Indian Maritime Heritage

capt_mahajan · Oct 31st, 2009, 21:06

I thought it was about time I posted this on indiamike. Reason: a) Indian heritage, in many ways, is discounted by many, including Indians, and achievments pooh poohed as flights of fancy. b) Professional interest

(As for integrity of information, Capt. A.K. Bansal, the author, is a very senior Master Mariner and Barrister at Law (U.K.) , maritime arbitrator and accredited mediator et al and is very well respected in Indian shipping circles. He was a sea Captain a year before I was born

)

The site is setup by the 3 associations of shipowners and shipmanagement companies in India, including those representing companies worldwide. (Indians form 6% of the global maritime workforce today)

Anyway:

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Mahatma Gandhi described it thus, "Indian Shipping had to perish so that British Shipping might flourish."

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Our Ships dominated the vast ocean around our peninsula for over 4000 years till 17th Century A.D, reason enough for the ocean around it to be known as Indian Ocean. Archeologists have found a brick basin at Lothal, built during the Indus Valley Civilization in about 2300 B.C, measuring, 718 x 121x 15 ft deep. This is the earliest known dock in the world and connected the city of Lothal, to an ancient course of the Sabarmati river on the trade route between Harappan cities in Sindh and the peninsula of Saurashtra when the surrounding Kutch desert of today was a part of the Arabian Sea. Ships could be brought into this dock from the nearby estuary, via an artificial channel kept clear of silt by controlled flow of water from the spillway. Size of country craft that still sail the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, could be regularly docked at Lothal. Considering that the Bombay Dock, which was completed in July 1735 A.D, used more or less the same technology as Lothal and is still in use in 2008 A.D, it means 4000 years between Lothal and Bombay Dock which offers tangible evidence of Indian Maritime skills.

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Ancient Indians knew eastern shores of the Indian Ocean well, including Burma (Myanamar) Thailand, (Kampuchea) Cambodia, Indo China and Malaysia, as "Suvarnabhumi," land of Gold, and the Indonesian Islands as "Suvarna-dvipa," the Islands of Gold. Hence Indian colonization of this region, through ancient ports such as Tamaralipti, Mahabalipuram (Tamluk) Palura near Gopalpur on the Eastern seaboard, and Broach, Debal and Orhet on the western shore. The Southeast Asian countries were always a part of the Indian ethos and readily and comprehensively embraced Hinduism and Buddhism, mainly because colonization was not achieved by Indians through military expeditions but through peaceful means including shipping and trade, which proved more permanent. Rulers along the coasts of the Indian ocean, usually used peaceful means to help their port cities prosper by providing facilities, opportunities, infrastructure and fair treatment to visiting merchants for trade. Evidence that this continued for centuries is sculpted at Angkor in Vietnam, Borobuddur and the Param Brahman Temple in Java Indonesia.

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From Lothal to Emperor Ashoka (265-238 BC), is over 2500 years. Ashoka had direct contact by ship via the then existing ship canal through Egypt, with Ptolemy who founded Alexandria. The elder Plinni said that as many as 125 Indian Ships usually lay in the ports of Egypt, Cyria and Rome, supplying Indian products to the Ptolemies and adds "there was no year in which Indians did not drain Roman empire of 100 Million Sesterces.

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Marcopolo 1254 - 1324 A.D., speaks of Aden as a regular port at which Indian Ships called. He remarks that Indian Ships were built to last 100 years. He says that some Indian Ships were so large so as to require 150 - 200 - 300 crew.

When Chinese Admiral Cheng Ho came to India, in the closing years of 14th century AD, he discovered that the ships of his fleet were mere midgets when compared to Indian ships which sailed the Indian Ocean like giants. In an account of a voyage Friar Odoric, an Italian Monk made across the Indian Ocean in the 14th Century, he mentions Indian ships which could carry 700 people.

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Ayeen-a-Akbari records that Shipping under Emperor Akbar, (1556-1605), was administered equally as well as under the Mauryas, 1900 years earlier. As many as 40000 Indian ships are known to have been plying in and around the Indian Ocean during Emperor Akbar's time.

And then...

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THE BRITISH PERIOD

Here are the words of Lord Macaulay in his address to the British Parliament on Feb 2 1835. "I have traveled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief".

"Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage. And therefore I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture. For if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self esteem their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation."

The British followed the words of Lord Macaulay, to the letter and succeeded in doing India untold damage over the next 112 years.

The famous British Act of navigation of 1651, stipulated
"no goods whatever of the growth, produce or manufacture of Asia Africa or America should be imported into England or Ireland or any of the plantations, except directly in ships belonging to English subjects, of which the Master and the greater number of the crew were Englishmen."

East India Company recorded that the Bhavanagar built Indian ship 'Daria Daulat' was sound even after 87 years of active service. This evidences superiority of Indian ships.
The Lowjee Wadia family alone built 355 ships for East India Company over 150 years, first in Surat then in Mumbai. Between 1781 and 1821, ships built on The Hooghly river alone, aggregated to 122713 Tons. Shipyards in Beypore, near Calicut, even built warships for Royal Navy. One such ship of the line was part of Nelson's fleet at Trafalgar on Oct. 2, 1805.

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Ships displacing 800 to 1000 tons were built of teak at Daman and were superior to their British counterparts both in design and durability. This so agitated British shipbuilders on the River Thames that they protested against the use of Indian-built ships to carry trade from England. Consequently active measures were adopted to cripple the Indian industry. Nevertheless, many Indian ships were inducted into the Royal Navy, such as HMS Hindostan in 1795, HMS Cornwallis (a frigate) in 1800, HMS Camel in 1806 and HMS Ceylon in 1808. HMS Asia carried the flag of Admiral Codrington at the Battle of Navarino in 1827 - the last major sea battle to be fought entirely under sail.
In 1811, Fort William in Bengal imposed double import duty on goods carried by non British built ships. Fort St. George in Madras and Fort St. David in Bombay followed suit in 1812 & 1813 respectively.

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The Treaty of Nanking, ceding Hong Kong to the British, was signed on board the Indian Built ship, HMS Cornwallis in 1842,

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Numerous other ships were also constructed, the most famous being HMS Trincomalee, which was launched on 19 October 1817, carrying 46 guns and displacing 1065 tons. This ship was later renamed Foudroyant, and is reputed to be the oldest ship afloat in the world today.

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Robert Fulton of USA, inaugurated the world's first regular scheduled power driven ship in 1807. Within 12 years, a steam propelled pleasure boat was built for the Nawab of Oudh to sail on the Gomati River in 1819. By 1823, regular steam boat passenger service operated on the Hooghly River with S.S. Diana, built by Kyd & Co in Calcutta. Historically 102 Indian shipping Companies registered in India between 1860 & 1925, at an estimated investment of over 40 Crores, were forced into liquidation by the British, one by one. Against 34,286 Indian ships which entered and cleared our ports in 1857 with 1,219,958 tons, only 1676 ships did so with 109,813 tons, in 1900.

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This deliberate destruction, forms a sordid chapter in the history of British rule in India. Our rulers alleged that our shipping declined because we were averse, slow or unable to adapt to power based shipbuilding techniques after Industrial revolution.

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The American National Anthem 'The Star Spangled Banner,' was composed by Francis Key when he was on a visit to Baltimore, and was sitting on the decks of the ship MINDEN, built in Bombay,

http://careerinshipping.com/indias-m...e-heritage.htm

Nick-H · Oct 31st, 2009, 21:28

Hmmm... That Macauley speach. Recently, I discovered that there is a very good chance that, like the Aryan invasion, it never actually happened! Apparently Macauley wasn't even in the UK at the time! (I can't say where the alleged Aryans were, at their time).

Which is just a very small point, really, in the context

capt_mahajan · Oct 31st, 2009, 21:34

I have read some of the scepticism, including on the grounds that somebody like him could never have praised India.

Many years ago I looked it up in a decent encyclopedia at the British Library. Dunno if new stuff proves it is false: would be good to know.

Small point, yep. Actions spoke louder than words anyway.

Nick-H · Oct 31st, 2009, 22:21

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Actions spoke louder than words anyway

Oh so true. Whether Macauley said it, or whether anybody said it, or not, my four bears certainly raped India. Mind you, I don't think they succeeded in breaking the "spiritual and cultural heritage". Something else seems to have done, more recently.

