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The Dubashes of Madras

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Susan Neild-Basu
Susan Neild-Basu
Affiliation:
Rochester, New York
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Extract

If Calcutta of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was a city of ‘banians,’ can Madras of the same period be called a city of ‘dubashes’? The parallels in the early history of these two port cities, and particularly in the emergence of similar groups of Indian collaborators, are not hard to find. Nor are they especially surprising in view of the common goals and needs of the English traders who founded them. The need for intermediaries and collaborators was built into the very economic and political structures of these towns. In turn, these groups inevitably had a tremendous influence on the development and environments of these colonial urban centers.

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Articles
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Modern Asian Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , February 1984 , pp. 1 - 31
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

For comments on this paper, which was presented at the 34th Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies in Chicago, 2-4 April 1982, I am indebted to S. Arasaratnam, David Washbrook, Peter Marshall, and Dilip Basu.

1 Basu, Dilip, ‘The Banian and the British in the Calcutta, 1800–1850’, in Bengal Past and Present, 92, 1 (01–06 1973), 157–70Google Scholar; and Marshall, Peter, ‘Masters and Banians in Eighteenth Century Calcutta’, in Kling, B. B. and Pearson, M. N. (eds), The Age of Partnership: Europeans in Asia before Dominion (Honolulu, 1979), pp. 191–213.Google Scholar

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5 See letter from an ’Observer’ in the Madras Courier, 26 04 1792.Google Scholar

6 Madras Board of Revenue Proceedings (hereafter M.B.R.P.) 1 July 1799: Report of Lionel Place, Collector, on the Jaghir.

7 Attorneys' dubashes in the Mayor's Court were considered among the most corrupt and opportunistic of all. For example, see M.B.R.P. 3 December 1795: Letter from Lionel Place, 6 October 1795.

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11 To quote Place, ‘I fear there are many more instances of the interests of government being most injured and opposed by those who have been most cherished in the bosom of its affections, because they rather than itself have been too long in the habit of ruling its subjects’, M.B.R.P. 3 December 1795: To Bd. from Place 6 October 1795.

12 See Letter to the Editor in the Madras Gazette, 7 02 1795Google Scholar, from a ‘David Sanguine’ for a detailed description of the financial troubles of a young arrival in the city and his relationship with his dubash.

13 Waltham, James, Journal of a Voyage in 1811 and 1812 to Madras and China (London, 1814), pp. 26–7.Google Scholar

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15 For an example of these new bureaucratic terms see Madras Public Consultations (hereafter M.P.C.), 27 December 1831: Petition from P. Kistnama Naick.

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19 Manali Ramakrishna Mudaliar, a descendant of Manali Muttukrishna, identified his family as Nal Vallalar mirasdars (personal communication, 15 July 1971). Yet in a narrative prepared by the great grandson of Manali Muttukrishna in the late 1800s, a family relationship is claimed with Kasi Viranna, Chief Merchant of the Company at Madras from 1669 to 1680. (Kesavarao Mudaliar, Manali Chinna, ‘First Settlement of the English on the Coast of Coromandal’, Madras, 1882, p. 2.Google Scholar) The problem here is that Kasi Viranna belonged to the Telugu Komati merchant caste (Brennig, , ‘Chief Merchants and European Enclaves’, pp. 335–6Google Scholar). This discrepancy implies some ambiguity over the caste origins of the Manali family, an ambiguity which is heightened by that family's disdain for the established Right Hand caste organization in the early 1800s and by the very few references to Nal Vellalar community in the old records of the city.

20 Love, , Vestiges, 2: 277, 288Google Scholar; Records of Fort St George, Diary and Consultation Books, 78 (1749–1750): 167; 81 (1753): 18; 83 (1756): 63, 81.Google Scholar

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23 Tondaimandalam uyartuluva vellalar saritlira surukkam (The Short History of the Superior Tuluva Vellalars of Tondaimandalam) (Madras, 1911), p. 7.Google Scholar

24 Govindaswami, S. K., ‘Some Unpublished Letters of Charles Bourchier and George Stratton (1771 to 1802)’, Madras Tercentenary Commemoration Volume (Madras, 1939), pp. 26–31.Google Scholar

25 The Private Diary of Ananda Ranga Pillai, ed. by Price, Sir Frederick and Dodwell, H. H. (Madras, 1904–1928), 8 (1751–1753): 434Google Scholar, Ranga Pillai therein refers to Paupa Pillai as having come from Madras, ‘begotten of generations of beggars’.

