I read with some concern "When tea was not a party and opium was a trade” and the Editorial Viewpoint, "A lotus cannot bloom...” (Parsiana, March 21, 2012), about the Parsi involvement in the opium trade. Both pieces gave the impression that Parsis dominated the opium trade and were therefore primarily responsible for the ensuing addiction of the Chinese populace and for the destruction wreaked on the Chinese by the British in two Opium Wars.
In fact, the major share of the trade (reference: jewishencyclopedia.com and wikipedia.com) belonged to David Sassoon, a Baghdadi Jew, who immigrated to India in order to enter the opium trade. In 1830 Sassoon is said to have shipped 18,956 chests of opium to China. By 1880 his shipments had grown to 105,508 chests and his share of the opium trade in 1871 is estimated at 70 percent by a Fortune magazine article published in 1930.
Of his four sons the oldest, Abdullah, changed his name to Albert and was made a Baronet. Albert’s son Edward married a Rothschild. By 1900 Sassoon’s wealth was estimated to be second only to that of the Rothschilds in the Jewish community. In Bombay, the Sassoon family built two synagogues, as well as Sassoon Dock and the David Sassoon Library, amongst other landmarks of old Bombay. His personal residence in Byculla was sold and later became the Masina Hospital.
There is more than enough tragedy to share around in this sorry chapter of human history. Let us put the blame accruing to the Parsi traders in perspective.
ERACH TARAPORE
Lafayette, California, USA
etarapore@gmail.com
The editors reply:
David Sassoon and many others were major players in the opium trade. But the Parsis were the dominant party. It must be kept in mind this trade was legal in India and the West. China banned the opium trade because it was upsetting their balance of payments. It was then that Parsis along with others took to smuggling opium.
In his article on the opium trade Keija Yan, associate research professor at the Institute of Religious Studies, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, China (extracts of which were printed in Parsiana, March 21, 2008) notes:
"There were 11 Parsi companies by 1837, compared with only nine from the United States and one each from Portugal, Germany, Holland and Sweden. From 1828-1848, there were about 40 to 45 Parsi residents in Canton as announced in the annual list of foreign inhabitants in The Chinese Repository. By the first half of the 18th century, there were more old-time Parsi traders in Canton than private British merchants from the Indian settlement or other indigenous merchants. In 1809, for example, there was only one British private trader whereas there were seven Parsis in Canton…
"In addition to tea and silk, cotton and opium were the major products that dominated the China trade. According to A. Guha, in 1828-1829 and in 1833-1834, the cotton and opium exported to China through Parsi traders made up 32 percent and 46 percent, respectively, of the entire export commodities of India…
"The Chinese Emperor issued an edict in 1800 prohibiting the contraband. In the same year, the East India Company claimed to have ceased opium shipments to China. Yet, it never stopped extending loans to the opium cultivators and putting the product up for auction in Calcutta. At the same time, the huge profits realized from this trade made the Parsi merchants continue to smuggle it to China. They purchased the opium from the auction markets and shipped it to China. When the Malwa opium monopoly was canceled by the Bombay Government in 1831, it was replaced by a system of passes. The City of Bombay soon boomed into another distribution center for the opium trade, with nine-tenths of the exports coming out from this port city. The Parsis were more vigorously engaged in the opium trade than ever before. During the first four decades of the 19th century, the amount of opium exported annually from Bombay to China increased sharply from Rs 37,708 to Rs 1.5 crores.
"During the 19th century, the largest company involved in the opium trade was the Jardine Matheson Company while its most important partner in Bombay was the Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy Company (1818) and later on the Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy and Sons Company (1836). The first ship of this firm with its load of Malwa opium sailed into China in 1822 and made a profit of Rs 24,03,834. With the introduction of the pass system in Bombay in 1831, what Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy needed to do was merely to supply as much Malwa opium as possible to the warehouses of Jardine Matheson. As Asiya Siddiqi observes, ‘he was participating in a massive combination for monopolizing the Malwa opium trade.’ It is said that the strong cooperation between the two companies was based on the personal friendship between W. Jardine and J. Jejeebhoy which was established during the fourth voyage of the latter to China in 1805. The huge profits from the opium trade only brought them closer together, resulting in a lasting relationship through the 19th century.
"Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy was not the only Parsi client of the Jardine Matheson Company. In 1827, Bomanjee Manock-jee, Framjee Muncherjee, Cursetjee Framjee and Sorabjee Cowasjee, all of whom were major Parsi merchants in Canton, also became clients of the company. During the period 1819-1823, Framjee Cowasjee, another leading Parsi trader, was a partner of the company. In the 1829-1830 trade season, there were about 50 Parsis in Bombay who consigned their opium to Jardine Matheson. Among their 25 regular clients, 13 were Parsis. The Parsis were engaged in the opium trade so extensively that before 1840, when the Opium War broke out, the whole Indo-China opium trade, as Mani Kamerkar describes, was practically in Parsi hands. Even during the War, in 1842, the Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy and Sons Company, still sent two shipments of goods including opium which were consigned by various Parsis to Macao. Actually, a syndicate group for the opium trade was formed among the Jardine Matheson Company, the Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy and Sons Company and the Remington Crawford Company, a leading European firm in Bombay…
"The first stage of the Parsi diaspora in China ended around the middle of the 19th century when Zexu Lin, a firm and resolute Imperial high commissioner, finally decided to abolish the opium trade in 1839. The Parsis suffered a great loss as a result. Seven thousand, seven hundred opium chests belonging to major Parsi traders together with other opium shipments from around 50 companies consigned either by small Parsi firms or individuals were surrendered to the commissioner. According to the Gazetteer of Hong Kong Government of January 2, 1864, in the Parsi Factory of Kong Hong, at least 28 firms had to turn over their opium to the government. It is said that the Banajis sustained a loss of Rs 20 lakhs. Many other Parsi traders suffered similar losses, including Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy. Some of the Parsis who went bankrupt committed suicide…
"It can be concluded that without the China trade, the profile of the Parsi community in the 19th century and the panorama of the Indian economy could have turned out differently. What should be stressed here, however, is that the Parsis were able to seize the strategically rare and probably the last great trading opportunity in China. They were in China just before the break-up of the old geography of maritime trade coupled with traditional imperial economic and financial policies. The Parsis also had the unenviable role as drug smugglers in the China trade.”