Merchants of Early Modern and Colonial India: Enterprise, Community, and Politics
Conference at Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Goregaon (East),
Mumbai, India
14-15 December 2019
Sponsors:
S K Somaiya College (Department of History), London School of Economics, Georgia State University, Dr. Phiroza J Godrej, the Godrej Archives, Ashwin Bhai Shroff, Excel Industries and British Academy.
The conference aims to bring together scholars who have studied Indian merchants during the 17th and 20th century. During this period, merchants and merchant communities played a vital role in the economic and political change in India, some of these changes left a legacy that shaped enterprise in present-day India. Past scholarship in the field has studied the trading enterprise of individual merchants and merchant families, this conference seeks to explore their trade and businesses in broader socio-cultural and political contexts. We hope that the conversation will lead to a more comprehensive and comparative understanding of the world of Indian merchants in the early modern and colonial periods.
