The Omnipresent Bania

Rural Moneylenders in Nineteenth-Century Sind

Bibliographic Data

ID3613257
AuthorsDavid Cheesman (corresponding author)
Year1982
Volume16
Issue3
Pages445-462
Publication date1982-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueModern Asian Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0026-749X • E-ISSN: 1469-8099
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0026749x00015262
OpenAlexW2095969139
LanguageEN
Citations received7

After revisiting Sind in 1876, Sir Richard Burton wrote, 'The Hindu's reed-pen is a rod of iron and abjectly the unhappy Sindi trembles before it.' By 'Hindu,' Burton meant the Hindu bania, the trader and moneylender, and by 'Sindi' he meant the Sindhi Muslim zamindar (landholder), the perennial debtor. The creditor tyrannized over the debtor, imposing ever harsher and more inequitable terms on him. What is interesting is that Burton scarcely appeared to recognize the Hindu banias as Sindhis at all; he wrote as if they were interlopers on the Sindhi scene. It was a colourful summary of the average British official's attitude towards debt. Twenty years later, Evan James, the Commissioner in Sind, quoted Burton's remark to lend support to his own argument that debt was an intolerable burden on Sindhi Muslims in general and the great zamindars in particular

Argument (complex analysis · Creditor · Debt · Debtor · Economic history · Economics · Hinduism · Political science · Sociology · Finance · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Medicine · Philosophy · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East · Religion and Society Interactions · Religious studies

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