Project codification: legal legacies of the British Raj on the Indian mercantile credit institutionhundi

Abstract

This discussion contributes to the history of the colonial rule of law that governed market practice in India using the South Asian indigenous credit institution known as hundi. A centuries-old artery of credit for Indian merchant networks, and a living institution that has largely been driven underground by 21 st century laws, hundi provides a window into the dynamics of colonial law from the commercial and financial legislation of the 1880s to the final attempt to codify hundi in the 1960s and 70s in a bid to bridge the growing disconnect between the Indian indigenous banking sector and modern banking. I chart the British colonial and postindependence history of hundi as means of understanding the wider political, legislative and economic dynamics of colonial state formation and the legacies of legislation.

Everyday experiences of digital financial inclusion in India's ‘micro-entrepreneur’ paratransit services

“…The term Saitu is given to people belonging to the Marwari community (originating from Rajasthan), although in Bengaluru we also identified moneylenders with family lineage originating from Gujarat and Maharashtra. Indigenous lenders exist in other areas of India within key merchant communities, such as Marwari, Nat-tukottai Chettiar, Shikarpuri or Multani, and Gujarati (Martin, 2015). They are referred to as indigenous lenders having had a role in India's economy before the arrival of the British colonial government and global systems of finance to supply microfinance to the poor, by the government, as a means to facilitate entrepreneurship.…”