'Business culture' and entrepreneurship in British India, 1860-1950

Modern Asian Studies

Volumn 34, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 333-348

  Misra, A M ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BUSINESS; ENTREPRENEUR; INDUSTRIAL HISTORY; INNOVATION;

INDIA;

EID: 0034016429     PISSN: 0026749X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X00003358     Document Type: Review

References (84)

1. This was the view of D. H. Buchanan in The Development of Capitalistic Enterprise in India (New York, 1924); but is now disputed. For an overview of the debate see R. K. Ray's Introduction, in R. K. Ray (ed.), Entrepreneurs hip and Industry in India, 1800-1947 (New Delhi, 1992).
2. This was the view of D. H. Buchanan in The Development of Capitalistic Enterprise in India (New York, 1924); but is now disputed. For an overview of the debate see R. K. Ray's Introduction, in R. K. Ray (ed.), Entrepreneurs hip and Industry in India, 1800-1947 (New Delhi, 1992).
3. A. K. Bagchi, Private Investment in India 1900-1939 (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 165-70; M. Kidron, Foreign Investment in India (Oxford, 1974), pp. 35-40 .
4. A. K. Bagchi, Private Investment in India 1900-1939 (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 165-70; M. Kidron, Foreign Investment in India (Oxford, 1974), pp. 35-40 .
5. B. R. Tomlinson, 'India and the British Empire, 1880-1935', in Indian Economic and Social History Review, vol. XII, no. 4 (1975), pp. 338-77; 'India and the British Empire, 1935-1947'. IESHR, vol. XIII, no. 3 (1976), pp. 331-49.
6. B. R. Tomlinson, 'India and the British Empire, 1880-1935', in Indian Economic and Social History Review, vol. XII, no. 4 (1975), pp. 338-77; 'India and the British Empire, 1935-1947'. IESHR, vol. XIII, no. 3 (1976), pp. 331-49.
7. B. R. Tomlinson, 'Colonial Firms and the Decline of Colonialism in Eastern India 1900-1914', Modern Asian Studies, 15(3), 1981, pp. 455-86.
8. This view is presented in B. R. Tomlinson, 'Foreign Private investment in India, 1920-1950', Modern Asian Studies, 12(4), 1978, pp. 655-77.
9. For detailed case studies of this process see T. Timberg, Industrial Entrepreneurship Among the Trading Communities of India (Princeton, 1969); D. Tripathi, Business Houses in Western India (Ahmedabad, 1990).
10. For detailed case studies of this process see T. Timberg, Industrial Entrepreneurship Among the Trading Communities of India (Princeton, 1969); D. Tripathi, Business Houses in Western India (Ahmedabad, 1990).
11. M. D. Morris, 'South Asian Entrepreneurship and the Rashomon Effect, 1800-1947', Explorations in Economic History, 16 (1979), pp. 341-61.
12. This paper is based on the papers of the Gillanders, Arbuthnot firm, which are part of the Gladstone family archive at Hawarden; the Benthall papers at the Centre of South Asian Studies, Cambridge (Benthall was the senior partner of Bird and Co); the Inchcape papers at Guildhall, London; the James Finlay company papers held by Glasgow University, and the Thomas Duff and Co. papers held by Dundee University. All of these archives consist primarily of partners' correspondence and are, therefore, remarkably frank about the reasons and motives determining decision-making in these firms.
13. For a detailed account of the origins and development of the British Managing Agency houses see P. S. Lokanathan, Industrial Organization in India (London, 1935), and R. K. Nigam, Managing Agents in India (New Delhi, 1957). For a recent view of their significance in the Indian economy see B. R. Tomlinson, The Economy of Modern India, 1860-1970 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 116-20.
14. For a detailed account of the origins and development of the British Managing Agency houses see P. S. Lokanathan, Industrial Organization in India (London, 1935), and R. K. Nigam, Managing Agents in India (New Delhi, 1957). For a recent view of their significance in the Indian economy see B. R. Tomlinson, The Economy of Modern India, 1860-1970 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 116-20.
15. For a detailed account of the origins and development of the British Managing Agency houses see P. S. Lokanathan, Industrial Organization in India (London, 1935), and R. K. Nigam, Managing Agents in India (New Delhi, 1957). For a recent view of their significance in the Indian economy see B. R. Tomlinson, The Economy of Modern India, 1860-1970 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 116-20.
