Over that summer, I witnessed riots at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, attended political rallies in seething townships, and listened to the hum of distant gunfire. A white-supremacist group even managed briefly to take over the World Trade Centre, Kempton Park, where multiparty negotiations were taking place. South Africa was a country on the boil and I met worried white families who were making plans of leaving the country and moving to the United States, Britain or Australia.
As I look back to that period, I realize how easily the country could have gone into a spiral of violence and retribution. The South Africa we see today owes much to the philosophical evolution and personal example of one man. It would have taken very little for the country to have turned out as another Zimbabwe or even another Somalia. It is Nelson Mandela’s extraordinary achievement that he was able to somehow reconcile the country’s many internal contradictions and carry people along with him. Equally commendable is the fact that, unlike many leaders of newly freed countries, he did not yield to the temptation of holding on to power till his death or starting a dynasty. He became President in 1994 and stepped down in 1999 after just one term. Modern historians tend to be dismissive of the ‘Great Man Theory’ of history but Mandela and Lee Kuan Yew are proof that individuals do matter. It is noteworthy that, despite being very determined leaders, both of them allowed their philosophies and ideas to evolve with changing circumstances. Therein may lie the secret of their success.
Bombay to Mumbai
The evolution of Mumbai encapsulates the social and economic changes witnessed by India since independence. When India became a Republic in 1950, Calcutta was no longer the capital but it was still the most important commercial and cultural centre. With a population of 2.6 million, it was by far the largest urban cluster in the country. Bombay was India’s second largest city with a population of almost 1.5 million. Madras was much smaller at 0.8 million.37
Bombay’s financial and commercial heart was still in and around the old Fort area although an extension had been added in the form of Ballard Estate during the First World War. Further north, the cotton mills of Lower Parel hummed with activity and attracted migrants. Although modern innovations like telephones and automobiles were leading to changes in how business was done, this was still a world that would have been recognizable to Premchand Roychand. The first big shift came in the 1970s with the construction of Nariman Point on reclaimed land near the southern tip of the island (not far from Fort). It was an unfortunate period in history for a construction boom and Nariman Point became home to a collection of exceptionally ugly office towers. Nonetheless, it created a cluster of relatively modern corporate offices. Its success in attracting corporate offices was helped by the decline of Calcutta which was wracked by violence from left-wing extremists (dubbed ‘Naxalites’) and militant trade unionism in the 1970s and ’80s. As the old capital declined, one by one, companies shifted their headquarters to Bombay. It too witnessed a period of labour unrest which led to the closure of many mills in the Lower Parel area but Bombay’s overall business culture remained intact and it emerged as India’s commercial capital.
In 1990–91, India’s socialist economic model collapsed and the crisis forced the country to start liberalizing the economy. The corrupt system of industrial licensing was dismantled and rules were eased for foreign investment. As foreign banks and multinationals entered the country, they bid up prices of the limited stock of commercial real estate and, within a few years, Nariman Point had some of the most expensive real estate in the world. This was ironical as many of the office blocks were shoddy and crumbling, and had elevators that were so slow and unreliable that it was often preferable to use the tobacco-spit stained stairs. Still, the country’s business elite was a small club and everyone who mattered lived and worked in the southern tip of Bombay in the 1990s. Anyone sitting in the lobby of the Oberoi hotel in Nariman Point would have seen the who’s who of India’s business elite cutting deals with foreign investors. Self-important consultants walked hurriedly to meetings with neatly bound presentations tucked under their arms while speaking into their newly acquired Nokia phones.
The socialist period, despite the rhetoric, had effectively perpetuated the privileges of a small elite. In Delhi, this elite lived in the centre of the city, dubbed Lutyens’ Delhi. In Bombay, the elite lived and worked in the southern tip—Malabar Hill, Cuffe Parade and Marine Drive, all within easy reach of Nariman Point and Fort. This meant that better urban amenities—bars, restaurants, colonial-era clubs, schools and so on—were also concentrated in the southern tip. In turn, this imposed a peculiar socio-economic hierarchy on the city where one’s position in the pecking order determined the distance one lived from Nariman Point (only Bollywood was exempt from this as it had its own cluster in Bandra–Juhu).
