Of Imârat and Tijârat: Asian Merchants and State Power in the Western Indian Ocean, 1400 to 1750

1995 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 750-780 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanjay Subrahmanyam
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
South Asia ◽  
State Power ◽  
Western Indian Ocean ◽  
State Building ◽  
Government Service ◽  
Northern India ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Early Modern South Asia

How best might one address the relationship between trade and state building in early modern South Asia? The question is hardly a new one. To some, like Anand Ram ‘Mukhlis’ (d. 1751), a Khatri from northern India who, though not Muslim, had been educated in Persian letters and accounting (siyâgat), trade was more honourable and safer than statecraft or government. The fortunes of the nobility were fluctuating ones, and the means by which they had been accumulated were of a questionable legitimacy. Doubts of this sort did not of course prevent his Khatri brethren from entering into government service during the later Mughal period, and several of them can be counted among the a'yân (notables) of the reign of the Mughal, Muhammad Shah (1719–48) (Alam 1986:169–75). They maintained a tradition begun in the reign of Ak-bar with the famous Raja Todar Mal (d. 1589), also a Khatri from the Punjab.

scholarly journals Dyeing the Springtime: The Art and Poetry of Fleeting Textile Colors in Medieval and Early Modern South Asia

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 627
Author(s):  
Sylvia Houghteling
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
South Asia ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Devotional Poetry ◽  
Literary Arts ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
South Asian Art ◽  
Regional Histories ◽  
Early Modern South Asia

This paper explores the metaphorical and material significance of short-lived fabric dyes in medieval and early modern South Asian art, literature, and religious practice. It explores dyers’ manuals, paintings, textiles, and popular and devotional poetry to demonstrate how the existence of ephemeral dyes opened up possibilities for mutability that cannot be found within more stable, mineral pigments, set down on paper in painting. While the relationship between the image and the word in South Asian art is most often mutually enhancing, the relationship between words and color, and particularly between poetry and dye color, operates on a much more slippery basis. In the visual and literary arts of South Asia, dye colors offered textile artists and poets alike a palette of vibrant hues and a way to capture shifts in emotions and modes of devotion that retained a sense of impermanence. More broadly, these fragile, fleeting dye materials reaffirm the importance of tracing the local and regional histories even of objects, like textiles, that circulated globally.

What is military labour? War, logistics, and the Mughals in early modern South Asia

2021 ◽  
pp. 096834452091861
Author(s):  
Pratyay Nath
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Imperial Expansion ◽  
Military Campaigns ◽  
Early Modern South Asia

The category of ‘military labour’ has traditionally been used to designate ‘combat labour’ – the labour of soldiers. Focusing on the case of early modern South Asia, the present essay argues that this equivalence is misplaced and that it is a product of a distorted view of war defined primarily in terms of combat. The essay discusses the roles played by the logistical workforce of Mughal armies in conducting military campaigns and facilitating imperial expansion. It calls for broadening the category of ‘military labour’ to include all types of labour rendered consciously towards the fulfilment of military objectives.

English Private Trade in the Western Indian Ocean, 1720-1740

2007 ◽  
Vol 50 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 215-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Om Prakash
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Special Reference ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Western Indian Ocean ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Indian Ocean Trade ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Trading Network

AbstractThe paper first situates the trade carried on by private European traders in the overall framework of the Indian Ocean trade in the early-modern period. It then discusses in some detail the trading network of private English merchants in the Western Indian Ocean with special reference to the Surat-Mocha link in the 1720s and the 1730s. The evidence base is provided mainly by the private papers of Sir Robert Cowan, governor of Bombay between 1729 and 1734 and a major English private trader, operating in collaboration with Henry Lowther, chief of the English factory at Surat. Cette contribution replace tout d'abord les activités commerciales menées par les négociants européens dans le cadre général du commerce de l'Océan indien au cours de la période moderne. Elle examine ensuite avec quelque détail le réseau commercial établi par des négociants anglais privés dans le secteur occidentalde l'Océan indien, plus particulièrement les relations instituées entre Surat et Moka dans les années 1720-1730. Les données présentées ont été tirées principalement de la correspondance privée de Sir Robert Cowan, gouverneur de Bombay (1729-1734) et grand négociant privé, associé à Henry Lowther, responsable du comptoir de Surat.