16. S. Jones, Two Centuries of Overseas Trading: The Origins and Growth of the Inchcape Group (London, 1986), pp. 1-37; and her Merchants of the Raj: British Managing Agents in Calcutta Yesterday and Today (London, 1992).
17. S. Jones, Two Centuries of Overseas Trading: The Origins and Growth of the Inchcape Group (London, 1986), pp. 1-37; and her Merchants of the Raj: British Managing Agents in Calcutta Yesterday and Today (London, 1992).
18. Lokanathan, Industrial Organization, p. 62.
19. R. K. Hazari, The Corporate Private Sector (New Delhi, 1966), pp. 116-25.
20. B. R. Tomlinson, 'British Business in India, 1870-1970', in R. P. T. Davenport and G. Jones, Business in Asia since 1860 (London, 1987), pp. 101-5.
21. Evidence of W. Ironside, Report of the Indian Industrial Commission, 1916-18 (Cmnd. 5107, 1919).
22. A. G. Gladstone to T. Gladstone, 23.5.46, Glynne-Gladstone MSS, file 2633; G. Harrison, A History of Bird and Co. of Calcutta (London, 1964), p. 241.
23. M. Weiner, English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 127-54.
24. It has recently been suggested that an exceptionally individualistic approach to business among British entrepreneurs may help to explain the loss of dynamism in the British economy in the twentieth century. See W. Lazonick, Business Organization and the Myth of the Market Economy (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 25-7.
25. Ironside, evidence, Report of the Indian Industrial Commission.
26. A. Chandler Jnr, Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the American Industrial Enterprise (Cambridge, Mass, 1962).
27. A.-M. Misra, 'Entrepreneurial Decline and the End of Empire', (Oxford Univ. D.Phil, thesis, 1992), p. 22.
28. H. Gladstone to A. Gladstone, 31.3.27, Glynne-Gladstone MSS, file 2594.
29. E. Benthall to J. McKerrow, 28.11.35, Benthall MSS, box 6.
30. H. Gladstone to A. Gladstone, 31.3.1927, Glynne-Gladstone MSS, file 2594.
31. E. Benthall quoted in G. Harrison, History of Bird and Co., p. 171.
32. H. Gladstone to B. Eddis, 17.12.19., Glynne-Gladstone MSS, file 2607.
33. H. N. Gladstone to A. d'A. Willis, 26.10.22, Glynne-Gladstone MSS, file 2609.
34. In 1911 a large managing agency group might manage over a dozen separate joint stock companies: for example, Andrew Yule and Co. managed 26, Bird and Co. 19, Indian Investors' Year Book (Calcutta, 1916).
35. Quoted by Sir James Muir, Finlay MSS, UGD 91/78/4.
36. E. Benthall to J. Mckerrow, 28.11.35, Benthall MSS, box 6.
37. H. Gladstone to H. Bateson, 19.3.28, Glynne-Gladstone MSS, file 2616.
38. Memorandum by Sir Allan Arthur, 1893, James Finlay and Co. MSS, 91/274.
39. Report by H. N. Gladstone on his visit to Calcutta, 26.2.09, Glynne-Gladstone MSS, file 2724, p. 16.
40. E. Benthall to G. Morton, 22.2.41, Benthall MSS, box 16.
41. Report and Evidence, Indian Industrial Commission.
42. It may be that the businessmen in India were peculiarly enthusiastic about laissez faire: recent work has argued that there were divisions within business in Britain over this question at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, see G. D. Searle, Entrepreneurial Politics in Victorian Britain (Oxford, 1993). pp. 166-202.
43. For further development of these ideas see A.-M. Misra, The Rise and Fall of British Entrepreneurship in India, 1870-1970 (Oxford, 1995).
44. Tomlinson, The Economy of Modern India, pp. 133-5.
45. E. Benthall to G. Morton, 32.7.41, Benthall MSS, box 15, 1942.
46. Indian Mining Association, Annual Report (Calcutta, 1924), p. 164.
47. For a fuller discussion of the economic and political background to this crisis, see O. Goswami, Industry, Trade and Peasant Society: The Jute Economy of Eastern India, 1900-1947 (New Delhi, 1991).
48. Government of India memorandum to the Indian Jute.Mill Association (IJMA), June 1935, Annual Report of the IJMA, vol. II (Calcutta, 1935), pp. 167-73.
49. E. Benthall to G. Morton, 28.8.37, Benthall MSS, box 15.
50. Ibid.
51. A.-M. Misra, 'Entrepreurial Decline and the End of Empire', pp. 167-82; C. Markovits, Indian Business and the Indian National Congress, 1931-39 (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 78-81. The latest research on the response of British businessmen to the corporatist initiatives attempted in Britain at this time suggests that similar hostility was prevalent among metropolitan business elites. The reluctance among businessmen to accept a more 'managed' form of capitalism seems to be in marked contrast to the experience of Germany in the same period: see the essays by S. Tolliday and W. Lazonick in B. Elbaum and W. Lazonick (eds), The Decline of the British Economy (Oxford, 1985).
