Lessons from India’s Maritime Footprint

India and the Indian Ocean have been inseparably connected by geography and history. This region has been a cradle of civilisations. Major religions and faiths of the world are all represented in the littoral and island nations of the Indian Ocean. 

We know how geography exerts great influence on politics and security, particularly in matters ‘maritime’. It is in this context that the Indian Ocean acquires importance. On its waters are carried half of the world’s container shipments, one-third of bulk cargo traffic and two-thirds of oil. About one-third of the world’s population inhabits the littoral straits and islands of the Indian Ocean. Four of these countries have populations in excess of one hundred and forty million people, namely, India, Pakistan, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

Millennia before Columbus sailed the Atlantic and Magellan crossed the Pacific, the Indian Ocean was an active thoroughfare of cultural and commercial traffic. It was around 45 AD that the discovery was made of how to use the monsoon winds too directly cross the Arabian Sea instead of hugging the coast. The Indian navigators, though, had already sailed and discovered Sacotra long before the first century AD. They had navigated the Red Sea using the magnetic needle, the Matsya Yantra, for determining direction. The existence of prosperous Hindu colonies in Malaya, Sumatra, Java, Cambodia and modern-day Vietnam clearly indicates that the Bay of Bengal had been mastered long before the First Century AD. That peninsular India was maritime in its tradition is borne out by the writings of Fa Hien, a Chinese visitor to India between AD 400 and 410.  He was transported by sea from Sri Lanka to Sri Vijaya along with 200 merchants. There are numerous references to the Mauryas and the Andhras about the Eastern Seas. The Chinese had an extensive sea trade along the Malabar Coast. Hieun Tsang, who visited India in the 7th Century AD describes the vast overseas trade during the Gupta period.  There are numerous mentions of the Chola emperors and their powerful sea-faring capacity.

A vibrant trade route through sea linked the east with the west, from the West Coast of Japan, through islands of Indonesia, India and to the land of the Middle East; and from there across the Mediterranean to Europe. The links were formed by traders through buying and selling from port to port. They traded mainly in spices. The use of monsoon winds in the Indian Ocean was a boon to sailing ships. It helped them in their travels to and from India.

Artefacts of the Saraswati-Sindhu Civilisation have been found in middle-east and Egypt dating back 5000 years. Large colonies of Romans lived in the port cities of India, especially on the eastern coast in Tamil Nadu, in the first millennium. Some of the earliest seafaring ships plied between the coast of Kerala and the Middle East. The second-oldest mosque in the world was constructed in Kodungalur in Kerala in 629 AD. Buddhism spread to all corners of Asia through sea and land routes. Centres like Sukhothai, Ayodhya, Angkorvat in the East, or Swat, Bamiyan or Dun Hwang, are manifestations of vibrant cultural links of India with the regions around the Indian Ocean. Ramayan was the most popular story told in this region. The Hindu and Buddhist traditions provide some of the finest paintings, sculptures and reliefs across Asia.

Despite having footprints all across, India has failed to build a historical narrative around it. Sacotra hardly finds any mention, as do several other coastal world heritage sites across the Western Indian Ocean that show evidence of Indian maritime activity. In the Ajanta caves, the narrative of Simhala, a sea-faring merchant is prominently depicted. Simhala was an incarnation of Siddhartha Gautama.

He, along with 500 merchants, had landed in Tamradweep (Sri Lanka). This is an interesting story that finds a connection with Sri Lanka. A great scope for collaboration exists amongst maritime museums. A collaboration with the maritime museum, currently being set up at Lothal in Gujarat, India, would prove very useful.

India has yet to highlight its historical connection across Africa, the Middle East and Southern Europe. While inaugurating the Kochi metro in June 2017, Prime Minister Modi had called Kochi, the queen of the Arabian Sea, an important spice trading centre. Our goal should also be to revive the historical trade routes in a large geopolitical and geo-economic context.

How can India launch a project to sustain its cross-national connectivity with East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Indian subcontinent, Sri Lanka, and the South East Asian archipelagos? More than three dozen countries can be identified as partners if an Outreach Project gets mooted. India is a signatory to various UNESCO conventions. An outreach like this will provide a platform across the Indian Ocean world through a cross-cultural transnational narrative. It can seek a trans-national nomination under World Heritage by highlighting the links of the Indian Ocean Maritime route.

This will provide visibility to connectivity, encourage research, tourism, and develop heritage. The project could navigate through coastal architecture, maritime heritage, artefacts, maritime museums, underwater cultural heritage, industrial heritage, ship building, intangible cultural heritage, trade routes, cultural products, pilgrimage, religious travel, oral traditions and literary traditions.

A possible way forward would be to begin collecting data on historical exchanges in the field of both tangible and intangible maritime cultural heritage. This may include knowledge pathways related to art, philosophy, mathematics, geography and sciences. No project of this kind exists at the moment. This research could feed into proposing a World Heritage nomination to UNESCO. This will truly place the maritime cultural heritage of the Indian Ocean on a firm and independent footing.

The Maritime Silk Route (MSR) initiative is already impacting the strategic balance in the Indian Ocean region. It is common knowledge that MSR strives for an influence in the Indian Ocean. The new geopolitics of the Indian Ocean region is defined by America’s declining influence. The old geo-politics of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), characterised by US hegemony as a leading force from the Middle East to the Pacific, is giving way to a new dynamic as America’s focus shifts gradually from the Indian Ocean to the West Pacific region. Though India’s economy is the biggest in the IOR, China is the biggest user of its sea lanes. The MSR initiative is an indication of increasing realisation of the growing salience of the Indian Ocean. MSR is aimed at allowing China’s maritime military power to break free from the geographical constraints of the Western Pacific island chains. 

Nearly all of India’s merchandise trade transit via the sea. Land based trade routes are unlikely to come up in the near future. India would necessarily have to rely on international shipping lanes. Security and safety of the shipping would remain a paramount concern for many years to come. The critical question is whether MSR shall impair this safety?

Belt Road and MSR offer thousands of scholarships, hold art and film festivals, book fairs, make it more convenient to apply for tourist visas, cooperate on epidemic information, treatment technologies, public health emergencies, technology transfer, maritime cooperation, cooperation among cities, and among non-governmental organisations.

India should implement an initiative that promotes understanding of common heritage and multiple identities. India needs to revive its lost linkages, provide a cross-cultural transnational narrative and evolve a relationship between natural and cultural heritage in the IOR.

The writer is Advisor, Bharat Ki Soch and is former Culture Secretary, Govt of India; views are personal