Given the spiralling real estate prices, a poor migrant had little choice other than to live in a slum but even a white-collar newcomer, with a well-paying job, would have to either rent a room as a ‘paying guest’ or opt for a far-off northern suburb like Borivali or Kandivali. Since jobs were concentrated in the southern tip, the office day began with a long journey in a tightly packed train followed by a hop by ‘share-taxi’ to one’s office; in the evening one did the same thing in reverse. This rough commute still defines the experience of many but taught me one of the crucial lessons in life: Never get into the Virar Fast if you only want to go as far as Bandra. Readers from Mumbai will instantly know what I mean.
By the turn of the century, however, the dynamics of the city began to change. The old, derelict mills of Lower Parel were gradually converted into offices, condominiums and malls. The Phoenix Mills complex, now a popular entertainment and shopping hub, was one of the first to experience this change. Further north, a new financial district emerged in Bandra-Kurla. This created new hubs of activity in the middle of the city. Office towers and five-star hotels mushroomed even further north near the international airport. Within a decade, most banks and corporates shifted from Nariman Point to the glass-and-chrome towers of these new clusters. In many ways, these changes democratized the city as the old elite gave way to a confident new middle class; the South Bombay accent simply counted for less. Thus, Bombay became Mumbai.
The Churn of History
The long history of the Indian Ocean is one where the unfolding of events is the result of complex interactions between myriad factors—the monsoon winds, geography, human migrations, technology, religion, culture, the deeds of individuals and perhaps occasionally the whims of the gods. It followed no predetermined path or grand plan, but is the story of long cycles, dead ends and unintended consequences, of human triumphs and extraordinary bravery but also of treachery and inexplicable human cruelty. There are many shades of grey along the way.
The complex, adaptive nature of history is a warning that a linear narrative based on a unidimensional framework is necessarily misleading. This is true even when the narrative is based on ‘scientific’ evidence such as genetics. For example, if we tried today to reconstruct the history of the British Raj in India based solely on genetic data, we would find plenty of evidence of Gujarati and Punjabi genes in Britain but very little British DNA in India. A lazy researcher would then jump to the conclusion that it was India that colonized Britain!
A corollary is that the path of history flows neither from nor to Utopia. Indeed, the attempts to ‘civilize’ others and impose utopias have been the source of much human misery and are almost always based on some unidimensional interpretation of history. This book has been written at a time that the Indian Ocean rim is enjoying a period of peace and prosperity after many centuries of colonization, war and famine. However, the failed state of Somalia and renewed hostilities in Yemen remind us how fragile this peace can be.
It is also remarkable how many continuities remain through all these centuries of change. The monsoon winds may no longer dictate where ships can sail but they are still important to the economic lives of hundreds of millions
who depend on them for the annual rains. Some continuities run so deep that we hardly notice them. For instance, certain ancient cultural ideas continue to impact us to this day despite layers of later influences. We saw how matrilineal customs were an important aspect of history in the eastern but not in the western Indian Ocean rim. Perhaps this explains why we have seen so many female leaders in countries ranging from the Philippines to the Indian subcontinent: Corazon Aquino, Megawati Sukarnoputri, Aung San Suu Kyi, Indira Gandhi, Sheikh Hasina, Sirimavo Bandaranaike to name just a few. Notice how these women leaders were able to occupy positions of power irrespective of ethnicity, culture and religion. While it is true that many of them inherited their position, the contrast is stark when one compares this with the almost complete absence of female leaders in the western Indian Ocean rim from the Persian Gulf, down to the Swahili coast to southern Africa. Even the exceptions—Madagascar and Mauritius—prove the rule as their cultural roots derive from the eastern Indian Ocean.
