Origin of the Marwari’s wealth

Origin of the Marwari’s wealth
Posted on 18th October-2009
Here is what an enlightened gentleman in Rajasthan told me about the origin of the Marwari’s wealth:-
In the barren desert of Rajasthan, where no agriculture was possible,the only thing which grew in abundance was shrubs and dry grass, as a result hundreds of Nomadic families, who owned lakhs of Cattle, Sheep, Camels etc used to roam the country side, including other States to graze them, the entire families/tribes accompanied the herds, which were many miles long (I myself came across never ending rows of sheep, for miles and miles and that too in early seventies) and once or twice a year , they used to return to their villages and when they used to sell or sheer their cattle, they were faced with the predicament of safeguarding the money realized, as they were roaming around most of the year, easy target for bandits.
The local, cunning Marwaris living in small towns used to charge them interest for keeping their money safe and at the same time used the money to lend to Kings and Nawabs in their hard times and later on invested this money in big towns like Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Kanpur etc etc in money lending and Industrial ventures.
Thus they realized double profit on the money, as safekeeping fee from the owners of the money and on account of interest earned from those to whom they lent it or in the industrial ventures they undertook by that money.
That is what is called Aam ke Aam Guthlion ke daam.
From the abject poverty widespread in Marwar /Rajasthan it seems that many of the actual owners of the money were not paid back and many perished, while roaming, at the hands of Muslim invaders, while the Marwari grew fat, wealthy and successful on the Nomad’s money.

Robby Sharma
(865, Block-B, Panki Kanpur 208020)
Mob-91-9235844258; 91-9415438326
sharmarobby@hotmail.com