Indian Ocean Trade : European Domination July 15, 2008

Prior to the arrival of the Portuguese in the in the Indian Ocean in 1498, no single power had attempted to monopolize the sea lanes that connected the ports of the Indian sub-continent with the Middle East and East Africa on the West, and the ports of South East Asia and China to the East. Unlike in the Mediterranean where during Roman (and earlier) times, rival powers attempted to control the oceanic trade through military means, peaceful trade had remained the norm in the Indian Ocean. Although there were periods when coastal rulers of the Malabar coast and Southern India were powerful enough to demand toll taxes from passing ships, (and Arab rulers had attempted to control the shipping lanes through the Red Sea) there had not been any systematic attempt by any single political power to eliminate all others from the oceanic trade that touched the Indian subcontinent.

Indian ports that demanded high taxes from docking ships invariably lost out to “free ports” – i.e. ports that demanded very low tariffs from docking ships. In fact, several of the Indian ocean ports were politically neutral entities – giving free and equitable access to shippers of varied nationalities and religious affiliations.

Whereas pre-15th century Arab and Chinese geographical texts spoke of various natural hazards involved in long-distance shipping, they did not cite any significant political or military impediments to undertaking long-distance voyages other than the risk from pirates. Thus, evidence left behind by chroniclers such as Marco Polo, Ibn Batuta, Persian ambassador Abdur Razzaq, the Venetian Nicolo Conti, and Genoan Santo Stefano – all indicate that the Indian Ocean was the scene of thriving trade in the 14th and 15th centuries.

But once the Portuguese had discovered their new route to India, they displayed considerable zeal in seizing the most profitable ports of East Africa, the Persian Gulf, and the Saurashtran, Konkan and Malabar regions in India. A chain of fortified coastal settlements backed by regular naval patrols allowed the Portuguese to gradually eliminate many rivals, and enforce a semi-monopoly in the spice trade by the middle of the 16th C. Local traders were coerced into buying safe passes and paying customs duties to the Portuguese. However, this attempt at a monopoly was challenged by the maritime powers of North Sumatra based in Aceh, as well as by the Omanis, and by Gujarati traders. And as the Portuguese expanded with settlements in South East Asia, China and Japan – the Western monopoly became harder to maintain.

Initial success came to the Portuguese because they had been shrewd enough to develop a strategy of divide and conquer – first concentrating on isolating Muslim traders from the Hindu monarch of Calicut and demonstrating their fire power by launching a two-day bombardment of the vital port city (which was then the largest spice market of the Indian Ocean). These intimidating tactics worked in the favor of the Portuguese who repeated this strategy at other key trading destinations. In 1510, Bijapur’s Adil Shahi ruler ceded the control of Goa to the Portuguese. Having realized that the bulk of trade moving out of India landed at one of three ports in the Indian Ocean – i.e. Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, Aden on the Red Sea, and Malacca in the Malay Peninsula – Goa’s Indian Governor, Alfonso Albuquerque then shifted his attention to capturing each of these crucial ports. Malacca fell in 1511 and Hormuz in 1515. Only Aden proved elusive.

In 1505, the spice trade from Asia to Europe was declared a ‘royal monopoly’ by the Portuguese, who saw in this the possibility of extorting tribute through military means. Once Hormuz and Malacca came under the military and political control of the Portuguese, the Portuguese then attempted to expand their monopoly to the inter-Asian trade. For this they needed to seal off independent access to the Gujarati traders who although cut off from Malacca could continue to trade through the Red Sea. For twenty years, the Portuguese kept attacking the ports of Gujarat, even gaining a military victory in 1509 (after an earlier defeat against the combined defences of Diu and an Egyptian naval fleet that had been sent to aid the defences of Diu’s Amir Hussain). But nevertheless, Diu did not fall; and attempts to defeat Malik Ayaz, (the next governor of Diu) also failed in 1520-1. In 1530, the Portuguese colonists looted and burned the ports of Cambay, Surat and Rander, but it was only in 1534, when in a moment of weakness, Sultan Bahadur of Gujarat relinquished control of the small port of Bassein. Diu – which had held out for two decades, suddenly became vulnerable when Mughal emperor Humayun cut a deal with the Portuguese to defeat Sultan Bahadur. The Portuguese were given permission to build a fort on the island, which allowed the Portuguese to garner complete political control over the territory by 1555. Portuguese naval control over the Gulf of Cambay became complete when they also captured the port of Daman in 1559. Thus the merchants of Gujarat were brought under control by the Portuguese, and Gujarat – (which on account of its thriving industry and trade may have been one of the richest of India’s provinces) saw its fortunes steadily decline.

Following their conquests in Gujarat, the Portuguese then proceeded to augment their control in Sri Lanka by taking over Colombo, and founding a settlement in Meliapur (Sao Tome) on the Coromandel coast. Realizing that the trade from Goa to Bengal was even more lucrative than the Coromandel trade, they then turned their aggressive energies on Bengal. After initial resistance, they were allowed to settle in Chittagaon and Satgaon (near Kolkata), and later moved up-river to Hooghly. This enabled them to establish a virtual monopoly on the trade out of West Bengal by the end of the 16th C, until they were expelled by the Mughal armies in 1632. The Livra das cidades, e fortalezas documented in detail Portuguese control over numerous Indian ocean ports (in addition to those previously mentioned), such as Sofala in Mozambique – a major supplier of African gold, Mangalore, Cannanore, Cranganore, Cochin and Quilon – all important sources for spices and other tropical produce.

This success had come about mainly because unlike the trading ships of their Asian predecessors, the Portuguese ships were extremely well-armed for their times. Moreover, they were fortunate to arrive in the Indian sub-continent at a time when many of the ports were outside the political control of any powerful local ruler who could mount any effective resistance against their superior fire-power and their willingness to use it without hesitation. This was also due to the fact that the great Asian economies of the time were essentially land-based self-reliant economies. External trade did not comprise a significant portion of the economy, and the rulers had little stake in defending the interests of the sea-faring merchant classes. Where the merchant class was of some local significance – such as in Gujarat, the Portuguese did meet with considerable resistance (as also in Sumatra). But when squeezed between two enemies (the Mughals to the North and the Portuguese to the South), Gujarat had little choice but to give in.

Smaller and less-established traders from the Southern and Eastern Indian coast were completely eliminated from the inter-Asian trade, and were never able to recover. Others survived by accepting Portuguese conditions and demands of tribute for safe passage. However, some Gujarati and other Indian traders (along with their counterparts from East Africa, the Middle East and Indonesia) tried hard to bypass the Portuguese monopoly by using smaller ports that were relatively free from Portuguese domination. In addition, Gujarati traders began to emulate the Portuguese practice of arming their fleets, so as to resist the attacks from their Portuguese rivals.

