well as by the decline in the political significance of the Rajput courts whose famed conspicuous consumption had been supported by Marwari money. The community welcomed the relative safety that the British presence offered, as well as the commercial and legal frameworks that they provided and which were more favourable to Marwari activities than the systems prevalent during the earlier period of Mughal and Rajput rule. The Marwari Jagat Seth family served as banker to the Nawab of Bengal. British era After the decline of Mughal authority, Marwari traders, bankers and financiers migrated to the growing British power in Calcutta. There were particularly significant population shifts to Bombay between 1835-1850 and Kolkata from the 1870s, as well as to Madras. Historian Medha M. Kudaisya has said that the Marwaris: A considerable number of Marwari business groups made their fortune on speculative markets in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Although maintaining close and public ties with the British authorities, members of the Marwari business community were early financial supporters of the Indian National Congress, often in secret. Independent India In 1956, the All-India Marwari Federation opposed a linguistic organisation of states whilst buying up regional language newspapers in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Today, they control many of the country's largest media groups. The community's influence over the Indian economy declined following the country's 1991 economic reforms. From a peak of controlling 24 per cent of economic activity in 1990, it had fallen to less than 2 per cent in 2000. This reflects the growth of new industries outside of commodities trading and primary production. The figure for 2000 is considered to be lower than the position in 1939, when the community first began its resurgence. Language Marwari, or Marrubhasha, as it is referred to by Marwaris, is the traditional, historical, language of the Marwari ethnicity. The Marwari language is closely related to the Rajasthani language. The latter evolved from the Old Gujarati (also called Old Western Rajasthani, Gujjar Bhakha or Maru-Gurjar), language spoken by the people in Gujarat and Rajasthan. It has been noted that throughout the state of Rajasthan, people avoid identifying their language by name, preferring to identify themselves as speaking "Rajasthani" with Marwari literature and taught as Rajasthani until secondary level. Culture Marwaris have been known for a tightly knit social solidarity, described by Selig Harrison in 1960 as "indissoluble under the impact of the