o_19heefouak9i9v4do11ac41pi7a.pdf

GREEK TRADERS IN BRITISH INDIA, 1840-1920
to be a legacy of the eighteenth century, when Greek and Armenian mercantile communities
often worked together) 27 , and Italian correspondents in Bombay, such as in
the Genoese firm of Olcese & Co. 28 , to name but one. It must be noted, however, that
the tendency to set up a business organization based upon inter-cultural trading networks
was typical of all Greek traders in India, though in the case of the Anglo-
Greeks this tendency was more visible due to the magnitude of their business.
The trading networks that the Greeks established in India rested upon a set of
multiple close relationships that they had forged inside their community on the basis
of shared religious beliefs, language and ethnic origin. Looking closely at these
networks, one may note that they were mainly based on social and cultural patterns
within which ‘family’ attained special relevance. In the dominant role of the family
as the backbone of the business organization, it is possible to recognize one of the
typical traits of the entrepreneurial culture of Greek traders in India. In effect, the
great majority of Greek firms in India were run by ‘ethnic business families’ which
are, according to the effective definition provided by Gopalkrishnan R. Iyer, ‘family
firms for which their family identity and reputation contributes to business operations
and success within their own ethnic milieu and for whom their ethnic identity
helps form larger networks of credit and business support outside their own domestic
environments’ 29 . Greek mercantile culture, like the entrepreneurial cultures of
other prominent mercantile groups, was deeply rooted in the family, from which often
sprang its raison d’être and which provided its main source of support and stability
30 . Family ties and kinship were extremely important for the consolidation of
which was Ralli Brothers. The relationship between the Rallis and the Goenkas was very solid as
the latter acted as brokers for the Anglo-Greek company for many decades. On the economic and
commercial activities of the Goenkas and their role in Bengal’s socio-political arena, see Kochanek,
Stanley A., Business and politics in India, Berkley, London, 1974; Piramal, Gita and Herdect, Margaret,
India’s Industrialists. Volume I, Washington DC, 1986.
27 In a letter written in January 1790 by the Armenian merchants and shroffs based in
Dakka against ‘the considerable remittances made in spices from the Collector of Dacca’, the
Greek merchants resident in the city who signed the petition were also mentioned. This letter,
along with other petitions –especially those on salt remittances, in which Greek merchants
always appear with Armenians– hints that the two mercantile communities were probably
very close. Bengal Commercial and Shipping Consultations, Z/P/44, APAC, BL.
28 Viola, A., Italians in British India, 1860-1920. Trades, Traders and Trading Networks, PhD
Thesis, European University Institute, Florence, 2008.
29 Gopalkrishnan, R. Iyer, ‘Ethnic Business Families’, in Stiles, Curt H. and Galbraith,
Craig S. (eds), op.cit. p. 244.
30 Colli, A., The history of family business, 1850-2000, Cambridge, 2003. Anderson, A. R.,
Sarah L. Jack, and S. Drakopoulo Dodd, ‘The Role of family members in entrepreneurial networks:
beyond the boundaries of family firm’, in Family Business Review, vol. 28, no. 2, June
2005.; Dyer, W.G., and W., Handler, ‘Entrepreneurship and family business: exploring the connections’,
in Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, vol. 19, no. 1, 1994; Rauch, J. E., ‘Business
and social networks in international trade’, in Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 39, no. 4, 2001;
Stewart, J., ‘Help one another, use one another: toward an anthropology of family business’, in
~ 417 ~