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Pot Market is a stone’s throw from the Secunderabad railway station road, where hundreds of commuters spill out of trains, buses and the metro each minute. It’s part of the Nizam-era Monda Market that has been around since the 19th century. Only they don’t sell pots here anymore, but silver, pearls, and gold, in jewelry stores mostly run by Jain traders.
Congestion from the main road doesn’t quite diffuse inside the cramped market lanes, it only continues. Shoppers, school kids and other residents on their feet are constantly dodging bikes, cars, pushcarts and minitrucks.
In one of these lanes, on July 31, a Dalit man named Yedla Sai Kiran was riding home on his Activa. He was just one turn away from home when he reached SK Jewellers. An SUV stood in his way.
Store owner Ghevar Chand Jain's son-in-law, Abhishek, was in the driver’s seat. According to Sai Kiran, when he honked at the stationary car, Abhishek hurled caste-based slurs, calling him "low caste (kam jaat)". Sai Kiran alleges he and his friend were assaulted. But Abhishek and his family present a starkly different version, claiming they were the ones abused and attacked.
Road rage is an emotion you’d witness every single day in these perpetually clogged streets. But this particular fight between a Marwadi trader and a Dalit man escalated into a campaign targeting the entire community, demanding that they "go back."
The Marwadis are hardly newcomers to Telangana. Though the term literally refers to people who are originally from the Marwar region of Rajasthan, it is colloquially used in Hyderabad to refer to the mercantile community of banias from Rajasthan and Gujarat, including Jains, Agarwals, Maheshwaris and others.
Marwadis have been part of the trading community in Hyderabad and Secunderabad since as early as the 18th century. Today, they dominate the jewelry, grain, hardware, and kirana store sectors, wielding considerable economic influence.
The "Marwadi Go Back" campaign exposed seething economic insecurity among Telangana's traders, anxieties on cultural hegemony, and political loyalties.
The initial push came from leaders of the Vimuktha Chiruthala Kakshi (VCK), the Telangana unit of the Tamil Nadu based Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi. These leaders were initially supporting the alleged victim of caste abuse in Pot Market, when they raised the slogan against Marwadis. Slowly, anti-caste activists, Osmania University students, and participants of the Telangana statehood agitation joined in.
Two major caste groups – the Vishwakarmas (a Backward Class community who work as carpenters, goldsmiths, blacksmiths etc.) and Vysyas/Komatis (a Telugu trading community equivalent to banias) also backed the campaign.
Prominent BJP leaders reacted to the hostility and spoke out in favour of Marwadis. Their involvement threw mainstream media’s spotlight on the ‘Marwadi Go Back’ slogan. A set of Telugu YouTube channels covered the issue relentlessly, making sure it was discussed for weeks.
The campaign, while it had limited real impact, has brought into sharp focus the deep economic anxieties among local traders who are blaming the Marwadi business community for declining profits and cultural tensions that have complex reasons.
The campaign seems to have cooled off for now. But for a month, many people in Telangana came across the ‘Marwadi Go Back’ slogan and were perplexed by its polarising nature which seemed sudden and unusual for the region.
This story, while tracing the fault lines of the conflict, also examines the historical roots of Marwadis whose presence has been integral to the region's economy since the mid-1800s. It’s a deep dive into the intricacies and contradictions of the ‘Marwadi Go Back’ campaign.
Who are the Hyderabadi Marwadis?
Marwadi merchants maintain a dominant presence across many of Hyderabad's older markets. Their commercial footprint spans Secunderabad’s Monda Market and General Bazaar to Old City’s Begum Bazaar, encompassing wholesale and retail trade in spices, plastics, kitchen utensils, electrical supplies, textiles, hardware, and plywood. Most of these businesses have been passed down through many generations of the same families.
Starting from the 18th century, many Marwadi and Jain traders began migrating from present-day Gujarat, Maharashtra and other regions to the Hyderabad State under the Nizam regime for its favourable tax system.