26 Wheeler, James Talboys, Madras in the Olden Times (Madras, 1882), 2: 69–84: 3: 365.Google Scholar

27 See, for instance, Records of Fort St George, Diary and Consultation Books (Public Dept) 82 (1755): 307–8.Google Scholar

28 For a discussion of these changes, see Arasaratnam, S., ‘Trade and Political Dominion in South India, 1750–1790: Changing British-Indian Relationships’, Modern Asian Studies, 13, 1 (02 1979), 24–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 Marshall, ‘Masters and Banians’, pp. 192–5.Google Scholar

30 Basu, Dilip, ‘The Banians and the British’, p. 160.Google Scholar

31 One exception was S. Venkatachella Chetti, a Komati, who left his family's diamond and coral trade in charge of his brother to become dubash to an Attorney of the Mayor's Court in the 1780s. He was banished from Madras for his role in drawing up false property deeds and in other illegal acts in collusion with Court's Attorneys. His brother, also a dubash, was likewise accused of illicit practices. M.P.C. 5 May 1786: Petition of S. Venkatachella Chetti.

32 This connection of Chetti dubashes with business houses was a more common feature of the nineteenth century. Lewandowski, Susan, ‘Merchants and Kingship: An Interpretation of Indian Urban History,’ (unpublished paper, 1980), p. 21Google Scholar. By this period, the term dubash was used almost exclusively, in fact, for these Indians working with European agency houses as interpreters and brokers. Not all, however, were Chettis. Binny's first dubash was Chellappa Vencatachellum Mudaliar. His descendants remained employed with the firm throughout the nineteenth century. N.A., The House of Binny (Madras, 1969), p. 4.Google Scholar

33 Diary of Ananda Ranga Pillai, 1: vii.Google Scholar

34 Venkatarama Ayyar, A. V., ‘Dubash Avandhanum Paupiah and a Famous Madras Trial’, Indian Historical Records Commission, Proceedings, 12 (12 1929), 35.Google Scholar

35 For details about his career and property see Fawcett, C. G. H., ‘The Two Hollands of Madras and their Dubash’, Journal of Indian History 5, 2 (08 1926), 189–97Google Scholar: Fawcett, C. G. H., ‘The Forged Bonds of the Nawab of the Carnatic’, Journal of Indian History 6, 1 (04 1927), 88–95Google Scholar; Naidu, Ramaswamy, ‘Memoir on the Internal Revenue System of Madras,’ p. 305Google Scholar; Madras Courier, 29 05 1805.Google Scholar

36 Strange, , Cases in the Court of the Recorder, 2: 55.Google Scholar Among some other Hindu ship owners were Kola Singana Chetti, the Komati caste head, and Vembakkam Krishna Aiyar, who was known as ‘Kappal Krishna’ for his work as a dubash and shipping agent, grain merchant, and participant in the salt trade with Masalipatnam in the 1820s. His son, Vembakkam Raghavachariar became the highest ranked Indian official of the Madras government, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, in 1834.

37 See Raghavan, V., The Sarva-deva-vilasa (Madras, 1958)Google Scholar, for a description of some of these activities.

38 This was apparently how the Poonamallee Tuluva Vellalar dubash family of Subbu Deva Nayaka Mudaliar extended its influence over Nungambakkam. Raghavan, , Sarva-deva-vilasa, pp. 27–9Google Scholar; Madras District Records, vol. 1029, 6 06 1820.Google Scholar

39 Lionel Place, in referring to the role of dubash Tottikkalai Kesava Mudaliar as dharmakarta of his village temple, called it ‘the most gratifying [office] that a native can hold, which but for his wealth he could not have obtained’. This position, Place argued, should have made Kesava more responsible and conciliatory in dealings with the government. M.B.R.P. 3 December 1785Google Scholar: Report of Place 6 October 1785; Raghavan, , Sarva-deva-vilasa, pp. 23–7.Google Scholar

