‘The Sassoons’ affection for Bombay comes across in philanthropy’ – The Indian Express

Joseph, an academic at Oxford and Georgetown universities, is related to David’s siblings who stayed back in Baghdad. Over a phone call from Washington DC, he speaks with Benita Fernando of The Indian Express on the Sassoons’ close ties with Bombay. Excerpts:

What prompted David Sassoon and his family to flee Baghdad and find refuge in Bombay?

They had to flee Baghdad because they ran into a corrupt governor who was bent upon segregating the provinces as much as possible from the Ottoman Empire. His way of financing was to ask merchants to give X or Y, and if the merchant refused to do that, he would arrest a member of the family. So in this case, he arrested David Sassoon, the oldest son of the Shaikh. The father paid the ransom and secured his release.

David supposedly left because he realised that this governor is not going to stop. He goes to Iran and wonders what to do. The family had some connection to British representatives in Baghdad. There was one who had served in Bombay and he had been telling them how unique the city was. It’s open to traders. It’s about business. It’s not about religion or sect. They made the decision to go so far away with little information versus going somewhere in the Gulf, where there were families from Baghdad. That shows something about the spirit of adventure, and the willingness to try new things in the belief that India will be different.

In your book, David comes across as the kind of merchant who assimilated with Bombay society while also swearing allegiance to the British Crown and the East India Company. What exactly was his strategy?

It’s interesting that he opted to learn Hindustani and not English.

He understood an empire because he comes from the Ottoman Empire and that the head of the empire is a king or queen. But he could not understand what the East India Company is or how a corporation can control a country. So, from the beginning, his determination to be part and parcel of Bombay in India was clear.

The second way of interpreting his intent—look at the houses he bought [in Bombay and Pune]. There was a permanence in his attitude. In his will is an interesting paragraph, which states that he does not want, in any circumstance, that his house be sold for the next 50 years…So basically he’s saying, I want my sons also to be in India for the next 50 years.

You make an interesting observation about resisting moral judgment on the opium trade during the Sassoons’ time. How much of the Sassoon business’ decline was connected to the policies that were made against opium trade?

With other families in India, such as the Tatas, they steered away from it or they realised that the end is coming. The problem was not just opium. It’s more the lack of diversification. The problem with the Sassoons is that there were not enough leaders who had the vision of the future, that commodities such as opium are not going to be profitable in the long run. Part of my argument is that they were so preoccupied with anglicisation that as long as they felt opium, cotton, silk and tea were giving a relatively easy income and they knew the business, why bother? The issue of opium is more complicated than cotton because of the moral aspects, but the writing was on the wall. There was a lot of opposition in Britain. Religious groups were writing about it and distributing pamphlets. There were umpteen discussions in Parliament about it. Any good business person would have figured it out.

You write that the Sassoons cut 0.25 per cent tax in every transaction, whether it was profit or loss, for charity. We get the sense that philanthropy was built into their business model. Did their philanthropic endeavours differ from those of the other merchant families in Bombay?

They all cared, without exception, about the city. A lot of gardens and museums and hospitals are by half-a-dozen families of merchants. The difference is the Sassoons’ feelings about India versus other places. They did give money in China but they didn’t build institutions that had wide ramifications for Shanghai or Hong Kong. They built a synagogue here and there, but that’s more for the Jewish community, not for the population at large. Think about Pune’s [Sassoon General] Hospital, which they stipulated should be open to all castes and religions. That did not happen in China, Japan or Burma. That’s where the affection for Bombay comes across in philanthropy.

Sans Souci, David’s Byculla residence, was an important part of Bombay’s social and political life. Today it’s Masina Hospital—one of the rare instances where a private residence was opened up for public welfare. Did you visit it as part of your research?

I visited it in March 2019. I was trying to find something or someone there that tells me [more about the place], but everyone, to be fair, was so busy that I didn’t feel it was right for me to ask. So I went up these wide stairs and there was still nothing. I decided to go one more floor up and I had goosebumps because I suddenly saw the Sassoon coat-of-arms engraved there. It was very emotional…You realise how big this place is when they say 1,200 guests were once invited for dinner. It’s nice to know that something like this could benefit so many people in the city.

You note in the book that outside Mumbai and few districts in Shanghai, few have heard of the Sassoon family. What makes Bombay distinctive?

I always say the litmus test is the cab drivers. I can go to any taxi driver in Mumbai and say take me to the Sassoon docks or the Sassoon library and they will know where it is. There is no such place in England. The only connection is [celebrity hairstylist] Vidal Sassoon, who has nothing to do with the family. In Shanghai, people would know it because there are some buildings, but the names have changed. In Mumbai, there are all those places that stayed with this Sassoon name.