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382. Mobile Merchant Bankers of South India
Carol Upadhya and Prof. Raman Mahadevan with K N Hari Kumar.
Speakers
What was the process of wealth generation and accumulation by the most prominent business community of South India? A journey that was marked by risk and courage; a journey that carried them to the greener pastures of South and Southeast Asia; and a journey that was shaped by the power of global events.
In this conversation, scholar Prof. Carol Upadhya and veteran journalist K N Hari Kumar and Prof. Raman Mahadevan shall unravel and illuminate not only the making, but also the relative weakening, of the Nattukottai Chettiars as a business community, and the significance of their journey for our times.
In this episode of BIC Talks, Prof. Carol Upadhya and Prof. Raman Mahadevan will be in conversation with veteran journalist K N Hari Kumar. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in Jul 2025.
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Speakers
Raman Mahadevan
Raman Mahadevan is a senior economic and business historian. His scholarly contribution lies in the broad area of industrial and capitalist development in colonial South India. He has co-edited Shaping India: Economic Change in Historical Perspective (Routledge, 2011) and South India Economy: Agrarian Change, Industrial Structure and State Politics 1914–1947 (Oxford University Press, 1991). His latest book is Fortune Seekers: A Business History of the Nattukottai Chettiars (Penguin Random House, 2025)
He was on the faculty of IIM-B, Rajasthan University, Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum, and Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi. He now lives in Bangalore.
Carol Upadhya
Carol Upadhya, a social anthropologist, is Honorary Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru, where she leads the Urban & Mobility Studies Programme. Upadhya’s latest publication is a co-edited volume (with Vinay Gidwani and Michael Goldman), Chronicles of a Global City: Speculative Lives and Unsettled Futures in Bengaluru (University of Minnesota Press, 2024). She is the author of Reengineering India: Work, Capital, and Class in an Offshore Economy (Oxford University Press, 2016) and co-editor of Provincial Globalization in India: Transregional Mobilities and Development Politics (Routledge, 2018).
K N Hari Kumar
K N Hari Kumar is former Editor-in-Chief of Deccan Herald and Prajavani. He has written extensively on current affairs for these newspapers and other publications. His main focus is on India and Karnataka. He has also held top management positions in the newspaper’s organization. He has been involved in the planning and implementation of the corporate strategy of the organization. He has served as Director and Chairman of the Press Trust of India and as President of the Editors Guild of India.
