Indian banks used to ask anyone opening an account for an introduction from an existing customer of the bank. Someone the bank already knew had to vouch for the newcomer.
In December 2012 the Reserve Bank of India told banks to stop insisting on it. The requirement, it said, was not mandatory under any of its rules.
In Rajasthan, a host presses food on a guest again and again. The custom is called manvar, from the Marwari word for “to request.”
Guests know the rules. “It is customary to decline what you are offered – the first time,” a report from Udaipur notes.
In Premchand’s story Panch Parmeshwar (1916), the friends Jumman and Algu each sit in judgment in a case that touches the other. Algu, as head of the village panchayat, rules against his friend. An old woman has told him: Panch ke dil mein khuda basta hai. God lives in the heart of the panch.
Later Jumman, now an enemy, must judge Algu’s case. When he judges fairly, the village cries out: Panch Parmeshwar ki jai! Victory to the panch who is God.
Under its Incredible India campaign, the Ministry of Tourism ran Atithi Devo Bhava, “the guest is god.” The words come from the Taittiriya Upanishad.
The actor Aamir Khan was the face of the campaign until 2016. When his role ended, the ministry said that the advertising agency, not the ministry, had hired him.
In a field experiment among pen wholesalers in Chennai, buyers were matched at random with sellers. Buyers matched with a seller from their own ethnic group received a discounted price.
The sellers did not ask these buyers for smaller advance payments, however. The researchers concluded that the discount came from preference for the group, not from greater trust.