While researching this book I also came across numerous instances of how the lives of ordinary individuals had been impacted by the churn of people and empires in the Indian Ocean. Take, for instance, the story of Odakkal Mohammad who was born on 15 August 1927 in Mundappalam (now in the state of Kerala). His family claimed descent from Yemeni merchants who had settled here in the fourteenth century. In 1942, when barely fifteen, he was thrown out of school for wearing a black badge in protest against the arrest of Mahatma Gandhi. Too scared of being scolded by his father for this, Mohammad decided to run away from home and eventually ended up in the Royal Indian Navy as an electrical artificer.
The Second World War was raging at that time and Mohammad saw action on a number of occasions. After the war, he was posted to Bombay where he would participate in the Naval Revolt of 1946. When the mutiny was suppressed, he was dismissed from the navy with a certificate that read: ‘Discharged in Disgrace from His Majesty’s Service’. Mohammad tore up the paper and flung it at the British officer. The following year, India became independent on his twentieth birthday. Since the mutineers were never reabsorbed into the navy, Mohammad tried his hand at many jobs before getting involved in protests against Portuguese rule in Goa in 1955. He was arrested by the Portuguese and spent some time in prison before being released. After several more adventures, including cycling across India, he became a tour guide in Agra where he met and married a Christian nurse Mariamma on 15 August 1964. Decades later he would return to his village in Kerala where he was living at the time this book was written. This extraordinary story was narrated to me by his son Commodore Odakkal Johnson as we hunted, amidst torrential monsoon rain, for an almost forgotten memorial for WWI sailors in Mumbai’s old port area.
This book is concerned with the past but the wheels of history roll relentlessly forward. What does the future hold? Even as I was completing this book, there were signs that the Indian Ocean may become the theatre of a new geopolitical rivalry between India and China. Those who remember history will know that the Indian Ocean has seen the likes of Rajendra Chola and Zheng He before. They will also know to expect the unexpected. After all, no one who saw Zheng He’s magnificent Treasure Fleet would have believed that, a few decades later, a small country in the Iberian peninsula would open the Indian Ocean to centuries of European domination. If there is one lesson from this history it is this: Time devours the greatest of men and the mightiest of empires.
Author’s Note
I have lived most of my life on the rim of the Indian Ocean. I was born in Kolkata and spent most of my adult life in cities like Mumbai and Singapore. Gradually, as I explored these cities and their surrounding countryside, I became aware of how the history and culture of the Indian Ocean people have been closely interconnected for thousands of years. Indeed, once you become conscious of it, it springs at you everywhere—in the narrow lanes of Zanzibar, the frankincense-perfumed bazaars of Muscat, the ancient temples of southern India and in the ruins of Angkor. At some point I began to systematically collect this information and a vivid, multicoloured picture began to emerge that was quite different from what existing books on the region seemed to suggest.
Almost all of the existing books on the Indian Ocean fall into one of two categories. The first category, which still accounts for the bulk, comprises of histories of the region written from a Western perspective. One would get the impression from these narratives that the history of the Indian Ocean came into being only after the Portuguese arrived on the scene and that it effectively stopped with the withdrawal of the colonial powers. Ancient Indian mariners, Arab merchants and Indonesian maritime empires are simply left out or are presented perfunctorily in an opening chapter as background material. The little that is mentioned is presented in terms of the supply of spices to medieval Europe, as if the Indian Ocean people existed only as part of a supply chain and did not have an independent way of life.
The second category comprises of books written by indigenous scholars who have begun to explore the past of their respective countries. This group has published an increasing number of books and papers in recent years as new material has emerged from archaeology and elsewhere. Their writings have introduced a local perspective to the narrative and restored some balance. However, one major shortcoming of their approach has been a narrow focus on a particular country or region rather than on the broader picture of the Indian Ocean. This is misleading in its own way as it does not fully acknowledge the interconnectedness of the region’s history. This book is an attempt to remedy the shortcomings of both the above approaches.
