Borrowing time

Also clearly but differently expressive of time was the management of credit and debt. It is of interest because its forms and regulation were evolving, not in the same way as clock time but as another aspect of related social changes. Loans meant borrowing from the future, gaining resources but delaying payment: they exploited time still to come. They were gradually made subject to regulation during British rule in India. Traditionally, dating back to the twelfth century, there had been remittances by hundi , effectively a bill of exchange or an I.O.U. The bearer would be paid by a named person, in order to manage a transfer between individuals as a form of credit and debt or between merchants with a mutual arrangement, often over distance. There were various types. Some were payable on sight within a reasonable period of time. Some had a specified date for payment. Some were restricted to a named bearer, some were transferable, some conditional. The British regarded them as traditional practice with which they should not interfere, but did begin to endorse and regularise them during the nineteenth century, for example by issuing official printed forms. Thereby hundis began to be incorporated, though never wholly, into a more formal structure of borrowing already developed by laws relating to credit in Britain and introduced and established in India under the Company. Such regulation would come to shape commercial norms, directly or indirectly regulating credit and time in relation to it. Today a loan's date of maturity, expressed in days, months and years, is vital for calculating worth and liabilities. The term to maturity measures the value and end-point of any relationship between lender and borrower, crucial to calculating risk and the return on investment.