The Economic Times

How Kosher, Halal and Jain diets signalled trust, turning food laws into passports for global trade

Jain and Marwari merchants in India created, perhaps, the strongest iteration of this framework. Their strict vegetarianism and avoidance of root vegetables, along with very specific fasting periods, made it very difficult, almost impossible, to fake over a lifetime. Since these were also predominantly endogamous trading castes, discipline in both food and marriage cemented each other. A Jain merchant from Rajasthan sent to a distant trading post had a set of habits that any other Jain merchant could authenticate, and that substituted for a credit check a stranger would never be able to conduct.