The whole thing about not knowing naval heritage, though, is part of what I see as a denial of India's pre-colonial past. The PR is that this land full of rich resources was just sitting here, waiting idly for someone to come along and trade with them, whereas they were trading actively.

capt_mahajan · Oct 31st, 2009, 22:30

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denial of India's pre-colonial past

Exactly. And wrt the 'rich pickings' that India was just insular, it wasn't. It was just not expansionist outside the subcontinent.

When one imagines them going East and West- as far as the other tradeable civilisations were, more or less- one begins to truly understand the reach of Indian empires- and its ships.

I use the word Indian knowing fully well it was not a united country. But another PR is that India was just a bunch of independent kingdoms- all small in size and fighting amongst themsleves.

There were also alliances- and sometimes huge empires, some maybe even larger than present India, because they included what are neighbouring countries as well as what is a major portion of India today .

small example, map of ashoka's empire- (random google search)

http://www.porchlight.ca/~blackdog/empire.gif

PS: Akbar's empire, similarly, http://www215.pair.com/sacoins/image...ghal_akbar.gif

and don't forget Chandragupta, of course http://www.nontoxin.com/wp-content/u...rya_empire.gif . An empire that included Afghanistan and Pakistan with a 700,000 strong army.

Nick-H · Oct 31st, 2009, 22:52

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and don't forget Chandragupta

I won't! I won't! I promise, I won't!

Errr... who?

I never was much good at history

.

Goodness... that's huge!

capt_mahajan · Oct 31st, 2009, 22:56

While you are at it, Chanakya too. India's Machiavelli, only, unlike the Prince, Arthshashtra is a huge book, and not half as readable.

Alexander's forces were defeated by Chandragupta, btw, in present Afghanistan.

I know its wiki

but what the hell

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By the time he was only about 20 years old, Chandragupta, who had succeeded in defeating the Macedonian satrapies in India and conquering the Nanda Empire, had founded a vast empire that extended from the Bay of Bengal in the east, to the Indus River in the west, which he would further expand in later years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandragupta_Maurya

JuliaF · Nov 1st, 2009, 02:03

Really interesting Capt, thanks for posting this.

It has given me a nudge to reread Amitav Ghosh's In an Antique Land which is about many things including the trade and personal links, through seafaring, between India and the Middle East/West Asia and into the Mediterranean and North Africa too in the 13th century if I remember right.
He finds a reference in a document to a man who he works out must have been from South India who crisscrossed the Indian Ocean countless times and ended up settling on one of the islands in the Med. I must look it out and read again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nick-H

my four bears

would that be these four?

Nick-H · Nov 1st, 2009, 02:37

Yes! Looking at them now, you wouldn't think they could have established one of the world's great empires!

Just don't judge a bear by appearances

...

KABAARY · Nov 1st, 2009, 02:53

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Looking at them now, you wouldn't think they could have established one of the world's great empires!

Are we talking of the Brits or the Indians ?

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Just don't judge a bear by appearances

Very true. Kingfisher packages them well but still has everyone else frothing over it.

I'm all at sea on this thread. Gotta read Moby Dick and remember to say Ishmael

, Ishmael

(pardon the Indian accented English)

Nick-H · Nov 1st, 2009, 03:25

Quote:

Are we talking of the Brits or the Indians ?

I was talking about the bears!

Boston123 · Nov 1st, 2009, 05:06

Very interesting, Captain. India and China produced approx 25 to 30 percent of the world's industrial output in the mid eighteenth century, but by early 1800's, this had dropped. The US had under 1% of the world's industrial output in 1800, but 3% by 1830 and 24% by 1900. Clearly productivity( in contrast to colonialism), and harnessing the industrial revolution had much to do with the advances in the US, in the 19th and 20th centuries.. so the question remains: Why did India not manage to defend and sustain its wealth generating capacity, as the 1800's rolled around? The US is faced with the same question today, as economic growth appears to be shifting eastwards..

capt_mahajan · Nov 1st, 2009, 09:00

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Why did India not manage to defend and sustain its wealth generating capacity, as the 1800's rolled around

My take: (India is not unique here, btw)

