Golds in Birds' and that his father was 'Cashier in the Victoria

Mill'. Besides, he had always 'wanted to go to India as does every young

man in Dundee ...'. He was, Benthall said, 'just the normal type we take

on in Calcutta'

This clannishness could easily give rise to racism. The

Marwari Association of Calcutta complained to the Indian Fiscal Commission of 1922 that 'the European [mill] managers did not buy jute through Indian traders'.^^^ The complaint was voiced also to the Bengal Provincial

Banking Enquiry Committee of 1930 which was told of the considerable 'difficulty' that Indian traders of jute in Calcutta had to face 'in

disposing of their stocks to the mills'. The mills did not recognize their marks and names and compelled them 'to sell through European firms of b r o k e r s ' . T h e practice was old and established. A Dundee gentleman visiting Calcutta in 1894 noticed 'a grave defect in the management of the Indian mills', which arose 'from the presence in the jute trade of Dundee men as sellers and brokers'. 'These men have friends or relations among the jute mill agents, who naturally place confidence in them and employ them in preference to others'. The Indian jute brokers had to

'obtain a Dundee partner in order to qualify to enter the magic ring'.^^^

The story of the rise of the Marwaris in this European-dominated business world of Calcutta deserves a much richer and fuller account than can be provided here. According to Thomas Timberg, 'more than one- h a l f of the jute balers in 1900 were Marwaris. By 1907 they had started direct shipping of jute overseas and in 1909 formed their Baled Jute Association. Before the first VJorld VJar some Marwari merchants 'acquired a large number of "pucca" or expert-oriented jute presses', which were

'formerly a European preserve'. In 1917, the most important Marwari firm Birla Brothers opened a branch office in London; by 1920 they were 'one of the top three exporters of raw jute' from Calcutta. During and after the war the Marwaris also entered the export trade in hessian and gunnies, and started speculation in jute mill shares, the value of which increased by 'three times' between 1915 and 1926.^^°

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The nineteen-twenties also saw a very large increase in future

trading in raw jute - and later in hessian as well - by Flarwari merchants. Known as the operations of the ^a-tka (lit. bubble) market or the bkiXoA bazoA (lit. inside or secret market), such speculative trading in jute was started in Calcutta about 1911-12 by one Jewanmal Bengani, a Marwari dealer in raw jute:^^^

as the number of ... speculators increased, an "exchange" was formed at 68 Cotton Street in the year 1912, where dealings in 25 bales or its multiples used to be carried on. There was no

guestion of delivery [of jute] and only difference used to be paid. When the great war broke out and the jute trade was temporarily disorganised ... this "exchange" had to stop its operations. With the return of confidence by 1916, a limited company, styled the Calcutta Pat Association

Limited, was started for those speculative deals.^^^

A temporary short supply of raw jute in 1925-26 helped the Calcutta Pat Association to do some brisk business till the government closed it down in 1926 under a Gambling Act 'on the complaint of a few parties who had suffered loss on this market'.^^^ Significantly, ten of the eleven men convicted in this connection were Marwaris. ^ Soon after the suppression of the Pat Association, a new organization called the East India Jute Association was formed with a view to running a futures market in jute. All its leading members were Marwari balers and shippers of jute, the Birlas heading the list. There were also two other, less formal,

exchanges - called Gudri and Katni - where the units of transaction were kept small in order to accommodate small-time speculators whose ranks swelled as the trade depression of the late twenties deepened, adding to the profits of the balers who sold in these markets. 'It cannot be

before, 'but the report goes that the drivers of motor cars, ... and the numerous Biri and panwallas, and Darwans occasionally buy and sell 5 bales in the Katni'

While enriching themselves in the {^atka market, the Marwari balers, following the lead of the Birlas, also reached out for the foreign market in jute where their performance impressed even their competitors. 'The enterprise and efficiency of the modern Marwari Baler', wrote Benthall in a long note in 1935, 'cannot be appreciated abroad and this applies

particularly in the case of large operators of the type of Cotton Agents (Birla Brothers) and Surajmal Nagarmall'.

I understand that [a] number of [Maru/ari] Balers are frequently in communication now a days with their direct connections abroad by phone. They do not confine their operations to the London market but are directly represented in such markets as Dundee and New York, and there is a distinct tendency to encourage Continental business directly through Hamburg. In this connection the activities of Khubchand Sethia here on the London Market are a special feature particularly as regards Russian business which seems to have gone completely past us sometimes.^

Marwari incursion into the jute industry was thus only an aspect of their overall success in the world of Bengal jute. Here again the Birlas were among the leaders. In 1918-19 they set up their Birla Jute Mill which was followed soon by the Hukumchand Jute Mill, belonging to the Sarupchand Hukumchand family.^^^ By 1926-27 several other Indian traders made their way into manufacturing, the more prominent among the new mills being

Premchand Jute Mill owned by Janakinath Roy, Gagalbhai Jute Mill belonging to the Mafatlalls, Hanuman Jute Mills set up by Surajmall Nagarmall,

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Jute Mill owned and run by Haji Adamji Dawood and Company. By 1932 these