The Persian Gulf in Modern Times, Edited by Lawrence G

CHAPTER 9 Indian Communities in the Persian Gulf, c. 1500–1947 James Onley1 Mixed with the indigenous population [of Manama is] a small but unmistakable colony of Indians, merchants by profession, and mainly from Guzerat, Cutch, and their vicinity, [who] keep up here all their peculiarities of costume and manner, and live among the motley crowd, “among them, but not of them.” —William Palgrave, 18622 e know very little about Indian communities in the pre-oil Persian Gulf, such as the one described above. Their makeup was very dif- ferent from the Gulf’s South Asian communities today. Before the Wdawn of the oil era and the partition of India after World War II, only a few thousand Indians resided there—the majority of them merchants and their families, such as those William Palgrave saw in Manama in 1862. Many were wealthy and influential, elite members of society. The region’s economic depen- dence on India and India’s profound cultural and political influence on the Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Exeter - PalgraveConnect - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright region up to 1947 was such that locals regarded India and Indians as highly as they now regard the West and Westerners. For generations leading up to Britain’s withdrawal from India, the shaikhdoms of Eastern Arabia formed part of Britain’s Indian Empire. India and Indians represented power and prestige. This long-held view of India and Indians in the Gulf changed profoundly after the dissolution of the Indian Empire, when the economic and political importance of the West and the Arab world quickly replaced that of India. With the arrival of oil wealth in the shaikhdoms in the following decades, Eastern Arabia witnessed a rapid expansion in the construction and service 10.1057/9781137485779 - The Persian Gulf in Modern Times, Edited by Lawrence G. Potter 232 M James Onley sectors—an expansion that has continued, in ebbs and flows, ever since. This economic expansion has attracted millions of working class South Asians to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, changing the demographics of the region’s South Asian communities beyond recognition. To appreciate the magnitude of this change, one need only contrast Palgrave’s description above with the most common image of South Asians in the Gulf today: that of low-wage migrant workers in the construction and service sectors. In line with this image, the vast majority of studies of South Asian communities in the Gulf are concerned with migrant laborers in the post-1947 era.3 By contrast, there are only 20 studies of Indians in the pre-oil Gulf, mainly case studies.4 As yet, we have no complete picture of Indian communities in the pre-oil Gulf, particularly of the merchants, which is surprising given the leading roles they played. This chapter fills in some of the blanks.5 India’s Pre-Oil Connections with the Gulf The Gulf’s trade links with India extend back into antiquity, as evidenced by the countless Indian artifacts one finds in Bronze Age archaeological sites (from 2300 to 1000 BC) and modern-day museums in the GCC states, Iraq, and Iran. While there may well have been an Indian mercantile pres- ence in the Gulf since the Bronze Age, the earliest account we have of an Indian community there comes from a book written in 916 AD by the Arab historian Abu Zayd Hasan referring to over 100 Hindu merchants at the southern port of Siraf, Iran.6 After the decline of Siraf in the eleventh century, this community would most likely have relocated to the island of Kish (Qais), which replaced Siraf as the Gulf’s leading port. When Hormuz rose to prominence in the fourteenth century, contributing to Kish’s decline, the community probably moved there. After Hormuz was destroyed as a trading center by a combined Safavid-English force in 1622, the Indian community dispersed to Bandar Abbas and Muscat. The oldest community in the Gulf today, also Hindu like that in Siraf, seems to be the one in Muscat, which dates to at least the fifteenth century.7 The second oldest is probably the Hindu community in Manama, first men- tioned in Dutch records in 1667, but which is almost certainly older than that.8 The third oldest is the Lawati community of Muscat and Matrah, - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright which dates from either the Ya‘ariba dynasty (1625–1743) according to J. E. Peterson or the 1770s according to Calvin Allen.9 The merchants, trades- men, and family members who made up these communities came mainly from Sindh, Kutch (Kachchh), and historic Gujarat (the Kathiawar pen- insula, a.k.a. Saurashtra, and the eastern coast of the Gulf of Cambay)— regions that straddle the southern border between present-day Pakistan and India.10 The main ports and towns that Indian merchants in the Gulf traded with varied over the centuries, as Table 9.1 shows. 