-industrial revolution and superior arms in the West.
-Westerners came to trade first. India was used to this, and probably didnt worry too much about the East India company, not realising that it was underwritten and controlled by the British aristocracy, who were out to plunder. The British Crown took over when the EIC was a hairsbreath away from being defeated in 1857, and intensified these policies- that should tell us something.
-Sybaritic lifestyles of a decaying Indian aristocray- fiddling while etc.
-The fact that, like in Africa, a country- or even a continent- was never defended by the Indians
- Greed and lust for power amongst many Indians, both aristocrats and the rich. Present day behemoths in business- Tatas included- have built their empires on what would loosely be called collaboration with the British. Bengal is particularly to 'blame' here.

and so on

The fact is that Europeans had nothing India wanted. So traditional trade was out. Colonisation was the only solution. The industrial revolution -and Indian collaboration, superior arms, tactics and strategies- permitted that, and the subsequent bleeding became inevitable.

Productivity drop? In an environment of trade (in gold) and barter, that very term is somewhat meaningless. Indian kings had gold beyond measure. I don't think they were looking for return on investment from it

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but by early 1800's, this had dropped.

That was probably because the country had been bled already for approximately a hundred and fifty years.

capt_mahajan · Nov 1st, 2009, 09:12

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a man who he works out must have been from South India who crisscrossed the Indian Ocean countless times and ended up settling on one of the islands in the Med. I must look it out and read again

Maybe a Lascar- an Indian seaman. They were so many that-much much later- the British (pls see the OP) drew up a special act to restrict them.

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Lascar, though rarely used now, was once the name used to describe a sailor or militiaman from the Indian subcontinent or other countries east of the Cape of Good Hope, employed on European ships from the 16th century until the beginning of the 20th century

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Indian seamen had been employed on European ships since the first European made the sea voyage to India. Vasco da Gama, the first European to reach India by sea (in 1498), hired an Indian pilot at Malindi (a coastal settlement in what is now Kenya) to steer the Portuguese ship across the Indian Ocean to the Malabar coast.

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Most of these sailors had settled down and took local white British wives, due to a lack of Asian women in Britain at the time.[2] By 1813, there were more than 10,000 Indian Lascars living in Britain.

I daresay a few of Indiamike's Indian origin members in the UK may have descended from these seamen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascar

livinhimalayas · Nov 1st, 2009, 10:00

A very interesting thread Capt. Thanks for starting it

Nov 1st, 2009, 10:00	#15
livinhimalayas still learning Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: The Abode of Snow Posts: 3,336	A very interesting thread Capt. Thanks for starting it __________________ He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows or all he sees. - Benjamin Franklin

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Oct 31st, 2009, 21:28	#2
Nick-H This is just a cameo appearance Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Chennai, India Posts: 36,189	Hmmm... That Macauley speach. Recently, I discovered that there is a very good chance that, like the Aryan invasion, it never actually happened! Apparently Macauley wasn't even in the UK at the time! (I can't say where the alleged Aryans were, at their time). Which is just a very small point, really, in the context

Oct 31st, 2009, 21:34	#3
capt_mahajan Infidel Sufi Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: styx Posts: 13,601	I have read some of the scepticism, including on the grounds that somebody like him could never have praised India. Many years ago I looked it up in a decent encyclopedia at the British Library. Dunno if new stuff proves it is false: would be good to know. Small point, yep. Actions spoke louder than words anyway.

Nov 1st, 2009, 02:37	#9
Nick-H This is just a cameo appearance Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Chennai, India Posts: 36,189	Yes! Looking at them now, you wouldn't think they could have established one of the world's great empires! Just don't judge a bear by appearances ...

Nov 1st, 2009, 05:06	#12
Boston123 Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: boston Posts: 242	Very interesting, Captain. India and China produced approx 25 to 30 percent of the world's industrial output in the mid eighteenth century, but by early 1800's, this had dropped. The US had under 1% of the world's industrial output in 1800, but 3% by 1830 and 24% by 1900. Clearly productivity( in contrast to colonialism), and harnessing the industrial revolution had much to do with the advances in the US, in the 19th and 20th centuries.. so the question remains: Why did India not manage to defend and sustain its wealth generating capacity, as the 1800's rolled around? The US is faced with the same question today, as economic growth appears to be shifting eastwards..