52. A.-M. Misra, 'Entrepreurial Decline and the End of Empire', pp. 167-82; C. Markovits, Indian Business and the Indian National Congress, 1931-39 (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 78-81. The latest research on the response of British businessmen to the corporatist initiatives attempted in Britain at this time suggests that similar hostility was prevalent among metropolitan business elites. The reluctance among businessmen to accept a more 'managed' form of capitalism seems to be in marked contrast to the experience of Germany in the same period: see the essays by S. Tolliday and W. Lazonick in B. Elbaum and W. Lazonick (eds), The Decline of the British Economy (Oxford, 1985).
53. A.-M. Misra, 'Entrepreurial Decline and the End of Empire', pp. 167-82; C. Markovits, Indian Business and the Indian National Congress, 1931-39 (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 78-81. The latest research on the response of British businessmen to the corporatist initiatives attempted in Britain at this time suggests that similar hostility was prevalent among metropolitan business elites. The reluctance among businessmen to accept a more 'managed' form of capitalism seems to be in marked contrast to the experience of Germany in the same period: see the essays by S. Tolliday and W. Lazonick in B. Elbaum and W. Lazonick (eds), The Decline of the British Economy (Oxford, 1985).
54. C. Hilton-Brown, Parrys of Madras (Madras, 1934), p. 58.
55. E. Benthall to G. Morton, 12.6.35, Benthall MSS, box 10.
56. Ibid.
57. A.-M. Misra, 'Entrepreneurial Decline', pp. 187-9.
58. There are no primary sources yet available for a study of J. N. Tata. However, both he and the company have been the subject of many biographies of which by far the best is F. R. Harris, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata: A chronicle of his life (2nd edn, London, 1958). See also D. E. Wacha, The Life and Work of J. N. Tata (2nd edn, Madras, 1915); S. K. Sen. The House of Tatas (Calcutta, 1975). For an account of other Indian entrepreneurs whose business careers followed a similar course see also Tripathi, Business Houses: and Timberg, Industrial Entrepreneurship.
59. There are no primary sources yet available for a study of J. N. Tata. However, both he and the company have been the subject of many biographies of which by far the best is F. R. Harris, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata: A chronicle of his life (2nd edn, London, 1958). See also D. E. Wacha, The Life and Work of J. N. Tata (2nd edn, Madras, 1915); S. K. Sen. The House of Tatas (Calcutta, 1975). For an account of other Indian entrepreneurs whose business careers followed a similar course see also Tripathi, Business Houses: and Timberg, Industrial Entrepreneurship.
60. There are no primary sources yet available for a study of J. N. Tata. However, both he and the company have been the subject of many biographies of which by far the best is F. R. Harris, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata: A chronicle of his life (2nd edn, London, 1958). See also D. E. Wacha, The Life and Work of J. N. Tata (2nd edn, Madras, 1915); S. K. Sen. The House of Tatas (Calcutta, 1975). For an account of other Indian entrepreneurs whose business careers followed a similar course see also Tripathi, Business Houses: and Timberg, Industrial Entrepreneurship.
61. There are no primary sources yet available for a study of J. N. Tata. However, both he and the company have been the subject of many biographies of which by far the best is F. R. Harris, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata: A chronicle of his life (2nd edn, London, 1958). See also D. E. Wacha, The Life and Work of J. N. Tata (2nd edn, Madras, 1915); S. K. Sen. The House of Tatas (Calcutta, 1975). For an account of other Indian entrepreneurs whose business careers followed a similar course see also Tripathi, Business Houses: and Timberg, Industrial Entrepreneurship.
62. There are no primary sources yet available for a study of J. N. Tata. However, both he and the company have been the subject of many biographies of which by far the best is F. R. Harris, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata: A chronicle of his life (2nd edn, London, 1958). See also D. E. Wacha, The Life and Work of J. N. Tata (2nd edn, Madras, 1915); S. K. Sen. The House of Tatas (Calcutta, 1975). For an account of other Indian entrepreneurs whose business careers followed a similar course see also Tripathi, Business Houses: and Timberg, Industrial Entrepreneurship.