However, the bulk of the profits went to the Portuguese who shipped highly-prized Indian textiles to Indonesia – picking up valuable spices in return for shipment to Europe. But the very profitability of this trade brought competitors. First the Dutch, and soon after the English and the French. In 1656, Colombo fell to the Dutch, and in 1663, the Portuguese lost Cochin to the Dutch. Competition with the British East India Company had led to the loss of Hormuz earlier.

Very quickly, the Dutch and then the English attempted to replace the monopoly of the Portuguese with a monopoly of their own. This led each of them to form their own fortified settlements along the chief trading routes as alternatives to the former Portuguese trading bastions. At first, the Dutch appeared to be more successful than their British and French rivals, and succeeded in establishing their pre-eminence in Indonesia, and once they had outmaneuvered the Portuguese, also came to dominated the shipping out of Gujarat and Sind. It was now the Dutch that imposed their will on most Indian shippers, exacting the taxes that were earlier levied by the Portuguese. At the same time, each of Portugal’s European rivals began setting up local factories and trade outlets that matched or exceeded Goa.

Surat (1612), Madras (1639), Bombay (1668), Pondicherry (1674) and Calcutta (1698) thus gradually overshadowed Goa, and took over as the main centers of Indo-European trade. Nevertheless, the Indian (and other Asian) ship-building industry continued to thrive, as ships built in the ports of the Indian Ocean often matched (or even exceeded) the European-built ships in finish and craftsmanship.

Impressed by the range of Indian manufactures (especially textiles), and to supplement their trade, Dutch and British merchants established factories not only in their new port settlements, but also inland. Factories in the centers of textile weaving – such as Bahruch and Ahmedabad in Gujarat, and further inland in Burhanpur, Agra and Lahore were set up. Masulipatam, Pipli, Balasore and Dhaka also drew their attention as did Patna later. In this way, the Dutch and British merchants could keep a much more significant share of the profits that would have otherwise gone to local Indian middlemen. Manufacturing and trading emporiums were also set up in Indonesia by the Dutch.

But even as European-initiated manufacturing grew quite dramatically in the period leading up to direct colonial rule, a successively smaller proportion of the revenues that were generated in Europe reached the highly skilled and industrious Indian or Indonesian workers.

However, with only limited political control in India, British and Dutch traders could not entirely control the price of skilled labor, and had to deal somewhat respectfully with local factory owners, traders and tax officials. India continued to maintain a positive trade balance with respect to its European trade, and European traders were compelled to cover this trade deficit with a steady supply of precious metals. And as long as the European traders furnished the Indian subcontinent with gold and silver, Indian monarchs had some incentive to tolerate the European traders even as they continued to expand their presence, and artfully resisted political control over their Indian activities.

For a while, an equilibrium was maintained; but the European trading companies were always trying to increase their bargaining power by exhibitions of their steadily improving military might. They were constantly testing their powers – probing any weakness on the part of the Indian rulers. In 1691, the East India Company even attempted to challenge Mughal authority, but lost to Aurangzeb’s armies, who was determined not to allow the European traders any more concessions than what they had already won.

But once the Mughal empire began to disintegrate, it was only a matter of time before one or the other of the European powers that dominated the Indian Ocean trade would find a way to extend its domination on the Indian heartland as well. In the end, it was the British who won the battle to rule over India, edging out their European rivals who found other territories to colonize in Asia and Africa.

The colonization of India was followed up by the colonization of Burma, Indo-China, the Middle East and virtually all of Africa. China’s coastal areas also come under European domination. By the dawn of the 20th century, the US had also emerged as a colonial power, as it took over Spanish colonies in the Caribbean and in the Philippines.

Thus what began as a war against the unarmed free-trading merchants of the high seas, ultimately led to the almost complete subjugation of much of the planet by the Western European (and American) powers, and an enormous and unprecedented flow of wealth from the colonies to Europe and North America. For a century, the Portuguese managed to exact tribute from most of the regional traders who were active in the Indian Ocean. This was followed by a period of Dutch domination, although there were also pockets (and periods) of competitive trade as other European rivals attempted to outflank the Portuguese (and later the Dutch). But in the end, it was the British who won the largest prize – direct colonial rule over two-thirds of mainland India (and indirect rule of the rest) – allowing for the extraction of tributes far greater in magnitude than what had accrued to the Portuguese and the Dutch before them.

But even as much of Asia and Africa were forced into a state of unprecedented poverty and misery, Europe and North America witnessed astonishing developments in science, technology and culture. What was for the West, a triumph of awesome proportions, became an unmitigated tragedy for those that had to suffer the tortuous ordeal of colonization. It is important not to ignore this tragic dialectic of history – that the wealth (that in large part) funded the foundation and sustenance of “Western Civilization” came from the South and the East.

Western champions of “free trade” might also note that it was the armed and willing European monopoly traders who destroyed the free trade of the Indian Ocean. Not the other way around. Protected trade, at the barrel of the gun, not “free” or “fair” trade was at the very heart of the West’s early contacts with the South and the East, and to this date, it is the West that appears most unwilling to bring down its own trade barriers even as it attempts to preach “free trade” to the rest of the world.

East India Company : Trade To Colonization July 15, 2008

“In the middle of the seventeenth century, Asia still had a far more important place in the world than Europe.” So wrote J. Pirenne in his ‘History of the Universe’, published in Paris in 1950. He added, “The riches of Asia were incomparably greater than those of the European states. Her industrial techniques showed a subtlety and a tradition that the European handicrafts did not possess. And there was nothing in the more modern methods used by the traders of the Western countries that Asian trade had to envy. In matters of credit, transfer of funds, insurance, and cartels, neither India, Persia, nor China had anything to learn from Europe.”

(Quoted in Auguste Toussaint’s ‘History of the Indian Ocean’)

Such was the situation when the East India Company began its trading activities in the early 17th century. Initially, the British traders had come to India with hopes of selling Britain’s most popular export item to Continental Europe – British Broadcloth, but were disappointed to find little demand for it. Instead, like their Portuguese counterparts, they found several Indian-made items they could sell quite profitably in their homeland. Competing with other European traders, and competing with several other trade routes to Europe (the Red Sea route through Egypt, the Persian Gulf Route through Iraq, and the Northern Caravan Route through Afghanistan, Persia and Turkey), the early British Traders were in no position to dictate terms. They had to seek concessions with a measure of humility and offer trade terms that offered at least some benefits to the local rulers and merchants. While Aurangzeb (who had, perhaps, seen the connection between growing European Trade concessions and falling revenues from the overland trade) attempted to limit and control the activities of the East India Company, not all Indian rulers had as many compunctions about making trade concessions. Besides, the East India Company was willing to persevere; fighting and cajoling for concessions, it built trading bases wherever it could along either side of the lengthy Indian coastline.

