Vaanikan seyuvaarkku vaanikam paenip piravum thamapoar seyin. Couplet 120 of the Thirukkural, the Tamil classic on ethics, is about traders. It stands in chapter 12, on rectitude. A translation based on G.U. Pope’s reads: “As thriving trader is the trader known, Who guards another’s interests as his own.”
Five Percent
The Arthashastra, the ancient treatise on statecraft attributed to Kautilya, limits a merchant’s margin. In R. Shamasastry’s English translation: “The Superintendent of Commerce shall fix a profit of five per cent over and above the fixed price of local commodities, and ten per cent on foreign produce.”
Unequal Bargaining Power
On April 6, 1986, the Supreme Court decided Central Inland Water Transport Corporation v. Brojo Nath Ganguly. The case concerned a clause in the service rules of a government company that let it end an employee’s service. The Court held that courts will “strike down an unfair and unreasonable contract” “entered into between parties who are not equal in bargaining power.” Such a clause “ought, therefore, to be adjudged void under section 23” of the Contract Act.
The Court also defined the term: “An unconscionable bargain would, therefore, be one which is irreconcilable with what is right or reasonable.”
Fair, Equitable and Balanced
In 2025 India negotiated a trade agreement with the United States while most Indian goods faced American tariffs of 50 percent. Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal kept to one formula. “We want a fair, equitable and balanced trade deal,” he said on November 11. A week later, at the Indo-US Economic Summit in Delhi, he said: “When the deal will become fair, equitable and balanced, you will hear good news.”
The Beauty of Compromise
“All my life through, the very insistence on truth has taught me to appreciate the beauty of compromise. I saw in later life that this spirit was an essential part of satyagraha.” Mahatma Gandhi wrote this in his autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, in the part on his early years in South Africa.
Fairly and Transparently
The Tata Code of Conduct, in its 2015 version, sets rules for dealing with others. “Our conduct shall be fair and transparent and be perceived as fair and transparent by third parties.” On suppliers: “We shall select our suppliers and service providers fairly and transparently.” On customers: “Our dealings with our customers shall be professional, fair and transparent.”
Parties Riven Asunder
Mahatma Gandhi practiced law in South Africa from 1893. In one of his first cases, he persuaded the two parties to take their dispute to an arbitrator and settle it. He wrote that he had realized “the true function of a lawyer was to unite parties riven asunder.”
“This lesson was so indelibly burnt into me that a large part of my time during the twenty years of my practice as a lawyer was occupied in bringing about private compromises of hundreds of cases.”
People’s Courts
A Lok Adalat, a people’s court, settles disputes by compromise. Under the Legal Services Authorities Act of 1987, it arrives “at a compromise or settlement between the parties.” Its award “shall be deemed to be a decree of a Civil Court,” and “no appeal shall lie to any Court against the award.”
Since 2015 National Lok Adalats have been held across India on single days, each disposing of a large number of pending cases.