40 M.B.R.P. 5 September 1800; M.P.C. 27 December 1831.

41 Strange, , Cases in Court of the Recorder, 1: 141–8.Google Scholar

42 M.P.C. 27 December 1831, M.B.R.P., 9 April 1804: Petition from Dubash Ponna Pillai.

43 Thurston, Edgar, Castes and Tribes in Southern India (Madras, 1909), 3: 119: 2: 367.Google Scholar

44 Records of Fort St George, Diary and Consultation Books (Public) 1755 (Madras, 1942), 85: i, 307–8, 350–3Google Scholar; Records of Fort St George, Country Correspondence, 1758 (Madras, 1915), p. 107Google Scholar; Srinivasachari, C. S., ‘Pachaiyappa—His Life, Times, and Charities’, Pachaiyappa's College Centenary Commemoration Book (1842–1942) (Madras, 1942), pp. 7–8Google Scholar, M.B.R.P. 3 January 1822; M.P.C. 28 August 1832; M.P.C. 12 May 1826.

45 Strange, , Cases in the Court of the Recorder, 1: 18.Google Scholar Pachaiyappa's own two wives were of different castes from his, causing a considerable scandal during his time.

46 Srinivasachari, , ‘Pachaiyappa'’, pp. 7–17.Google Scholar

47 ‘Historicus’ (Venkatarama Ayyar, A. K.), ‘Swamy Naick and His Family’ (Madras, 1951)Google Scholar, Appendix by Srinivasachari, C. S., p. 42.Google Scholar

48 Sarva-deva-vilasa, passim, and Raghavan, V., ‘Madras City and Sanskrit Learning’, The Journal of Oriental Research (Madras), 27, 1–4 (1957–1958), 117–21Google Scholar. This very term ‘gentry’ was used by Governor Macartney in his comments on dubashes. Davies, , Private Correspondence of Macartney, p. 63.Google Scholar

49 Pachaiyappa had to defend himself against charges of usury and extortion. Srinivasachari, , ‘Pachaiyappa’, p. 16Google Scholar. Manali Chinnia Mudaliar faced an extensive suit for misuse of power brought by a Tanjore resident, M.P.C. 2 April, 8 April, 12 May, 27 July 1785. Even the comparatively upright Viraperumal Pillai was not immune to such accusations. Davies, , Private Correspondence of Macartney, pp. 63–4Google Scholar; M.P.C. 19 05 1780.

50 Fawcett, , ‘Two Hollands of Madras’, p. 193Google Scholar; ‘Forged Bonds’, p. 94.Google Scholar At the peak of his power, Papaiya was believed to have possessed a fortune of three to four lakhs of pagodas. Ayyar, Venkatarama, ‘Dubash Avandhanum Paupiah’, p. 28Google Scholar. By 1805 much of his property, jewels and bonds (including a Nawab's bond for 2 lakhs of pagodas) had been sold. Madras Courier, 29 May and 10 July 1805. The period of his tenure as Governor's dubash was described by Indian inhabitants as ‘the government of Paupiah’, M.P.C. 18 February 1791.

51 M.B.R.P. 4 and 15 September 1800; Strange, , Cases in the Court of the Recorder, 1: 174–209Google Scholar; M.P.C. 7 10 1807.

52 Correspondence of Fort St George: Abstracts of Letters sent, 1792–1809, Public Dept 23 October 1805.

53 Marshall, , ‘Masters and Banians’, pp. 196–7, 199–200, and 201–6.Google Scholar

54 Basu, , ‘The Banian and the British’, pp. 162, 165–7.Google Scholar

55 Kling, Blair, Partner in Empire: Dwarkanath Tagore and the Age of Enterprise in Eastern India (Berkeley, 1976).Google Scholar

56 Srinivasachari, , ‘Pachaiyappa’, p. 16.Google Scholar

57 Srinivasa Pillai, Komaleswaran Kovil, Kanchipuram pachaiyappa mudaliar sarittiram (The History of Conjeevaram Pachiyappa Mudaliar) (Madras, 1911), p. 34.Google Scholar

58 M.B.R.P., 3 December 1795: From Lionel Place 6 October 1795.

59 Strange, , Cases in Court of the Recorder, 1: 91.Google Scholar

60 Fawcett, , ‘'Forged Bonds’, p. 95.Google Scholar

61 Love, , Vestiges, 3: 85Google Scholar; Brown, Hilton, Parry's of Madras: A Story of British Enterprise in India (Madras, 1954), p. 7.Google Scholar

