India's New Capitalists: Caste, Business, and Industry in a Modern Nation

Much of India’s high economic growth has been due to private sector-driven capitalist market development. The social origins of India’s capitalist class lie in the institution of caste. Damodaran shows the different ways by which caste and community have contributed to India’s dynamic private sector, capturing in seven chapters the rise of Indian business firms in specific industries and locations. Historically sensitive, he traces business communities, beginning with the old mercantile families and communities (Chapter 2) that had links with Arab merchants, Central and Southeast Asians and later Europeans before and during colonialism. Next, he examines the evolution of the upper priestly and warrior castes (Brahmins and Khatris) in the North (Chapter 3), the landowning lower castes of Kammas, Reddys and Rajus in the South (Chapter 4), two other groups of Southern business communities (Naidus and Gounders) (Chapter 5), and Nadars and Ezhavas (Chapter 6). In Chapter 7, he discusses the rise of capitalists in the West (the Patidars and Marathas), who emerged from cooperative farming, and in Chapter 8 he tries to answer why the Northern farming capitalists could not transform themselves into industrial capitalists as successfully as those from the landowning communities in the South. In Chapter 9, he discusses the scheduled castes (Dalits) and Muslims, two groups that have been less successful among India’s rising capitalist classes. There are three major pathways by which industrial capitalists (factory owners) have emerged: from bazaar to factory (the old mercantile families), from office to factory (upper literati castes) and from farm to factory (landowners of various castes). Non-trading castes entered business through social relations, networks and extended families, which supported subsequent expansion. Whereas upper castes leveraged their social standing to gain access to capital, lower castes relied on kinship and social networks to promote their castebased communities and families. Trust, cemented by a common caste background, allowed mercantile families to prosper and also allowed international r 2012 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1472-4782 Asian Business & Management Vol. 11, 5, 651–654