As any writer will tell you, publishing a book is a team sport. This book would not have been possible without the support of many people. The first person I would like to thank is Gurcharan Das. I had been collecting material on the Indian Ocean for over a decade, but it was his encouragement that got me to start typing. Let me express my gratitude to scholars who provided valuable inputs: Patricia Groves, Deb Raj Pradhan, Saradindu Mukherji, Lalji Singh, Sakaya Truong Van Mon and P.J. Cherian. I would also like to mention Saurabh Sanyal, Ranajit Sanyal and other members of my extended family who helped me piece together lesser-known facts about Indian revolutionaries who had fought against British colonial rule.
As anyone reading my books will quickly realize, I try to visit most of the places that I write about. I strongly believe that one can never really understand history unless one visits the places where key events took place. Sadly, many writers do not bother with such ground-proofing and this perpetuates basic errors that are quoted from one book to another. Therefore, I would like to thank those who were kind hosts during my travels and, in some cases, accompanied me on my adventures: Ramesh and Madhvi Khimji, Mrinalini and Praveen Rengaraj, Vivekananda Kendra (Kanyakumari), Aurobindo Ashram (Puducherry), Nirmala Raja, Sujata and Nitesh Shetty, Meena and Himanshu Shekhar Mohapatra, Akash Mohapatra, Payal Adhikari, Smita Pant, Lucas Dengel, Bikash Pattnaik, Maritime History Society (Mumbai), Mohan Narayan and Odakkal Johnson. I would also like to thank Ameya Nagarajan and Peter Ruprecht who read some of the early drafts and provided valuable comments.
I am also grateful for the support of my editors at Penguin—the cheerful enthusiasm of Udayan Mitra and the meticulous attention to detail of Richa Burman and Paloma Dutta. Thanks for putting up with my various quirks. I would also like to mention Jit Chowdhury for contributing the cartography and artwork. Finally let me thank my wife Smita who accompanied me on many of my research trips and patiently heard me read out the first draft of every chapter. It will amuse readers to know that having heard various drafts read out to her, she has never read the final version of any of my books!
Notes
1. Introduction
1. D. Dennis Hudson, The Body of God: An Emperor’s Palace for Krishna in Eighth Century Kanchipuram (OUP, 2008).
2. K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, A History of South India (New Delhi: OUP, 1975).
3. The idea that the Naga princess came from Sri Lanka may have something to do with the
use of the lion in the royal insignia by some Pallava kings. This is perhaps taken to signify a link with the Sinhalese. However, the use of the lion as a royal symbol is so common across the world that it may not signify anything specific. In any case, several Pallava kings preferred other symbols such as the bull.
4. T.S. Subramanian, ‘Remnants of a Relationship’, The Hindu (20 August 2010).
5. Robert D. Kaplan, Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power (Random House, 2011).
6. Tim Mackintosh-Smith (ed.), The Travels of Ibn Battutah (Picador, 2002).
7. Shaman Hwui Li, The Life of Hiuen-Tsiang, translated by Samuel Bean (1911, reprinted by Asian Education Services, 1998).
8. John Reader, Africa: A Biography of the Continent (Penguin, 1998).
9. Eric Hobsbawm, On History (Abacus, 1997).
10. There is some doubt about whether or not Mark Twain actually said this, but the quote sums up my point nicely.
11. T. Ramachandran, ‘Indian Death Toll Highest in UN Peacekeeping Operations’, The Hindu (30 October 2014). http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/blogs/blog-datadelve/article6547767.ece.
12. Alexander Stark, ‘The Matrilineal System of Minangkabau and Its Persistence through History’, South Asia: A Multidisciplinary Journal (2013).
13. D.G.E. Hall, A History of South-East Asia (Macmillan, 1981).
14. Nicholas Tarling (ed.), The Cambridge History of South-east Asia, Vol. 1, Part 1 (CUP, 1999).
The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History Page 28