62 House of Binny, p. 34.Google Scholar

63 Hodgson, G. H., Thomas Parry: Free Merchant of Madras (Madras, 1938), p. 196.Google Scholar

64 Marshall, , ‘Masters and Banians’, pp. 196–8Google Scholar. It is useful to note that some of the earlier chief merchants of Madras had fortunes comparable to those of the later dubashes. Brennig, , ‘Chief Merchants’, p. 326.Google Scholar

65 M.B.R.P. 6 January 1820.

66 Memoirs of William Hickey, ed. by Spencer, Alfred, 4 (1790–1809) (London, 1925), 18–19.Google Scholar

67 Nawab Umrat-ud-daulah had a Vellalar dubash, Mootoo Mudaliar, in the 1790s. Madras Gazette, 8 April 1809. A secret correspondence between the Nawab and Tipu Sultan was later discovered by the Madras government and excited further suspicions of Indians associated with Chepauk.

68 Heyne, Benjamin, Tracts, Historical, and Statistical, on India (London, 1814), pp. 121–2.Google Scholar

69 Madras District Records, 994: 188–9.Google Scholar

70 M.P.C., 6 March 1812: Minute from the Superintendent of Police, 21 August 1810.

71 This perception of the dubashi threat was openly expressed in some published popular writings. To quote Heyne from his Tracts: ‘Much has been said about these monsters; but it is impossible to say too much until the whole race of them, both with an English jargon and without it, are entirely eradicated. They will correspond with your enemies; they will plunder you of your property; and, after they have enriched themselves at your expense, they will throw you into jail … All currency is in their hands, hoarded up and lost to the state … Who will be bold enough to say that government is secure among a race of men possessed of such principles? It is secure only as long as it is formidable’. (Pp. 121–2.)

72 M.B.R.P. 19 September 1799: List of Banksall Holders.

73 Madras Gazette, 9 December 1809.

74 House of Binny, p. 12.Google Scholar

75 M.P.C, 12 May 1785 and 27 July 1786.

76 See the work of Pradip Sinha on Calcutta: ‘Approaches to Urban History: Calcutta (1750–1850)’, Bengal Past and Present, 87 (01–07 1968), 106–19Google Scholar; ‘The City as a Physical Entity: Calcutta 1750–1850’, Bengal Past and Present, 89 (07–12 1970), 264–76Google Scholar; and ‘Social Forces and Urban Growth—Calcutta from the Mid-Eighteenth to the Mid-Nineteenth Century’, Bengal Past and Present, 92, 1 (01–06 1973), 288–302.Google Scholar

77 For a discussion of these sections of Madras, see Neild, Susan M., ‘Colonial Urbanism: The Development of Madras City in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, Modern Asian Studies, 13, 2 (04 1979), 217–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

78 Madras Gazette, 9 December 1809; Love, , Vestiges, 3: 510–11.Google Scholar

79 Madras Board of Revenue Records, Misc. vol. 14, no. 212: List of lands granted for gardens (1774–1803).

80 The huge collection of European furnishings possessed by Sunku Chinna Krishna Chetti, a Komati merchant and descendant of the early eighteenth-century Chief Merchant Sunku Rama Chetti, was probably representative of those gathered by affluent dubashes during the late 1700s. The Hircarrah, 19, 26 August 1794Google Scholar: Madras Courier, 28 November 1815.

81 Ambirajan, S., ‘Laissez-Faire in Madras’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 2, 3 (1965), 239.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

82 Madras Courier, 10 September 1806; Strange, , Cases in the Court of the Recorder, 1: 266.Google Scholar

83 Madras Courier, 10 July and 20 November 1805. Papaiya's funeral and family support costs were borne by Thomas Parry. Hodson, , Parry, p. 164.Google Scholar

84 Ramachandra Ray, B., ‘Organized Banking in the Days of John Company’, Indian Journal of Economics, 10, 1 (07 1929), 16.Google Scholar

85 Madras Almanac, 1804 (Madras, 1803), p. 162.Google Scholar

86 Madras Almanac, 1805 (Madras, 1804), p. 209Google Scholar. This Asiatic Bank had a capital of Pagodas 2.5 lakhs, according to Ambirajan, , ‘Laissez-Faire in Madras’, p. 240.Google Scholar Kalingaraya was a highly prominent dubash; Muttukrishna may have been the son of Manali Chinnia Mudaliar; Vadachalam was probably the son of Tottikkalai Kesava Mudaliar; Kola Peddaswamy was the nephew and heir of Kola Raghava Chetti, the son of Kola Singana Chetti.

