Cotton King Govindram Seksaria: The Marwari maven of pre-Independence trade

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. By the end of the 18th century, India was no longer the world’s cotton capital, as it had been over the previous 1,000 years. However, one Indian was still given the moniker "Cotton King" for his vast influence over the trade.

That man was Govindram Seksaria, born in the dusty town of Nawalgarh, Rajasthan, in 1888 into a Bhagvati Vaid family. His father was a cloth merchant who died early, leaving the burden of supporting a large family comprising three brothers Bholaram, Ramnath, Makhanlal and two sisters with 16-year-old Govindram. Young Seksaria figured early that he had to leave his sleepy little hamlet to make two ends meet.

In that quest, he arrived in Bombay in the early 1900s when British firms dominated most businesses. Indian entrepreneurs faced an actively hostile environment with little access to capital or opportunities. Moreover, he didn’t speak English at a time when that was the lingua franca of the international business world, nor did he have any powerful connections.

But these were limitations only for the feeble of heart. Govindram was made of sterner stuff. Starting out as an operator in the Bombay Cotton Exchange, he gradually started trading in cotton.

An innate ability to understand the market dynamics, which came from his Marwari genes, brought almost immediate success. Within a few years his firm had become a member of the government's Cotton Contract Board and also an original member of the East India Cotton Association. It was the start of a journey that would take him to the very epicentre of the cotton trade culminating in his entry into the New York Cotton Exchange in 1934.