In this period, relations between Indian and Britisher were not lacking in cordiality and the East India Company included employees from both worlds. Friendships between the two nationalities developed not only within the context of business relations, but even beyond, to the point of inter-marriage. Unaffected by the pompous stuffiness of the British gentry, the British employees of the East India Company made the most of life in India – dressing in cool and comfortable Indian garments, enjoying Indian pastimes and absorbing local words in their dialect. With as yet unprejudiced eyes, these British traders delighted in the delicate craftsmanship and attractiveness of Indian manufactures and took good advantage of their growing popularity in Britain and France. So lucrative was the trade that even though India would accept nothing but silver (or gold) in return, the East India Company prospered.

Considering the long route (around the African Cape) that the British had to take in reaching England, it was surprising that they made as much money as they did. But other factors outweighed this disadvantage. First, owing to their legally sanctioned monopoly status in England, they had substantial control on the British market. Second, by buying directly at the source, they were able to eliminate the considerable mark-up that Indian goods enjoyed en-route to Europe. Thirdly, the East India Company probably enjoyed better economies of scale since their ships were amongst the largest in the Indian Ocean. In addition, they were able to develop new markets for Indian goods in Africa, and in the Americas.

And finally, (and perhaps, most significantly), as Veronica Murphy reports in ‘Europeans and the Textile Trade’ (Arts of India 1550-1900), “although the East India Company was not itself engaged in the transatlantic slave trade, the link was very close and highly profitable.” In fact, in the 18th century, the British dominated the Atlantic slave trade transporting more slaves than all the other European powers combined. In 1853, Henry Carey – author of ‘The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign’ wrote: “It (the British System) is the most gigantic system of slavery the world has yet seen, and therefore it is that freedom gradually disappears from every country over which England is enabled to gain control.” The Atlantic slave trade was hence, a vital contributor to the financial strength of the East Indian Trading Companies.

So much so that by the middle of the 17th century, the East India Company was re-exporting Indian goods to Europe and North Africa and even Turkey! Unsurprisingly, this was to have a severely deleterious effect on the Ottomans, the Persians, the Afghans, since much of the revenues of these states came from the India trade. It also seriously impacted the revenues of the Mughals, and while the activities of the Arab and Gujarati traders were not entirely eliminated, their trade was much curtailed, and largely reduced to the inter-Asian trade which continued unabated. In any case, the Mughal state was unable to resist centrifugal forces and rapidly disintegrated. This left the East India Company with considerably more leverage and emboldened it to expand its activities, and demand even greater concessions from Indian rulers.

But even as the Indian rulers were granting more concessions, there was a rising chorus of voices bemoaning the loss of “European” silver to Asia. At the end of the 17th century, the silk and wool merchants of France and England were unwilling to put up with the competition from Indian textiles which had become the rage in the new bourgeoisie societies of Europe. Not only did they seek bans on such trading activities of the East India Company, they also sought and won restrictions on the purchase of these items in their respective nations. These prohibitions, while not entirely eliminating the smuggling of such items, nevertheless squeezed out most of the trade, impacting the revenues of the regional Indian states that had only recently broken off from the centralized Mughal state and Bengal was the first to face the consequences.

Having lost the opportunity to profit from the Indian textile trade, the East India Company was not hesitant in changing character. In 1616, Sir Thomas Roe, an envoy of the East India Company had declared to the Mughals that war and trade were incompatible. But already in 1669 (even before the bans on the textile trade), Gerald Ungier, chief of the factory at Bombay had written to his directors: ” The time now requires you to manage your general commerce with the sword in your hands” In 1687 came the reply from the directors, advocating a Goa like British dominion in India. The French Dupleix was more or less of similiar view. Still earlier, in 1614, the Dutch Jan Pieterzoon Coen, had written to his directors: “Trade in India must be conducted and maintained under the protection and favour of your weapons, and the weapons must be supplied from the profits enjoyed by the trade, so that trade cannot be maintained without war or war without trade.” (from Auguste Toussaint’s: History of the Indian Ocean)

The Opium Trade of the 18th century (which eventually led to the Opium Wars) , when the Royal British Navy worked more or less hand in hand with the commercial interests of the East India Company, exemplified precisely such a link between war and trade. From the intertwining of war and trade, colonization was only a small step away. Plassey was a portentious indicator of a new dynamic in Indo-British relations.

Contrary to the views of several apologists for colonial rule, who still argue that the defeat of India had solely to do with “congenital flaws” or the centuries old “ennui” or ” weak character of the Asian”, or the “inability of the Indians (and other Asians) to govern themselves”, R. Mukerji (in Rise and Fall of the East India Company) advanced a different thesis . He argued that there were compelling economic imperatives that drew the European India Companies into the path of imperialism. He pointed out that although monopoly rights assured the India Companies of the exclusive privileges of buying and selling, it did not guarantee that they could buy cheap. For that, political control was essential.

A second problem for the East India Company was that their profits were in direct conflict with those of their British-based competitors. Under these circumstances, as long as the profit motive was paramount (which it was), the Battle at Plassey, and the Opium Wars could be seen as logical outcomes of circumstances where continued profits by legal and honorable means were simply not possible. But, had the East Company comprised of “Gentlemen Traders” as some historians have claimed, they could not have switched so easily from trading in Indian Textiles, to trading in Opium for Tea which, in modern language – would surely be described as a form of “drug-running”! Had the traders of the East India Company been “men of honour”, denied the right to profitable trade, they would have simply gone bankrupt, as so many do in the world of business!

Yet, what is even more significant is that even after The East India Company had regained sizeable profits from the Opium trade, it served as no deterrence to future acts of aggression. It had become like the proverbial man-eating tiger, that having tasted blood once, would be driven to tasting it again and again. After Plassey, the East India Company had been able to force the cultivation of opium in sufficient quantities in India, and hence, procure sufficient volumes of tea for the British market, reaping significant profits. Yet, now military attacks were also to be directed against Indian (and other Asian) ships engaged in the inter-Asian trade. These attacks were to lay the ground-work for the battles against the Coromandel rulers and the Marathas whose revenues from this trade dwindled. While Plassey may have been a matter of “survival” for the East India Company, the subsequent battles were not in that category. Some historians tried to argue that competition with the French precipitated the battles in South India, but such a view is contradicted by a Frenchman, no less!

