we lived in large houses: one, to accommodate large families and two, to secure valuables, since our money lending business was mostly based on liquid assets. Our community was also known to settle their differences outside of courts. Most of the cases were solved at the Kovilvasal Mariyal (temple panchayat) or Madaththuvasal Mariyal
the (Matam
panchayat). Punishments like ‘no Kovil Maalai’ and excommunication were imposed by these courts. On the panchayat system Thurston, in 1909, commented that the ‘give-and-take’ spirit among Chettiars is gone and they instead prefer to approach the Indian judicial courts.
Philanthropy: It is not surprising that almost every report extolled our philanthropic activities. It has been recorded in the Gazeteer of Madura that a fixed percentage (Magamai) of profits was to be given away to charities by the Chettiars each year. The Chettiars levy rates among themselves for local charities. Apart from the contributions to the temples, Chettiars also contributed to the need of the hour. Two examples cited in these reports are the Pegu earthquake in Burma and the Albert-Victoria Hospital in Madura, which was supported mainly by annual subscriptions from the Nattukottai Chettis.
Beliefs: This was a community with very strong religious believes. Our ancestors were ardent followers of Siva, Pillayar and Murugan. The BPBEC committee reports that our ancestors did not have a social life at all. Temples were perhaps the only form of social life. The number of temples in the Chettiar neighborhoods confirms this claim. One of the main reasons to build temples is that the rate of interest (in money lending business) is set in temples and is often dubbed as
8
the ‘The Chettiar exchange’ (similar to the stock exchange). Thurston pointed (from the Gazeteer of Madura) that a Chettiar had come forward to provide funds to plaster the North tower in the Madura Meenakshi temple which at that time was made of bricks and stone -stories. Apart from the charitable act, this also highlights the non- superstitious nature of our community, since the prevailing belief at the time was that funding a Mottai-gopuram will bring bad luck to the family.
These three reports together summarize what was so unique about our community a hundred years ago. We wanted to point out to the readers that the Thurston and the BPBEC reports are spaced 20 years apart; they are reported from two different physical locations separated by 2700 miles (Rangoon, Burma and Chettinad, India); one is studying the castes and tribes in south India while the other is looking at banking practices in Burma; Thurston studied small groups (30 - 60) individuals and the BPBEC observed Chettiars from approximately 1650 offices (exact numbers not mentioned). The reports originate from two completely different sources with different intentions, but are strikingly similar. Despite living thousands of miles apart, the Chettiar community was very similar. There is no denying that, within the community, there was a sense of collectivism as opposed to individualism.
Before we examine what factors led to the transition of our community, let us first look at our community setup. Our ancestors did not separate religion and economics. They engaged in worship as a way of trade, and they engaged in trade by worshipping the deities of the customers. Rudner, very precisely, summarized the functioning of our society. Though he mentioned it for salt trade we believe it is the case for
the money-lending business as well. Rudner says,
“The system on the whole constituted a profit-generating ‘circuit of capital’ - Nagarathars invested profits from their salt trade in religious gifts. Religious gifts were transformed and redistributed as honors. Honors were the currency of trust. And trustworthiness gained Nagarathars access to the market for salt.”
Ideally, in a business environment competition is the norm, but rather than competing against one another we find the chettiars working together as a group. It is conceivable that this crop of traders were born and raised in a very traditional environment and being the first generation to set foot in a foreign land (outside chettinad), they were very conscious of their environment and their surrounding culture. In their eyes the world was carved into groups of people based on nationality, ethnicity, religion, caste, etc. This realization could have helped hold this group together. Every day, they constantly reminded themselves that business was the only reason that they are staying away from their family and home. The same sentiment is echoed in the BPBEC report - the Chettiars’ existence as a small alien group with frequent blood relationship and with common economic interests, descent, language, worship and caste associations, but divided in all these points from the population around them, was sure to generate a feeling of solidarity. Though the Chettiars were miles apart in physical space from their families, relatives and friends, they were close to each other in social space.
A Community in transition
Please bare with us while we take this tree analogy from the poem a bit further - The life cycle of the tree is
March 2012
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