Businessism

Businessism is Saleem Sinai’s ironic name for the business-centered faith in which he was raised. Once its practitioners abandon him, he becomes a renegade from that creed and finds a new sense of belonging among the Communist magicians of the Delhi colony, redirecting his desire to serve the country toward revolutionary politics.

Meaning and Background

Saleem presents Businessism as India’s other true faith: not a formal religion, but a governing allegiance to business and the people who practice it. His description places it in contrast with the magicians’ communism, whose adherents he initially characterizes as godless and subversive. The contrast is personal as well as political: Businessism is the inheritance he has left behind, while the colony offers him a community in which to begin again.

Renunciation and Political Turn

Having been raised within Businessism, Saleem says he has both abandoned and been abandoned by its practitioners. The double formulation makes his departure a break that is not wholly of his choosing. Yet he describes the discovery that the magicians are Communists as comforting: he zealously turns red, and his earlier mission of saving the country takes on a new political meaning. Instead of seeking preferment in public service, he imagines more revolutionary methods and direct communication with the masses.

Life in the Magicians’ Colony

The change in allegiance is given material form in Saleem’s new life. He settles in the magicians’ colony and earns money by using his extraordinary sense of smell to uncover tourists’ secrets. Picture Singh invites him to share a shack; Saleem sleeps on sackcloth among baskets of snakes and endures hunger, thirst, mosquitoes, and the cold of a Delhi winter. He also becomes an aide to Picture Singh, whose authority in the colony rests both on his reputation as a snake-charmer and on his role in resolving disputes. Businessism’s abandoned world of practitioners gives way to a precarious communal life, where Saleem’s literacy and practical help secure him a place.

Political Contrast and Narrative Significance

The colony’s political commitments become visible when a Congress campaigner arrives during the afternoon chaya at the Friday Mosque, displaying an ABOLISH POVERTY banner and the party’s cow-and-calf symbol. His appeal to equality is met with laughter from Picture Singh and the gathered crowd. The episode places public political slogans beside the colony’s own socialist commitments, which Picture Singh folds into his performances. Against this scene, Saleem’s turn from Businessism is not simply a change of label: it marks his shift from an inherited faith in business to an improvised solidarity with people living at the margins.