Abbe de Pradt, author of “Les Trois Ages des colonies, Paris, 1902″ wrote that with the victory at Plassey and the establishment of sovereign rights, England had demonstrated to all of Europe that it was no longer necessary for it to send precious metals obtained from the “New World” to India. She could trade on the basis of revenue acquired from taxing subjects and commodities, whereas other European countries had to trade at a “loss”, with “metal currency”. The extension of English sovereignty in India, would exempt Europe from sending capital into India. Specifically, Abbe de Pradt wrote: ” the people who have enough control over India to reduce substantially the exportation of European metallic currency into Asia rule there as much for Europe’s benefit as for their own; their empire is more common than particular, more European than British; as it expands, Europe benefits, and each of their conquests is also a real conquest for the latter.” Chastizing European opponents of the British conquest, he wrote: “all the sound and fury now echoing across Europe about England’s hegemony in India are the shrieks of a blind delirium, as an anti-European uproar; it might be thought that England was taking away from every European state what it was conquering from those of Asia, whereas, on the contrary, every part of Asia that she takes for herself, she, by that very fact, takes for Europe.”

In fact, this view tallies quite closely with the observations of several later analysts who found it paradoxical that inter-European rivalries and conflicts reduced in the 18th century when compared to the 17th century, and decreased still further after Plassey. In essence, the race for the colonization of India had been won by the British, and what Abbe de Pradt was saying was that it was in French interest to enjoy the “general” benefits of this victory and not bemoan the loss of “specific” benefits from the British victory.

N.K Sinha, author of an “Economic History of Bengal” summarizes the situation in these words: “For more than two centuries the Europeans had found that the trade with Bengal whether carried on by companies or by the individual free traders or by illicit means had always been so much in favor of Bengal that the balance had to be supplied in cash. Now after Plassey supplies were at last found in Bengal ” by means independence of commerce” – referring to the forced taxes that were extracted by the East India Company from the people of Bengal.

He continues: “The trade of the country merchant began to stagnate. Armenian, Mughal, Gujarati and Bengali merchants found their free trade daily fettered and loaded.” The export, import, and manufacture of goods moved from the hands of independant Indian merchants to intermediaries hired by the British East India Company. Often this required force. Sepoys of the East India Company were sent to destroy the factories owned by Indian rivals to the East India Company. Independent weavers who refused to work for the pitiful wages that the East India Company offered had their thumbs cut off. After Plassey, the East India Company also moved to impose it’s monopoly on the internal over-land trade. In a matter of three decades after Plassey, the East India Company achieved a virtual stranglehold on the economic and political life of Eastern India.

Just as Abbe de Pradt had predicted, the benefits of colonization did not go exclusively to the British. French, Dutch and Danish rivals were also able to take advantage of the trade monopoly established by the British East India Company. With the decline of the Indian merchants, they were able to buy Indian goods at lower prices. Secondly, corrupt employees of the British East India Company engaged in considerable price gouging, cheating and local thuggery. They preferred to repatriate this illegally acquired wealth from India through French and Dutch rivals to escape detection of their cheating and to avoid taxes and customs duties in Britain. Even as Indian rivals to the British East India were wiped out, European rivals continued to survive and flourish for another 30-40 years.

The American Furber who published his research on the East India Company in 1948 (in Cambridge, Mass.) pointed out that its French and Dutch rivals continued operating until 1769 and 1798. He also indicates that it was a very cosmopolitan association. At least one-fifth of its nominal capital of pound 3,200,00 was in Dutch hands, and a large proportion of that capital came from financiers in Amsterdam, Paris, Copenhagen, and Lisbon, who were also directly concerned in the company’s affairs. Furber noted that the commercial activity of the French, the Dutch, and the Danes in the Indian Ocean during the eighteenth century clearly showed that “the time had arrived when Europeans at home or overseas who had a stake in the maintenance of European power anywhere on the Indian continent were one and all forced to take part in the work of building a British empire in India”. What Furber was pointing out was not only the substantial and cosmopolitan nature of the backing the East India Company enjoyed, but also the motivations and direct self-interest of its backers.

Thus, Plassey was to be only the first of several assaults that no regional Indian power was able to fend off successfully. While united India had largely held off the Europeans, and divided India had temporarily held off divided Europe, divided India was no match for united Europe. The conquest of India continued with conclusive defeats of the Marathas in 1818, the Sikhs in 1848 and the annexation of Awadh in 1856. 1857 was a brave attempt to rollback the victories of the East India Company, but instead it now brought on the might of the entire British imperial government. The Indian colonies of the British East India Company became British Colonial India – and so began a new phase of colonial plunder from the sub-continent. A phase that saw constant challenges to British hegemony in the region, but it was not till 1947 that a new era could be ushered.

Hence, for almost 200 years, there was a systematic transfer of wealth from India to Europe. Although Britain may have been the primary beneficiary, it’s allies in Europe and the new world benefited no less. British Banks used their Indian capital to fund industry in the US, Germany and elsewhere in Europe. The industrial revolution and the development of modern capitalism was based on the colonization of India and the rest of the world. It was the forced pauperization of the colonized world that allowed nations such as Britain, or the US to industrialize and “modernize”. Any serious analysis of modern capitalism must take this into account.

Indian Sub-Continent : A Review Of Islamic Impression July 15, 2008

Perhaps no aspect of India’s history excites more passion and violent disagreement than the evaluation of Islam’s role in the sub-continent. On the one hand, the most extreme advocates of the 2-nation theory see the arrival of Islam as overwhelmingly positive – defending every gory invader or brutal conqueror that reached Indian soil – there are others who see the arrival of Islam as an even more destructive event for the people of the sub-continent than colonial rule.

And while it may be impossible to be completely objective and accurate in evaluating Islam’s impact in the sub-continent – a large core of historians would probably reject both these views as being ahistoric – as being highly partisan or prejudicial. Most reasonable historians would probably agree that there is no simple answer to this question. Yet, even well intentioned historians can have their biases. Their assessment of Islam’s role in India could depend in large part on their personal priorities and value system. It could also be shaped by the nature and scope of the sources the historian consulted in order to develop his or her point of view. To some extent, the study of the Islamic period in Indian history has suffered because often, historians with an Islamic background have concentrated their efforts almost exclusively on reading about Islamic rulers and stayed with predominantly Islamic sources of reference while conducting their research. On the other hand, historians with a Hindu background have not always studied the Islamic period in adequate depth. As a result, even while wishing to be objective, they have reinforced theories that are at best only partially accurate. The student of Indian history is then left to grapple with highly contradictory views of Indian history.

