Trading history

Try visualising the period between 1AD and 1300AD — there was no telecommunication, air transport, international banking channel, currency market, internet or high-speed ship engines. Still, the Indian subcontinent had a fairly large economy and a robust share of international trade from the days of the Roman Empire till the period when the Industrial Revolution swept across Europe and dramatically altered the dynamics of competition.

Clearly, trade and business did occur and merchants from the Indian subcontinent were very successful and prosperous. Maritime routes were the backbone of international trade and, logically, sea trade must have been a core area of economic activity in many coastal regions. Other pre-requisites would have been specialisation, inland trade routes and a well-established mercantile system. But how did merchants trade? How did they assess demand and supply? Where did they obtain financing and capital? What role did the state play in facilitating trade and commerce? How important were the merchant/trade guilds or societies? Unfortunately, I have not come across too many books (at least in English) that try to picture the economic situation of that period or articulate the extraordinary achievements of the Indian businessmen and merchants of history.

Fortunately, there’s now Kanakalatha Mukund’s Merchants of Tamilakam: Pioneers of International Trade,  another neatly packaged book from Penguin India’s ‘The Story of Indian Business’ series edited by former industry honcho and author-columnist Gurcharan Das. After Tirthankar Roy’s East India Company: The World’s Most Powerful Corporation and Thomas Trautmann’s Arthashastra: The Science of Wealth, Das sets his gaze on this relatively lesser known but no less intriguing business aspect of Indian history: the intrepid mercantile builder-kings of Southern India. In the Coonoor-based Mukund, he has an able economist-historian, and together they build and craft an exceedingly readable book.

Merchants of Tamilakam focuses specifically on the south Indian peninsula, covering the period between the Sangham era (first to third centuries) until the decline of the Chola Empire (~ 1300AD). The author has leveraged extensively on Tamil literature and other credible sources, including archaeological evidence, to provide the reader with a refreshing perspective not only on trade and commerce but the interplay between the merchant/business community and the state, temples and society. It is indeed fascinating to find that there were multiple, highly active ports operating all along the peninsula, exporting spices and a variety of other products to the South-East, Far East and Europe, in exchange for gold, silver and other imports.

The port of Puhar (south of Chennai), for example, used to play the role of a trans-shipment hub, pooling in goods from the region as well as China, for export and vice-versa. The book also demonstrates how a stable political regime facilitates trade and commerce, which in turn leads to prosperity across society. The Indian passion for gold and silver is indeed legendary and the author shows how India used to have a trade surplus, and that large parts of these surpluses were settled by importers in gold and silver. Some things have changed — India does not have a trade surplus and does not mine an ounce of gold anymore — while others haven’t: Indian gold imports were in excess of $56 billion in fiscal 2012!  Nonetheless, written in a nice, free flowing style, this book is a great read for anyone with general interest in business and history.