87 These were the businesses owned by Naik, C. Tirukami and Balakrishna, and by Chetti, Gazulu Sidloo, an indigo and cloth merchant, and his sons. Madras Almanac and Compendium of Intelligence, 1839 (Madras, 1838), p. 224.Google Scholar

88 Sarada Raju, A., Economic Conditions in the Madras Presidency, 1800–1852 (Madras, 1941), pp. 89, 310.Google Scholar

89 Madras had from ten to thirteen agency houses from the late 1700s through the 1840s, while Calcutta had fifty and Bombay eighteen by the 1830s. See Chaudhuri, K. N. (ed.), The Economic Development of India under the East India Company 1814–58 (Cambridge, 1971), p. 18Google Scholar; House of Binny, pp. 15–19.Google Scholar

90 George Norton, the Advocate-General of Madras in the 1830s, made these observations on the absence in nineteenth-century Madras of a gentry class: ‘Independent employment of any superior quality (if brokerage, money lending, and petty contracts and trading are to be excepted) scarcely enter, even now, into the contemplation of a Madras native. The Ryotwari system of tenure and revenue has totally extirpated capital from the Provinces; and litigation in the Supreme Court has entirely swallowed up the native wealth once exhibited in Madras itself.’ Norton, George, Native Education in India: Comprising a Review of its State and Progress within the Presidency of Madras (Madras, 1848), p. 25.Google Scholar

91 Srinivasachari, , ‘Pachaiyappa,’ pp. 31–6.Google Scholar

92 M.P.C., 29 June 1810, and M.P.C., 12 February 1811. The Company's involvement in these charitable accounts, in fact, stemmed directly from a request for such safekeeping of funds for charities made by the dubash Munniya Pillai. M.P.C. 17 July 1827.

93 See the unpublished papers by Lewandowski, Susan, ‘Merchants and Kingship’, (1980)Google Scholar, and by Neild-Basu, Susan, ‘Urban Elites and Philanthropy in Madras in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries’ (1982)Google Scholar, for an analysis of the religious involvements of leading dubashes and merchants in Madras.

94 To take a prominent example, Nedavaiyal Narayana Pillai had been falsely accused of embezzlement of funds from Triplicane's Parthasarathi temple while serving as its dharmakarta. It took considerable investigation to unravel the underlying cause of the conflict—a dispute between rival Brahman castes over temple rituals and their respective privileges. Madras District Records, vol. 1028, 1 June 1790. Narayana's son and grandson, who in turn succeeded as managers of the Parthasarathi temple, also found themselves involved in bitter disputes regarding temple affairs M.B.R.P., 3 January and 15 April 1822. The Manali family was involved in lengthy litigation in the Supreme Court during the 1830s over the right to the title of dharmakarta of the Madras Town Temple established by Manali Muttukrishi Mudaliar.

95 Pillai, Srinivasa, Pachaiyappa mudaliar sarittiram, pp. 34–8.Google Scholar

96 Komaleswaran Kovil Srinivasa Pillai, son of dubash Munniya Pillai, built a reputation as perhaps the leading philanthropist in Madras during the 1830s and 1840s. In addition to maintaining his own family charities and serving as dharmakarta of the Parthasarathi temple, he was appointed to administer the trust created from Pachaiyappa's estate and became as well a manager of the primary secular charitable institution of colonial Madras, the Monegar Choultry. He sat as one of the few Indian Justices in Session and later on the Board of Governors of Madras University. His articulate support of western education for Indian youth was balanced by his deep commitment to Hindu religious values within a reformed cultural and social environment. For a further discussion of his role as one of the early political and social activists of nineteenth-century Madras, see Suntharalingam, R., Politics and Nationalist Awakening in South India, 1852–1891 (Tucson, 1974), pp. 36–7, 49–51.Google Scholar