For Indians, this problem has been compounded by the impact of colonial rule, and its attempt to foster divisions and heighten tensions between India’s different religious communities. A successful fight against colonial rule required the widest possible unity of the Indian people. This often meant that historical disputes between Hindu and Muslim scholars had to be muted. The fear of inciting communal riots or tensions and religious separatism weighed heavily on many historians. Partition caused such fears to linger on into the post-independence period as well. Because Muslims were a minority in India, there was a reluctance on the part of secular historians to critique the role of Islam in any way that could be perceived as ‘negative’. Unfortunately this also led to an intellectual vacuum and historical confusion that has now been exploited by less scrupulous historians and even sheer myth-makers.

In order to restore the scholarship of this important period of India’s history to a higher and more authentic plane, it is important that India’s historians take up this challenging task with even greater devotion to truth and objectivity. At the same time, it is important that students of Indian history learn to separate the crimes of Islamic invaders and conquerors from their treatment of ordinary Indian Muslims. It is also important that we not judge the record of medieval rulers by today’s standards of fairness and justice

On the other hand, it is equally dangerous to project something that seemed positive in one social era as something that is beyond criticism or reproach in a later era. What may have been progressive in a certain period may become a hindrance to progress in a later period. It is therefore essential to understand that different eras may accept or tolerate or promote different social philosophies – but demands for social progress can and should lead us to expand or modify our ethical codes and therefore change our evaluation of religion, social mores and political ideology.

In evaluating the impact of Islam on the sub-continent, one must also note that the sub-continent was never immune from invasions from the North West. Like other settled agricultural societies – India has been periodically attacked by less civilized barbarian tribes all through its long history. In that sense, the Islamic invasions were not exceptional or unique. What does make the Islamic invasions different is that unlike their predecessors who assimilated into the prevalent social system – Islamic conquerors retained their Islamic identity and created new legal and administrative systems that challenged and usually superceded the existing systems of social conduct and ethics. They also introduced new cultural mores that in some ways were very different from the existing cultural codes. While these were a source of friction and conflict, it should also be noted that there were also Islamic rulers who in much of their secular practice absorbed or accommodated local traditions.

We should also note that there were many different kinds of Islamic invaders. There were those who came primarily to pillage and loot, and left quickly after their plunder. Such invaders undoubtedly had a very debilitating effect. Any society that is subject to repeated external attack can lose its vigour and confidence. It can also suffer economic ruin because its accumulated savings can be forcibly expropriated and spent elsewhere. However, India was not alone in suffering such raids. Iraq and Egypt – which had already come under the sway of Islamic rule also experienced such violent attacks. In general, the treasuries of the Indian rulers (who had access to a large agricultural tax base) were comparatively rich, and frequently drew covetous interlopers and envious conquerors from the less fertile parts of Central Asia and the Middle East. The very geographic advantage that had helped to enrich India’s civilization became its bane as it repeatedly attracted ambitious conquerors and marauders.

But not all invaders left after looting. Some fought on to win kingdoms and stayed to create new ruling dynasties. The practices of these new rulers and their subsequent heirs (some of whom were borne of Hindu wives) varied considerably. While some were uniformly hated, others developed a popular following. According to the memoirs of Ibn Batuta (the 14th C. Tunisian traveler who left extensive records of his travels in India) one of the previous sultans had been especially brutal and was deeply hated by Delhi’s population. His memoirs also indicate that Muslims from the Arab world, from Persia and Turkey were often favored with important posts at the royal courts suggesting that locals may have played a somewhat subordinate role in the Delhi administration. S.A.A. Rizvi (The Wonder That Was India – II), however points to Muhammad bin Tughlaq as not only encouraging locals but promoting artisan groups such as cooks, barbers and gardeners to high administrative posts. In his reign, it is likely that conversions to Islam took place as a means of seeking greater social mobility and improved social standing.

There is also evidence of collaboration between Islamic and Hindu rulers such as between Ibrahim Shah Sharqi (1401-40) ruler of Jaunpur with Kirti Singh of Tirhut. The sultans of Jaunpur were frequently helped by the Hindu chiefs against their Muslim opponents, particularly the Lodis. Similarly, during the reign of Akbar, there was a functional alliance between the Rajput rulers and the Mughals – the alliance extending until the reign of Aurangzeb when the alliance began to weaken and gradually fall apart.

Hence, it would be incorrect to paint the Islamic rulers with a broad brush. While some were decidedly oppressive towards the local population, vandalized temples and sculpture, and remained generally detached from the vernacular cultures, others like Ahmed Shah of Ahmedabad or Adil Shah of Bijapur maintained a relatively close connection with indigenous traditions. While many Islamic rulers simply expropriated older Hindu or Jain monuments, and adapted them for their own purpose, a considerable amount of fresh building activity also took place. Sher Shah Suri in his short reign played a particularly decisive role in creating several new urban centres. The Lodhis and Mughal rulers like Jehangir also built several new towns.

While some rulers stayed aloof from their subjects, and were strongly biased towards cultural practices imported from Turkey, Central Asia, Persia or Iraq – others preferred to study Sanskrit, encourage indigenous arts and employ Hindus in their administration without much discrimination. Ahmed Shah incorporated Hindu and Jain architectural motifs into his buildings without inhibition, Mughal rulers like Akbar and Jehangir tried to be eclectic in their tastes, and others like the Deccan rulers encouraged unique local-flavored styles. Some of the more enlightened Islamic rulers (particularly those who were born and raised in India) came to understand Indian geographic and climatic conditions, and like their Hindu counterparts in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh or Tamil Nadu (and elsewhere), invested in vital water-works like canals, dams, artificial lakes, step-wells and underground water-channels.

In their secular practice, the best of the Islamic rulers contributed to the expansion of urban life and culture, just as other rulers had done in preceding eras. However, a major source of conflict emerged between Islamic and Hindu rulers, and this was on issues of taxation, and in the framing and enforcement of legal codes. And this is where matters came to a head. If one were to extrapolate from the accounts of Ibn Batuta, it would appear that Hindu rulers were more inclined to tax trade activities at a higher rate, giving concessions to agriculturists, whereas Islamic rulers tended to follow a more liberal policy vis-a-vis traders, but exercised a more exacting tax policy towards agriculturists. It would thus appear that the arrival of Islam shifted power in favor of the mercantile class at the expense of cultivators.