scholarly journals Looking for democracy in fiduciary government. Historical notes on an unsettled relationship (ca. 1520-1650)

Daímon ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 17-32
Author(s):  
David Guerrero
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
State Power ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
The Political ◽  
Fiduciary Duties ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Normative Foundations

Una perspectiva reciente sobre los fundamentos normativos del derecho público ha propuesto concebir las relaciones entre ciudadanía y Estado como una “relación fiduciaria”, usando deberes fiduciarios del ámbito iusprivado para justificar limitaciones jurídicas y morales al poder del Estado. La gobernanza fiduciaria también ha sido señalada como una característica distintiva del republicanismo y la soberanía popular, ya que sitúa a la comunidad política como fideicomitente y beneficiaria de cualquier acto administrativo. En este artículo se revisan algunas concepciones protomodernas del gobierno considerando sus justificaciones explícitamente fiduciarias. Concluye con una interpretación fiduciaria del iusnaturalismo Leveller, especialmente necesario para entender (y puede que restaurar) la relación de la gobernanza fiduciaria con la democracia.   A recent perspective on the normative foundations of public law has proposed to conceive citizen-state relationships as a “fiduciary relationship”, using private-law fiduciary duties to justify legal and moral constrains on state power. Fiduciary governance has also been pointed as a distinct feature of republicanism and popular sovereignty, since it places the political community as trustor and beneficiary of any administrative act. This paper reviews some early modern conceptions of government considering their explicit fiduciary justifications. It concludes with a fiduciary account of Leveller natural law, especially needed to understand (and maybe to restore) the relationship between fiduciary governance and democracy.

scholarly journals Forum

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Hughes ◽  
Naor Ben-Yehoyada ◽  
Judith Scheele ◽  
Jatin Dua
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Western Indian Ocean ◽  
The Relationship

Follow the relationship: A note on Jatin Dua’s Captured at Sea: Piracy and Protection in the Western Indian Ocean Protection recaptured: Reflections on Jatin Dua’s Captured at Sea: Piracy and Protection in the Western Indian OceanProtection’s possibility: On histories and geographies of concepts

The Archaeological Record of Indian Ocean Engagements in the Red Sea

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eivind Heldaas Seland
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Red Sea ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Western Indian Ocean ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Islamic Period ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter reviews the evidence, nature, and development of maritime contacts in the Red Sea and from the Red Sea into the western Indian Ocean from the Neolithic until the start of the Islamic period, c. 4000 BCE–700 CE. In addition to summarizing and highlighting recent archaeological research and ongoing scholarly debates, emphasis is placed on identifying and explaining periods of intensified as well as reduced interaction, and on the relationship between internal Red Sea dynamics and contacts with the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean worlds in light of climate, natural environment, hinterland interest, and a changing geopolitical situation.

Disrupting Mughal Imperialism: Piracy and Plunder on the Indian Ocean

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-142
Author(s):  
Srinivas Reddy
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Western Indian Ocean ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Broad View ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract This paper examines five distinct events from seventeenth-century South Asia: a pirate raid, two battles and two more pirate raids, all of which represent varying acts of defiance committed against the great Mughal imperium. Perpetrated by the Portuguese, the Marathas and the British, on land and by sea, these events seen in sequence shed light on the evolution of geopolitical players and the aqueous shifts in power dynamics related to maritime supremacy in the western Indian Ocean. By taking a broad view of this area over the span of a century, this paper seeks to explore the how notions of piracy, privateering, imperialism and colonialism evolved and changed in correspondence with a diverse, vital and hotly contested seascape.

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