My Marwari lineage!

I am not a full Bengali by lineage. My mother, who was born and brought up in Kolkata, studied in a Bengali medium school and Presidency college, and became a professor in a renowned college in North Kolkata, was the daughter of a Parekh family hailing from Bikaner. Her pedigree is that of a Marwari and Jain business community. She is a Bengali by heart and soul, and got married to my father from a Dutta family against all odds, overcoming reservations of both families. My kin on the side of my mother’s father were however strictly Marwaris and Jains and practised all customs and rituals with vigour. I was clearly an outcaste among them. I was not very curious about my forefathers and earlier generations, until my husband who is particularly interested in researching family trees started digging for more information. I remember that at night, after dinner he would catch my mother and pester her to get information to complete the family tree. As I used to lie on the divan listening to their conversations, names such as Bhim Singh Parekh would pop up leaving me perplexed!

I knew even less about my mother’s maternal family, as she was also less informed about the history of her maternal lineage. There was no particular story to tell until we recently stumbled upon a few facts and stories which left us awestruck, amused and smiling. For me, particularly, it was eye opening to learn how progressive the Kolkata based Marwari business community could be in terms of their contribution to people and society.

My mother’s mother Neelam married Bhim Singh Parekh at the age of 12, and was the daughter of one Motichand Nakhat. Motichand was the son of Lala Phool Chand, who according to “The Cyclopedia of India: Biographical, Historical, Administrative, Commercial – Volume 2 (1908)”, was “Mookim and Court Jeweller, a famous and honest jeweller in Bengal, and one of the most influential members of the Jain Community of the time.”

Motichand partnered with Sett Labhchand to establish the jewellery firm of Messrs. Labhchand and Motichand, based at the “Marble House” at 41, Dhurrumtollah Street, which in addition to being a showroom, was custom built to also house a factory with modern equipments, employing 250 to 300 hands in jewellery making. It is also documented that because of the high skill, quality and excellence of their jewellery they had gained a wide reputation as a new firm and became very successful.They also started a free Technical School with the object of teaching the “better class of the Indian people the art of manufacturing jewellery suited to modern requirements in the European and Indian styles. This was practically a necessity to the business as the men who professed the art as a caste profession and were the traditional producers carrying on the craft for generations, were unreliable in the extreme, and the firm had experienced considerable inconvenience owing to the delays occasioned by their irregular attendance.”

Being a development sector professional, and having worked in the sectors of livelihood, skills, and crafts, I specifically understand how progressive and advanced this thought of opening a free technical institute of excellence was. What is even more impressive is that this Technical School did not confine its instruction entirely to the jeweller’s art, though it was the main objective. The curriculum included English literature, Sanskrit, Hindi and Bengali. It was open to all Jains and Hindu youths, and certain provisions were also made for boarding and lodging. The firm also apparently made a very prominent stall at an industrial exhibition in Kolkata (1906-7), where they exhibited the actual process of diamond cutting, showcasing the skills and craftsmanship of Indian artisans in practice. This generated much interest among national and international visitors at the stall. Looking at our current policies and programmes of Make in India, Skill India and efforts towards building cultural entrepreneurship, I wonder at how much of these ideas were already laid out successfully in our artisan and handicrafts industries in the past.

Motichand Nakhat also established, in memory of his father Phoolchand, at a cost of around 60,000 rupees, a “large Dharmsala or traveller’s house at No. 9, Shama Bai’s Lane, Bara Bazar” that was “quite up to modern requirements in ventilation and sanitation.” In our current state of adminstration, governance and politics, it seems that we are still grappling with the same issues that our social reformers and business communities had actually faced and tried to address more than a century ago. I have myself believed that entrepreneurs with social sensitivity from any field are the greatest changemakers and contributors in society, and my belief and admiration became more strongly rooted on learning all this. This history is indeed very interesting, but what made us search out all this information from old documents in the first place is even more exciting, and especially impactful for a Bengali having this particular Marwari family lineage!

In 1899, Rabindranath Tagore was trying to run the family business Tagore & Co. in partnership with his nephew Balendranath. The activities of this business are summarised in the excellent timeline of Rabindranath’s life available online at Rabi Tirtha’s website. From there, we learn that Rabindranath wrote in a letter to Basanta Kumar Gupta on 12th March 1899 that the company had suffered considerable losses in its Barishal operations due to the incompetence and possible dishonesty of its overseer Nishikanta. To make matters worse, Balendranath, who was suffering from tuberculosis, passed away in August, leaving Rabindranath solely responsible for the liabilities of the company. Rabindranath had already asked his friend Priyanath Sen to secure a loan of 40,000 rupees to keep the company afloat. Apparently, this loan was finally secured around the 25th of august, at the rate of 7% interest. And the provider of the loan was none other than my mother’s grandfather Motichand Nakhat! We learn more about this loan from Rabindranath’s letter to Priyanath Sen on 17 November 1899 (Chithipatra, volume 8, letter number 93), where he quotes a letter he has received from attorney Amarnath Ghosh, which read as follows:

“The document in favour of my client Babu Moti Chand Nakhat requires registration : as three months have expired, the document must at once be registered or a fresh one executed so that you will have 4 months within which the 2nd document may be registered. An early reply will oblige.” Rabindranath is understandably confused and concerned about such a legal notice. He goes on to express his uncertainty and dismay about this notice and what trouble such a “party” (loan provider) could cause him if he is unable to pay back the loan within the allotted time of one year, and beseeches Priyanath to find him a way out.

According to Rabi Tirtha, this loan was eventually repaid by taking another loan from Sir Taraknath Palit, presumably on better terms, which was then repaid using money from Rabindranath’s Nobel prize several years later! For us, this remains a story book tale that we are happy narrating!