63. Tomlinson, The Economy of Modern India, p. 143.
64. The following account is based on the Harris, Jamsetji Tata.
65. Ibid., pp. 26-30.
66. Y. Kiyokawa, 'Technical Adaptations and Managerial Resources in India: A Study of the Experience of the Cotton Industry From the Comparative Viewpoint', Developing Economies, XXI-2 (June 1983), pp. 97-133.
67. Harris, Jamsetji Tata, pp. 29-30.
68. Markovits denies that Indian capitalists were 'in abstracto, committed to industrialization at all', Markovits, Indian Business, p. 185.
69. Gita Piramal comments that Tata successfully conveyed the impression of being too immersed in business to take any interest in politics: G. Piramal, 'Entrepreneurs and Political Awareness', in D. Tripathi (ed.), Business and Politics in India, (Ahmedabad, 1991), p. 157.
70. P. Mehta, quoted in Harris, Tata, p. 248.
71. Tata is also reputed to have funded the publication of the famous denunciation of British economic policy, Prosperous British India?, by W. Digby; C. Dobbin, Urban Leadership in Western India: Politics and Communities in Bombay City, 1840-1885 (Oxford, 1972), p. 197 and Harris, Tata, p. 247; Sen, The House of Tatas, p. 139.
72. Tata is also reputed to have funded the publication of the famous denunciation of British economic policy, Prosperous British India?, by W. Digby; C. Dobbin, Urban Leadership in Western India: Politics and Communities in Bombay City, 1840-1885 (Oxford, 1972), p. 197 and Harris, Tata, p. 247; Sen, The House of Tatas, p. 139.
73. Tata is also reputed to have funded the publication of the famous denunciation of British economic policy, Prosperous British India?, by W. Digby; C. Dobbin, Urban Leadership in Western India: Politics and Communities in Bombay City, 1840-1885 (Oxford, 1972), p. 197 and Harris, Tata, p. 247; Sen, The House of Tatas, p. 139.
74. Tata is also reputed to have funded the publication of the famous denunciation of British economic policy, Prosperous British India?, by W. Digby; C. Dobbin, Urban Leadership in Western India: Politics and Communities in Bombay City, 1840-1885 (Oxford, 1972), p. 197 and Harris, Tata, p. 247; Sen, The House of Tatas, p. 139.
75. Harris, Tata, p. 84.
76. Ibid., p. 256.
77. B. Shri Saklatvala and K. Khosla, J. N. Tata (New Delhi, 1979), pp. 80-1.
78. B. Chandra (ed.), Ranade's Economic Writings (Delhi, 1990), p. 67, and B. Chandra, The Rise and Growth of Economic Nationalism (Delhi, 1969), pp. 34-37; A. and M. Mukherjee, 'The Indian Capitalist Class and Foreign Capital, 1927-1947', Studies in History, i (1) (1979), pp. 105-48; A. Mukherjee, 'Imperialism and the Growth of Indian Capitalism in the Twentieth Century', Economic and Political Weekly, 12 March 1988, pp. 531-46.
79. B. Chandra (ed.), Ranade's Economic Writings (Delhi, 1990), p. 67, and B. Chandra, The Rise and Growth of Economic Nationalism (Delhi, 1969), pp. 34-37; A. and M. Mukherjee, 'The Indian Capitalist Class and Foreign Capital, 1927-1947', Studies in History, i (1) (1979), pp. 105-48; A. Mukherjee, 'Imperialism and the Growth of Indian Capitalism in the Twentieth Century', Economic and Political Weekly, 12 March 1988, pp. 531-46.
80. B. Chandra (ed.), Ranade's Economic Writings (Delhi, 1990), p. 67, and B. Chandra, The Rise and Growth of Economic Nationalism (Delhi, 1969), pp. 34-37; A. and M. Mukherjee, 'The Indian Capitalist Class and Foreign Capital, 1927-1947', Studies in History, i (1) (1979), pp. 105-48; A. Mukherjee, 'Imperialism and the Growth of Indian Capitalism in the Twentieth Century', Economic and Political Weekly, 12 March 1988, pp. 531-46.
81. B. Chandra (ed.), Ranade's Economic Writings (Delhi, 1990), p. 67, and B. Chandra, The Rise and Growth of Economic Nationalism (Delhi, 1969), pp. 34-37; A. and M. Mukherjee, 'The Indian Capitalist Class and Foreign Capital, 1927-1947', Studies in History, i (1) (1979), pp. 105-48; A. Mukherjee, 'Imperialism and the Growth of Indian Capitalism in the Twentieth Century', Economic and Political Weekly, 12 March 1988, pp. 531-46.
82. Chandra, Rise and Growth of Indian Nationalism, pp. 81-9.
83. S. Reed in his introduction to Harris, Tata, p. xv; for a similar view, see the memoir of Lovat Fraser, Iron and Steel in India (London, 1916), pp. 16-17.
84. S. Reed in his introduction to Harris, Tata, p. xv; for a similar view, see the memoir of Lovat Fraser, Iron and Steel in India (London, 1916), pp. 16-17.