Christina Lubinski Global Trade and Indian Politics: The German Dye Business in India before 1947 This article analyzes the German dye business in India before 1947 as an example of expanding German-Indian commercial relationships. German dye manufacturers showed great inter- est in India’s economic potential in the absence of discrimina- tory tariffs, while Indian elites were interested in non-British Western partners, which could support their struggle for indus- trial self-reliance. This particular alignment of interests facili- tated cooperation and shows that the so-called European experience is more diverse than research has shown so far. The analysis highlights global trading networks beyond the po- litical boundaries of formal empire and offers an alternative perspective on Indian business history, which reveals more competition between multinationals of different origins and more strategic choices available to Indians. I ndian business history has become an established field. Business History Review recently published a special issue (2014), edited by Dwijendra Tripathi, which shows the status of research and rightly high- lights the many achievements in the field since the mid-1960s, when it first emerged. Business history became rooted in the Indian context in both academic and professional circles and has added significantly to our understanding of the often ambivalent political and economic rela- tionship between India and Great Britain. However, multinationals “par- ticularly of non-British origin,” as Tripathi highlights, have received comparatively little attention so far. 1 Only recently have scholars extended the scope of the analysis beyond the Indo-British relationship, arguing that the British Empire was a network of interactions with many different and changing Business History Review 89 (Autumn 2015): 503–530. doi:10.1017/S0007680515000707 © 2015 The President and Fellows of Harvard College. ISSN 0007-6805; 2044-768X (Web). 1 Dwijendra Tripathi, ed., “Business, Networks, and the State in India,” special issue, Busi- ness History Review 88, no. 1 (2014): 6. For an overview of the status quo of research, see also Dwijendra Tripathi, The Oxford History of Indian Business (New Delhi, 2004). of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007680515000707 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 76.94.72.42, on 19 Aug 2018 at 21:29:19, subject to the Cambridge Core terms