10.1057/9781137485779 - The Persian Gulf in Modern Times, Edited by Lawrence G. Potter Indian Communities in the Persian Gulf M 233 Most of the goods imported by Gulf ports—wood, metal, cloth, rice, cof- fee, tea, sugar, ghee, spices, etc.—were shipped from the ports in Table 9.1. The Gulf’s most notable exports were pearls, specie, horses, and dates. Pearls were the backbone of the economy for Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the Trucial States (now the United Arab Emirates) until the 1930s. They were bought by pearl merchants, usually Indians, and taken to India, where they were sold on the world market. Because of this, and the monopoly Indian merchants enjoyed in the Gulf credit market, Indian ports became bank- ing centers for the Gulf—notably Bombay in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As a result, the Indian rupee was commonly used in many of the region’s ports as early as the seventeenth century,11 emerging as the principal currency of trade in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the Trucial States, and Oman from the 1890s to the 1960s. Even today, older GCC nationals refer to their local dirham, dinar, or riyal as the rupee-ya. The strong Indian influence on the ports and people of Eastern Arabia and southern Iran is clearly evident in the styles of architecture, clothing, and cuisine. Gulf dhows were built with wood imported from India. Indian- style buildings, often built by Indians, dominated Gulf ports. Kashmiri shawls adorned the heads of the ruling families of Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai, and colorful Indian-style turbans were worn by many Arabs on both sides of the Gulf, including the Qawasim (the ruling family of Lingeh, Ras al-Khaimiah, and Sharjah) and the Al Bu Sa‘id (the ruling family of Oman). Gulf Arabs and Iranians have long eaten their lamb and fish with curry and rice from India. The long-resident Indian communities in the Gulf per- sonify these ancient connections. Arab merchants also traded with Indian ports, of course, but the only sizable Arab communities were to be found in the ports on the Konkan and Malabar coasts (notably Bombay and Calicut) because elsewhere it took too long for merchants to return to the Gulf.12 Those who sailed the farthest, to the Malabar coast (Kerala), tended to settle down and take local wives, the legacy of which is the Mappilas (Indo-Arabs), a sizable minority accounting for a quarter of all people in Kerala and the majority of all Muslims in that state.13 The ports of Sindh, Kutch, and Gujarat also attracted Arab merchants, but few actually settled there, with the exception of Cambay, Surat, and Karachi during the heyday of those ports, as well as Gwadar (300 miles - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright to the west of Karachi), a dependency of Oman from 1783 to 1958. Demographics The majority of Indians in the pre-oil Gulf were merchants or members of merchant families. They can be placed into seven main groups: Banians (Hindus and Jains); Khojas, Lawatiyya, Bohras, and Memons (Muslims); and Catholics and Anglicans (Christians). There were three other groups whose 10.1057/9781137485779 - The Persian Gulf in Modern Times, Edited by Lawrence G. Potter Table 9.1 Principal Indian ports and towns trading with the Gulf, c.1500–1947 Region Port / town Period Sindh Karachi (B) Eighteenth to twentieth centuries Lahori Bandar Thirteenth to nineteenth centuries Thatta Fourteenth to eighteenth centuries Debala First century BC to thirteenth century AD Hyderabad Eighteenth to twentieth centuries Shikarpur Eighteenth to twentieth centuries Punjab Multan Eighth century BC to nineteenth century AD Lahore (B) First to twentieth centuries Kutch (Kachchh) Lakhpat Eigheenth century to 1819 Jakhau Seventeenth to nineteenth centuries Mandvi Sixteenth to twentieth centuries Mundra Seventeenth to twentieth centuries Bhuj Seventeenth to twentieth centuries Anjar Sixteenth to twentieth centuries Tuna Port Eighteenth century to 1930s Kandla Port 1930s onward Gujarat Jamnagar Sixteenth to twentieth centuries Porbandar Tenth to twentieth centuries Diu (P) Sixteenth to seventeenth centuries Gogha Fifth to nineteenth centuries Bhavnagar Eighteenth to nineteenth centuries Cambay now: Khambhat Tenth to sixteenth centuries Baroda now: Vadodara Tenth to twentieth centuries Broach (B) now: Bharuch First to nineteenth centuries Surat Sixteenth to seventeenth centuries Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Exeter - PalgraveConnect - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright 10.1057/9781137485779 - The Persian Gulf in Modern Times, Edited by Lawrence G.

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