Islam and the expansion of trade

It was in the expansion of trade where Islam’s impact was the greatest. One of the most significant aspects of the Islamic period in world history was the emergence of Islamic courts capable of imposing a common commercial and legal system that extended from Morocco in the West to Mongolia in the North East and Indonesia in the South East. Although this was not of significant benefit to countries such as India that enjoyed a substantial trade surplus, it was probably of great significance to the people of the Arabian or Central Asian deserts whose oases depended heavily on trade.

As the Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms of Asia were subjugated by Islam, and as Islam spread through Africa – it became a highly centralizing force that facilitated in the creation of a common legal system that allowed letters of credit issued in say Egypt or Tunisia to be honored in India or Indonesia. To create and sustain such an internationally consistent legal system, Islamic rulers had to undercut the local and traditional systems of governance that prevailed. This also meant that they often preferred to deal with foreigners who had no interest in preserving the older systems. It is also possible that the terms of trade were structured in ways that disadvantaged local artisans and peasants, but favored the rich traders and ruling elites in the newly established and aggressively expanding Islamic kingdoms.

As the old contractual obligations in society were weakened, Islam became the new binding force of these newly conquered societies. And in order to cement their rule, Islamic rulers initially promoted a system in which there was a revolving door between the clergy, the administrative nobility and the mercantile classes. Ibn Batuta is a classic example of this phenomenon. He served as an Imam in Delhi, as a judicial official in the Maldives, and as an envoy and trader in the Malabar. There was never a contradiction in any of his positions because each of these roles complemented the other. Islam created a compact under which political power, law and religion became fused in a manner so as to safeguard the interests of the mercantile class. This led world trade to expand to the maximum extent possible in the medieval world.

Agriculturally developed societies played a crucial role in this transformation. The interests of the mercantile community were such that they wished agricultural taxes to be high but trade duties to be low. By and large, Islamic rulers implemented exactly such a regime. This enabled the founding of new trading and manufacturing centers that emerged wherever Islam took hold. For the desert areas of the world, Islam came as a big boon – providing wealth from trade that would have been unimaginable considering the poverty of the natural landscape. For the world’s largely self-sufficient and more advanced agricultural civilizations like India (or Egypt or Indonesia) – this growth in trade was probably of lesser significance and more of a mixed bag (as we shall see later).

Islam and the spread of technology

With the growth of international trade also came the spread of manufacturing technology and a more advanced urban culture. Local inventions and regional technologies became more easily globalized. This was of profound importance to those parts of the world that had lagged in terms of technological development. On the other hand, for a nation like India which had had a rich intellectual tradition of its own, and was already a relatively advanced civilization, this may have been of lesser import. Nevertheless, no country has a lock on technology, and to the extent that the arrival of Islam was concomitant with the adoption of new technologies it helped India too. Although there is considerable debate amongst historians as to how much technology was actually brought into India by Islamic invaders, there is one (albeit controversial) school of thought that argues that inventions like the water-wheel for irrigation were imported during the Islamic period. In some other cases, the evidence is much clearer. The use of ceramic tiles in construction was inspired by architectural traditions prevalent in Iraq, Iran, and in Central Asia. Rajasthan’s blue pottery was an adaptation of Chinese pottery which was imported in large quantities by the Mughal rulers. There is also the example of Sultan Abidin (1420-70) sending Kashmiri artisans to Samarqand to learn book-binding and paper making.

But regardless of whether the Islamic rulers introduced new technology or not, there is considerable evidence that many Islamic rulers developed Karkhanas – i.e. small factories during their reign. Of even greater significance is how new towns that specialized in a particular category of manufactured goods emerged throughout the country. Khurja and Siwan became renowned for pottery, Moradabad for brass ware, Mirzapur for carpets, Firozabad for glass wares, Farrukhabad for printing, Sahranpur and Nagina for wood-carving, Bidar and Lucknow for bidriware, Srinagar for papier-mache, Benaras for jewelry and textiles, and so on.

Impact on the peasantry

The impact on the peasantry varied from region to region, and from ruler to ruler. Even as urbanization created opportunities for some, it also created new problems for the countryside. The growth of the urban centres and the manufacture of luxury goods that were popular in the lavish courts of some of the Islamic rulers often came at a heavy cost on large sections of the peasantry. While trading communities and certain categories of skilled artisans may have been able to take advantage of new avenues for social mobility, other sections suffered a setback.

The invading rulers, particularly during the Delhi Sultanate (or even the Mughal) period had a fairly narrow local support base – (especially if they were not born and raised in India, and were driven to enforcing their particular idea of Islamic law on a resistant population). This meant that they had to rely on greater violence to sustain their rule. It appears that military campaigns became more frequent and more brutal. Punishments became more severe and torture and the death penalty were used with less restraint.

During the early period of Islamic conquest, many Islamic rulers resorted to the hated jaziya, or poll tax levied on non-believers – i.e. non-Muslims. In some instances, this pushed the poorest sections of the peasantry into slavery. In other instances this may have coerced some of the peasantry into converting, or else led to local uprisings and tax rebellions. But the consequences of failed rebellions were just as disastrous.

Growth of Slavery

During the period of the Delhi Sultanate, the practice of slavery grew to levels previously unseen in Indian history. S.A.A. Rizvi reports that Delhi’s 14th C. ruler Firuz Shah Tughlaq kept 180,000 slaves. Impoverished peasants were often forced into selling their children, both boys and girls into slavery. According to Ibn Batuta, captive girls were very cheap, and even skilled girls were relatively inexpensive. Slaves acquired through wars and armed raids against Hindu chiefs were sold in local markets. Noblemen kept an enormous number of slaves and feudal lords maintained entire armies of slaves. A significant number were captured and sent to the slave markets of Central Asia. However, slaves utilized in the military often fought their way to the top and took their revenge on the ruling clans. This occurred not only in Delhi but also in Aurangabad and Ahmednagar in the Deccan, and in Bengal. As a result, the Sultanate period was a period of great instability with rulers being deposed in quick succession. It is quite likely that the Rajput practice of Jauhar emerged as a means of fending off such degradation in the face of impending military defeat.

During famines, both Hindus and Muslims sold their children into slavery thus forcing the clergy to speak out against the practice. In 1562, Akbar abolished the practice of taking the wives and children of defeated rebels as captives and from then on, it appears that the practice of slavery may have gone into decline but was not entirely discontinued. The special tax on non-Muslims, the jaziya was also abolished. Nevertheless, taxes on the peasantry went up from a sixth or a fourth of the produce to a third under the Mughals. While some of these increased taxes may have been made possible through improved irrigation methods – at some point these taxes far exceeded any gains in productivity and came to be viewed as unbearable, and eventually led to the Sikh and Maratha revolts that permanently fractured Mughal rule.

