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Chapter 5: Contexts
- State University of New York Press
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5 CONTEXTS In the foregoing chapter we examined Jaipur’s gemstone business from the standpoint of how its product is made and traded. We now shift to its cultural and social side. A business—any business—carries a subculture of its own and also takes place within a wider social and cultural context, although the extent to which it is actually shaped by its context is a separate issue. The present chapter develops a cultural and social sketch of Jaipur’s gemstone industry at the elite level. It describes a way of life that, in its broad features, took shape in the early twentieth century and endures in many respects even today. Our discussion will proceed in three stages. We first learn something of the shared values and outlook—the internal culture—of the gem‑ stone profession itself in its Jaipur manifestation. Our vehicle for this is an account of the way elite members of the profession were typi‑ cally socialized into the business during the high days of the emerald elite. What they learned, as we shall see, was more than simply how to cut stones. We then turn to the community life of these jewelers, and Jainism will figure prominently in this part of our discussion. We shall see that, for members of the emerald elite, the life of trade is deeply intertwined with life in the community in general. At the end of the chapter we return to our comparison with New York’s diamond industry. LEARNING Simply growing up in a household supported by the business has always been an important part of the socialization process of Jaipur jewelers, and the majority of the city’s jewelers were probably always 115 116 Emerald City brought into the trade in this time‑honored manner. But as we know, another important pattern was for fathers to send their sons to other jewelers as apprentices. We know this was being done by some in the mid‑nineteenth century, and the pattern is quite possibly older than that. As we also know, such extra‑familial apprenticeship was a crucial means by which the emerald business diffused outward within what became the emerald elite. Nowadays, this pattern of socialization has diminished in importance, and so I use the past tense in describing it. Throughout most of the twentieth century, however, it prevailed among elite families, and a significant proportion of the business’s senior core today was trained in this fashion. We now turn to a closer look at the way this socialization process was organized and what was actually imparted by it. Apprenticeship Most of the boys sent outside their immediate family for training were probably sent into relatively informal apprenticeship situations with relatives in the business, a pattern that to some extent still exists today. Until the latter years of the twentieth century, however, a con‑ siderable number were sent to the two industry epicenters mentioned in chapter 3. These were Rajroop Tank’s factory and school and the manufacturing and educational operation known as Haveli. There were other such apprenticeship centers, but these were by far the most important and famous ones. What follows is drawn from older informants’ accounts of their experiences as apprentices at Tank’s school and Haveli. The relationship between teacher and apprentice in these institu‑ tions was much more than merely pedagogical; it was a relationship rich in cultural content that drew from ancient Indic religious tradi‑ tions for its basic structure. As we noted in chapter 3, the teacher was called “guru,” a term best translated as religious preceptor or spiritual guide. As we also know, the apprentice was called “chela,” a term that combines the meanings of pupil and disciple. I have heard people refer to these schools with the term gurukul, which carries the primary meaning of a place of religious instruction where students live and interact intimately with a guru. In the Indic religious world, religious knowledge and spiritual authority are transmitted within lines of pupillary succession—from gurus to chelas on the model of unilineal descent—and such lines of succession are known as guru paramparås. As we saw in chapter 3 (see also Smedley 1995, 136–7), [3.233.221.42] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 16:07 GMT) 117 Contexts precisely such a line of succession exists in Jaipur’s gemstone indus‑ try, reaching back at least as far as Suganchand Saubhagchand Jargad. The stated rationale for sending a boy to such a school was...