Settling accounts: Indigenous bankers in search of new histories in the twentieth century

Abstract

This article focuses on the making of the discourse on indigenous banking in colonial India, which was linked to the transformation of the Indian economy and involved the repositioning of indigenous banking and the brokerage business. The rationale underlying indigenous histories of capital and custom was based on the ideas of public good and trust, which could bridge the gap between regulation and law on the one hand and informal practices and custom on the other. This article examines a range of writings and histories composed in both English and vernacular languages by the colonial state and its subjects in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which were concerned with defining and delegitimising or supporting indigenous banking, to revisit the conceptualisation of commerce and banking as a public good and subsequently retell the story of indigenous banking in colonial India.