But not all Islamic rulers bled the peasantry. Shah Mir who became king of Kashmir in 1339 fixed the land tax at 17%. Later rulers like Tipu Sultan of Mysore were also not viewed as unreasonable taxers and became especially popular. Even more profligate rulers like the Awadh Nawabs managed to juggle the interests of the peasantry with the interests of urban-dwellers thus maintaining a certain amount of popular support. It is thus no surprise that only such popular rulers (like Tipu and the Awadh Nawabs) were able to offer any significant resistance to British rule.

Social Impact of Islam

Although as a religious faith, Islam put great stress on the equality of all believers, in most cases, society did not become more egalitarian under Islamic rule. The general bias towards trade, and the trend towards higher taxes on the peasantry led to far greater concentrations of wealth amongst the social elite. Not only did the distance between rich and poor widen with the arrival of the Islamic invaders, Islamic rulers did not contribute in any meaningful way to breaking down the caste system.

Hence, it would be wrong to exaggerate the “egalitarian” character of Islam versus the “discriminatory and sedentary ” character of caste-driven Hinduism. As some historians have pointed out – those who earned their living by “unclean tasks” (such as corpse-handling, tanning/leather work, or janitorial work) were often treated with disdain by both the Islamic and Hindu elite. The majority of the Islamic conquerors and ruling dynasties refrained from close social interaction and marriage with the local artisans and working castes just as much as did Brahmins or Kshatriyas. It would also be wrong to argue that caste rigidity was uniformly enforced in ‘Hindu’ India. Many of India’s greatest ruling dynasties sprang from lower castes or socially “inferior” mixed castes. The Nandas were shudras, the Mauryas hailed from a mixed caste, and Harsha was a Vaishya. The Rajputs were of Central Asian stock and became accepted as Kshatriya after they had established their power. And just like the Muslims, the Kalingas of Orissa allowed anyone to join their armies and rise to the top by demonstrating their skills in battle. Moreover the Vaishnava and Bhakti movements had already been popularizing the notion that spiritual devotion superceded caste in terms of gaining salvation. Hence, Islam did not offer anything that was substantially new or more radical to the majority of India’s Hindus and this is why the majority did not convert to Islam.

This is particularly evident in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa where few artisans or craftspeople converted to Islam. There is evidence of social mobility across caste groupings in the Pratihara period in Rajasthan. Caste divisions were not significant in the early Kalinga period in Orissa and the Chandella rulers of Madhaya Pradesh were reputed to have an egalitarian attitude on matters of caste and may have been of lower caste origin themselves. Just as the impact of Islam varied considerably, it would be wrong to generalize about pre-Islamic India. Caste rigidity and Brahminical conservatism were not uniform or  all-prevalent features of the sub-continent. Had Islam offered a truly radical alternative to the Indian masses, a much greater proportion of the Indian population would have converted.

As pointed out by Amartya Sen and others, the majority of conversions took place directly from Buddhism to Islam or amongst certain mercantile communities and specific categories of skilled artisans.

Growth of Clerical Obscurantism

Although the majority of conversions may not always have been forced, Ibn Batuta does point to coercion in forcing people to attend the daily prayers. Indians who were used to religions where they had considerable autonomy in terms of when and how often they went to the temple – initially resisted the regimen of frequent daily prayers. Imams often had to threaten and cane convertees into attending.

Another negative consequence of Islam was that because Islam was against idol worship, the rich ancient Indian tradition of sculpture suffered a major setback. This also had certain profound though less apparent consequences. At one level – praying to a stone deity may seem very irrational, but in practice it was certainly no worse than praying to an invisible entity. At least the stone deity that was sculpted with human features embodied the fantasies and wish-fulfillment desires of the people. Daily and forced obeisance to an invisible god with the power to punish with eternal damnation was potentially far more spirit deadening and mind-numbing.

Islamization thus led to a steady loss of independent thinking and religious dissent. Unlike Hinduism which had become an amalgam of both heterodox and conservative traditions allowing atheism and goddess worship to coexist with Brahminical orthodoxy, Quranic Islam more often demanded complete submission to its precepts and allowed much less room for heretic beliefs.

While obscurantist ideas emasculated followers of both faiths, the power of the Islamic clergy was considerably greater in enforcing social conservatism. This trend became notable during the reign of Shah Jahan and climaxed during the reign of Aurangzeb.

By the time Aurangzeb took over, much of the state’s social budget had come to be expropriated by the conservative clergy. The only scholars to be promoted were Islamic scholars who became prisoners to the unworldliness that is ingrained in any religion that makes absolute devotion to an unknown and indescribable entity its paramount aim. Towards the end of his life, Aurangzeb regretted his turn towards Islamic conservatism and exclusivity, but by then the conservative clergy had developed a momentum of its own.

Being a religion of the book, Islam was more easily hijacked by dogmatic currents than Hinduism which lacked the formal and centralizing institutions that came with Islam. There was no council of Ulemas with the power to issue fatwas (threatening religious edicts). There were no daily prayers. There wasn’t even a single sacred book that could resolve religious disputes. While some followed the Gita or the Upanishads, others followed the Ramayana which itself came in multiple versions. Many of these texts were highly polemical, embodying intense philosophical ambiguity and debate. Concepts like “dharma” were loosely defined and abstract in their conception, enabling them to be adjusted to the changing needs of changing times.

The Quran offered no such ambiguity or dialectical possibilities. Quranic interpreters could only spend their time quibbling over historic minutiae, obsessed with statements of the ‘prophet’ and what judgement day might bring and who would enter heaven. It was questions of the after-life that concerned them, not day-to-day reality. Although there were currents within Hinduism that also emphasized detachment from real life – there was still space for more realistic and worldly currents. Prior to the arrival of Islam, some Hindu rulers supported scientists and rational scholars. Although the support for the sciences and education was never broad based and did not penetrate deep into society it allowed India’s secular and rational traditions to survive – albeit in a weakened and restricted form. Some Hindu rulers like Raja Bhoj were particularly notable in that they were renowned architects and engineers and were highly respected for their many building projects.

