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BOOKMARK
Building The Caste Capital
BY SRIKANTH SRINIVAS
04 Jul 2008
INDIA’S NEW CAPITALISTS Caste,
Business and Industry in a Modern Nation
By Harish Damodaran,
Permanent Black, Pages: 318; Price: Rs 695
It is hard to imagine a sociological study of India that is not derived from our ‘caste system’. Its presence in the country’s politics and society is all-pervasive. It is then perhaps natural that we view the organisation of our business and economy through the lens of caste in trying to assess the success of entrepreneurs or the networks of business families and empires. The role that caste has played in the recent ascendance of India in the global economy is something that needs exploring and will no doubt prove to be a rich mine of information.
Meanwhile, this much seems certain: ownership of wealth is being spread wider, and there are new names being added to the roster of business families (capitalism in India is still very much family capitalism). But where did they all come from? Harish Damodaran’s book explores the evolution of business enterprise in India through the association of business with specific communities.
Damodaran’s book is part history. He tells the stories of the rise of several prominent business families of the past to contextualise his views about the greater inclusiveness and opportunity of economic life in India. In doing so, he suggests that the lack of contemporary focus, the “obsessive” preoccupation with traditional merchant communities and neglecting developments in the business life in south India resulted in telling only a part of the Indian business story: we have less knowledge about the dynamics and the extent of change that is taking place in business life than we should.
Unlike most intellectual approaches that borrow the Western rights-based concepts of social organisation, the book avoids attacking the caste system. Others view caste as social capital, a sort of support system that people use to deal with society and the state. Damodaran, on the other hand, sees himself more as scientific observer than a commentator.
But he went a little too far in that direction. The treatment of the subject is a little pedantic. True, it is a serious piece of scholarship, but it is not compelling reading. The format that Damodaran follows is that of researcher: objective, and a little distant. But the story of Indian business is more like Bollywood — filled with drama, intrigue and endowed with more than a little sensation and emotions. Yes, the subject is one that should be treated seriously. But the story can also be told more interestingly.
Each of the chapters in the book starts well — Damodaran sets the scene, tells an anecdote or two to spice things up, and then proceeds to the meatier stories. Here, the journalist in him is evident. As he tells them, he intersperses his stories with insights and analysis, and one cannot but get the feeling he has shifted the narrative into a case study mode (he in fact includes a few case studies is some chapters).
But how far has the secularisation of business — if it can be called that — really gone? The Central Statistical Organisation’s 1998 economic census (that reviewed business ownership) provides some startling data. The census itself was enormous — it covered over 30 million businesses engaged in all forms of business activity except hard-core agriculture — construction, trading, hospitality, finance and other services. Other backward castes, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes owned almost 45 per cent of all business enterprises.
The book should generate great interest, coming as it does at an interesting time. As political campaigns kick off for national and state elections, the question of social inclusion — read caste politics — will be a dominant topic of speeches on the stump. Somehow, the extension of our reservation policy — a quota system for employment on the basis of caste — attracts wider and more emotional public interest than a serious discussion about caste as social capital. In most public statements, captains of industry have said such a policy would not be great for businesses.
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Harish Damodaran is a senior assistant editor with The Hindu Business Line. A specialist in agri-business and commodities reportage, he has spent more than 15 years understanding the worldview and functioning of Indian businessmen. |
The recent episode of the Gujjar community’s agitation against the Rajasthan government is emblematic of the dichotomy of business and politics. It demonstrates how caste is divisive in politics, even as it seems unifying in commerce. Castes in the more diverse south of India — that the book talks about as a newly emerging force — are also victims of political differences. The Nadars and Gounders that Damodaran describes in one of the chapters continue to prosper, while the higher profile Vanniars and Thevars, and Dalits in Tamil Nadu are embroiled in internecine squabbles.
But in an age of mergers and acquisitions and wider public shareholding of corporations, shifting enterprise ownership may have different impacts on the social mobility of castes. Subject for another book, perhaps?
Selection 1
Life Behind The Bamboo Curtain
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
An Experience of China
Pallavi Aiyar, Fourth Estate,
Pages: 226; Price: Rs 395
Smoke And Mirrors is a difficult book to explain. At once, it is a travelogue, a political thesis, a social commentary, a personal diary and a record of recent history. That’s not to say that it reads like a confused super-hybrid that has no clue about its origins. This is largely thanks to The Hindu’s former China correspondent Pallavi Aiyar’s skill for conjuring up images in the reader’s mind. Here, there are shades of Gerald Durrel’s My Family and Other Animals.
Her book is an insight into how China thinks, literally. The country’s story is told through conversations she had with its diverse inhabitants. So, readers are treated to the story of Aiyar’s landlord Mr Wu, who in his youth was banished by Mao Zedong’s regime to the countryside for being educated, but had now become a millionaire landowner. Or the story of her student at the broadcasting institute, Cindy, who hated beggars but couldn’t see why suggesting her mother work as a housemaid would seem ironic.
With grace and with humour, Aiyar brings to life what would otherwise have been dreary explanations of Chinese culture: “Laobaixing … that literally meant ‘the hundred old names’ was used more generally to designate ‘the common people’ — the average Zhou on the street.”
Don’t skip this one. Even for someone who has lived in China for over a year, this book is a refreshingly different look at a country that few Indians care (or dare) to understand.
—Pierre Mario Fitter
Selection 2
Nothing Sacred About It
The Vedas as a subject of research continues to attract students, philosophers, scientist and the common man alike — a fact that results in several contesting and often contradictory theories. Frits Staal in his previous work, Agni: The Vedic Ritual of the Fire Altar and Universals: Studies in Indian Logic and Linguistics and Rules without Meaning, highlighted the dichotomy surrounding Vedic rituals.
In his zeal to understand the Vedas better, Staal has produced a well-researched and meticulously documented work, Discovering the Vedas: Origins, Mantras, Rituals, Insights. The author uses all the evidence possible to stress that the Vedas are not sacred books, but compositions in local dialects of those times. The author uses examples of how a particular word connotes different meaning even in English language to highlight how mantras have assumed different meanings when pronounced by different people.
A parallel reference to various other civilisations and Buddhism as part of the growth of the Vedas gives a lucid perspective to their journies. Admits Staal, “The Vedas are not all of a piece, and would be unreasonable to expect a single final conclusion about them.” But not before demystifying how the Vedas were influenced by many civilisations, their languages, cultures, sciences, logic, mathematics, art, culture and daily routine. There are detailed chapters that explain the theories of mathematics and science in the Vedas with a tinge humour — an art well executed to keep the lay as well as the specialist reader interested right till the end.
—M. Rajendran
ALERT
Chasing Harry Winston
By Lauren Weisberger
Harper
From the bestselling author of the hugely successful Devil Wears Prada comes Chasing Harry Winston — a story of three best friends Leigh, Adriana and Emmy, and their pursuit of the perfect relationship. The three New Yorkers are about to turn 30, a fact that unleashes restlessness, and leads to a pact to turnaround their lives in a year’s time. No where near as acerbic and witty as Devil… the books still has laugh-out-loud moments, and is a perfect light read for those long-haul flights.
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BROWSING
Santanu Paul
Senior Vice- President, Virtusa Corporation
I have just picked up Profit From The Core by Chris Zook. It reaffirms that corporate strategy must strike an intelligent balance between who you are and what you want to be in the future — abandoning your core strengths will get you into trouble. He also says that not venturing into adjacent competency areas will make you irrelevant. When it comes to reading, I am a committed omnivore — happy to read interesting stuff that shows up on my radar.
(Businessworld Issue 8-14 July 2008)
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