The more liberal of the Islamic rulers like Akbar attempted to follow in their footsteps and keep the Madrasahs (Islamic Schools) in line by compiling regulations that required them to also include secular subjects in their curriculum. Courses on ethics, mathematics, astronomy, agriculture, medicine, logic and government were recommended in addition to religious studies. The study of Sanskrit was prescribed including Vyakaran (Grammar) and Nyaya – (Rational Philosophy). During Akbar’s reign Hakim Shirazi (d. 1589) and his followers attempted to combine the study of mathematics and science with Islam at seminaries founded by them. Perhaps as a consequence of his father’s open-mindedness, Emperor Jehangir was also encouraged to pay attention to secular matters and took an active interest in botany and zoology. But neither Akbar nor Jehangir were to have any significant impact on the outlook of the Madrasahs. The actual practice of the Ulema – the clergy who ran the Madrasahs, remained theocratic, and they resisted Akbar’s modest attempts at secularizing the Islamic educational system. This was not entirely out of character because as early as the 11th C. the Central Asian scholar Al-Beruni had been jailed for his “heretic” beliefs, and for ‘challenging the supremacy of the knowledge contained in the Quran’.

In social matters also, there were distinctions that became apparent over time. Outside the ambit of Brahminical or Kshatriya orthodoxy, the triumph of patriarchy was only partial in India. Amongst some communities of artisans and the peasantry, there was a greater sense of realism and tolerance in matters of personal relationships and human sexuality. Gods and goddesses were propitiated based on local and even individual needs. Religion was more a matter of individual or group choice than a rigid doctrine imposed from above. Regional, even local variations and adaptations coexisted and survived.

But over time the conservative Islamic clergy attempted to limit or quash flexibility in such matters. Using their Friday sermons and power to issue fatwas they were able to exercise greater influence on the polity than were Hindu priests. With the rulers on their side, it was much harder to challenge them. This may have also had an indirect impact on some rationalist and autonomous schools within the broad Hindu umbrella who may have also came under some pressure.

Although the Sufi and Bhakti traditions challenged religious bigotry and intolerance, both traditions came under the sway of mystic renunciation of the real world. Even as they eased the pain of religious and social autocracy – they were unable to offer a realistic counterpoint to the imposition of religious sectarianism and bookish rigor. A powerful humanist reform current also appeared in the form of Sikhism which in its practice of social welfare measures for the poor and disenfranchised exceeded any faith preceding it. But like the Sufi and Bhakti faiths, it too incorporated elements of mystic withdrawal and saintly devotion to the ‘almighty’ as its high ideals.

The retreat from India’s long tryst with rationalism had already started when Islam arrived in the subcontinent. Over time, Islam aided and abetted this retreat, even further deepening it.

This was in stark contrast to what was happening in Europe in that same period. By the 18th century Christian religious orthodoxy was facing powerful movements for social reform and was under attack from both internal and external humanist and rationalist currents. Rather than the rational currents being subsumed by religion, they were trying to raise their head to rise above the ocean of myth, superstition and religious confusion that had imbued the masses of the medieval world.

In India the trend was in the wrong direction and this undoubtedly fed into the process of cementing colonial rule. While the British used all shades of religious obscurantism to divide and subjugate the Indian masses, Islamic separatism became a particularly dangerous tool in the hands of the British. The complicity of the Muslim League served as a catalyst for the unfortunate vivisection of the sub-continent. Today, in Pakistan, Islam has become a vehicle for spreading venom and hatred against India. This has led to a growing revulsion against Islam and unfortunate stereo-typing of all Muslim nations and people in some sections of Indian society. Progressive forces in India have been caught in a curious bind.

Earlier in the century, in the fight against colonial rule, the widest possible unity of the Indian people was deemed essential. As a result, forces that were based on mystic renunciation or religious obscurantism (or even religious chauvinism) were tolerated, even welcomed in the freedom movement. Criticism of religion, even religious absolutism was avoided. The fear of communal riots and religious separatism prevented many of the nation’s most advanced freedom fighters from combating religious conservatism head on.

After independence, similar fears (of fomenting needless divisions) often led to the quiet censorship of essays containing a critique of Islam. However, because, Hinduism was viewed as the faith of the ‘dominant majority’ there weren’t the same fears of critically dissecting Hinduism. It was possible for the many weaknesses and failures of Hindu obscurantism to be exposed, but Islam, on the other hand was somewhat protected from critical analysis.

Today, this has led to a severe backlash. It has led to a false and ahistorical glorification of Hinduism – and an exceedingly harsh and hostile assessment of Islam’s role in India. India thus faces an enormous challenge. How does it protect the lives and guarantee equal access and legal protection to all Muslims even as some of the negative aspects of Islamic rule are brought to light? The old solution of avoiding controversy or holding back from a frank and deeper assessment is clearly unsustainable. Historians cannot refrain from telling the truth for too long. Yet, the truth can also be told in ways that are enlightening, and without it being incendiary. If the record of India’s Islamic courts is presented in an unbiased and impartial way, and without stirring feelings of retribution towards Muslims,  and with appreciation for their positive contributions, it is likely that most ordinary Indians will react in a manner that is sanguine and circumspect. It may also create an opportunity for fighting anew all the forces of obscurantism that hinder India’s progress – whether they be Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian.

If India is to meet the challenges posed by technology dominated globalization, it cannot afford to continue stumbling under the shadow of any type of religious obscurantism. The same applies to Pakistan and Bangladesh. In all three nations, there is tremendous poverty and oppression. While India, having embraced a secular path, offers somewhat more hope than either of its neighbors, a secular and cooperative federation of the Indian sub-continent offers the greatest hope of progress for the vast majority of the sub-continent’s people.

Between the nations of the sub-continent there exist the natural resources and the scientific and technological prowess to raise the average standard of living to modest but very respectable levels, and to do it in an environmentally sustainable fashion. But today, by and large, only India has elements of the requisite scientific and technological foundation in place. However, due to Pakistan’s proxy wars it is unable to tap the available energy resources and other natural resources and develop in a balanced way. Pakistan and Bangladesh on the other hand have rich energy reserves but lack the scientific and technological know-how, or industrial base to develop or use them. It is a poignant stalemate.

The forces of Islamic jehad have won a partial victory through partition and in keeping India bleeding. But it has undoubtedly been a very pyrrhic victory in which all except a very narrow elite have been big losers. Islam at one point served to unite the medieval world into one huge trading bloc. It is ironic that today, it is the forces of Islamic Jehad that prevent even bilateral trade from taking place between India and Pakistan. Rather than unite disparate social systems, Islam is being used to divide a people with a long and common culture and history.

In many ways, the key to the future is in the hands of the region’s ordinary Muslims because only they can successfully challenge the power of the conservative and now militarized clergy. India’s Muslims have a special role to play because they have the best chance of winning over the hearts and minds of the people of Pakistan and Bangladesh and exhorting them to work towards a cooperative and mutually beneficial federation with India.