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 different 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 dependence 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 presence 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 peninsula, 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, coffee, 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 banking 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

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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. Potter

Konkan Coast Damão (P) now: Daman Sixteenth to seventeenth centuries Bassein (P, B) now: Vasai Sixteenth to eighteenth centuries Bombay (P, B) now: Mumbai Sixteenth to twentieth centuries Chaul (P, B) First to seventeenth centuries Dabhol or Dabul Fifteenth to seventeenth centuries Goa (P) Twenty-second century BC to seventeenth century AD Mangalore (P, B) First to twentieth centuries Malabar Coast (Kerala) Cannanore (P, D, B) now: Kannur Twelfth to twentieth centuries Calicut (B) now: Kozhikode Twelfth to twentieth centuries Cochin (P, D, B) now: Kochi Fifteenth to twentieth centuries Quilon (P, D, B) now: Kollam First to twentieth centuries Coromandel Coast Masulipatnam (D, F, B) Seventeenth to eighteenth centuries now: Machilipatnam Madras (B) now: Chennai Eighteenth to twentieth centuries Bengal Calcutta (B), now Kolkata Eighteenth to twentieth centuries

Key: P = Portuguese colony (during part of the era indicated) B = British colony (during part of the era indicated) D = Dutch colony (during part of the era indicated) F = French colony (during part of the era indicated) a Western accounts of Karachi, Lahori Bandar, and Thatta up to the nineteenth century often called these towns Debal (Dibal, Dabul, Daybul, Diul, etc.), mistakenly believing it to be their ancient name. Although Debal had long ceased to exist by 1500, it is listed here for the sake of clarity. See John Abbott, Sind: A Re-Interpretation of the Unhappy Valley (London: Oxford University Press, 1924), 43–58. Table 9.1 Principal Indian ports and towns trading with the Gulf, c.1500–1947

Region Port / town Period

Key: P = Portuguese colony (during part of the era indicated) B = British colony (during part of the era indicated) D = Dutch colony (during part of the era indicated) F = French colony (during part of the era indicated) a Western accounts of Karachi, Lahori Bandar, and Thatta up to the nineteenth century often called these towns Debal (Dibal, Dabul, Daybul, Diul, etc.), mistakenly believing it to be their ancient name. Although Debal had long ceased to exist by 1500, it is listed here for the sake of clarity. See John Abbott, Sind: A Re-Interpretation of the Unhappy Valley (London: Oxford University Press, 1924), 43–58. 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. Potter 236 M James Onley presence was either too small (numbering just a handful) or too brief to warrant coverage in this chapter. The first group was a small community of Sunni Mappilas from the Malabar coast who resided in Muscat during the height of Portuguese power in the Gulf (1507–1650). The second group was Sikhs from the Punjab, a community established in the wake of the British occupation of Iraq during World War I. Its arrival was symbolized by the construction of a Sikh temple (gurdwara) just outside Baghdad’s old city limits by soldiers from the Indian Army soon after the British capture of Baghdad in 1917. Another large community of Punjabis resided in western Iran during 1927–1938 helping to build the Trans-Iranian Railway linking the Caspian Sea with the head of the Persian Gulf. A third group was Parsis (Indo-Persians) from Gujarat and Bombay, who rarely appear in historical accounts of the region’s ports and towns. Each of these groups was comprised of communities formed on the basis of religion, caste, clan, occupation, region (homeland), language, ethnicity, and/or ancestry. Thus, we find three jatis (occupational groups) of Hindu Banians, divided into ten regional communities; there were two regional communities of Jain Banians; there were three sects of Shi‘i Muslims, divided into ten regional communities; there were two communities of Sunni Muslims; there were eight communities of Roman Catholics; and there were two communities of Anglicans (Church of England). All together, there were at least three dozen distinct communities of Indian merchants in the Gulf before 1947, as Table 9.2 illustrates. If nonmerchant groups are included—such as merchant sailors, naval sea- men, soldiers, and Indian oil workers—this list would be considerably longer and more complex. The vast majority of merchants originated from the five closest regions to the Gulf—Rajasthan, southwest Punjab, Sindh, Kutch, and Gujarat—although they also had a substantial presence in Bombay by the nineteenth century. Within their own occupational and religious groups, Rajasthani, Punjabi, Sindhi, Kutchi, and Gujarati merchants formed endogamous regional communities based on a shared homeland (region, district, and town). Thus, each member of a religious group in the Gulf (such as an Ithna‘ashari Khoja) would further identify him/herself along regional lines (Sindhi, then South Sindhi, then Hyderabadi)—an identity and solidarity that would determine the community to which s/he belonged. - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright For instance, while we have numerous Arab and Western accounts describing the “Indian community” or “Kutchi community” in Muscat and Matrah, its members’ primary solidarity was with their fellow regional co-religionists with whom they shared the same dialect and sect: Kutchi Bhatias, Kutchi Lohanas, Kutchi Ithna‘ashari Khojas (Lawatiyya), Kutchi Nizari Khojas, or Kutchi Memons. Within these communities, its members further distinguished between each other: Kanthi Bhatias (being Bhatias

10.1057/9781137485779 - The Persian Gulf in Modern Times, Edited by Lawrence G. Potter

Table 9.2 Indian merchant groups and communities in the Persian Gulf, 1500–1947

Faith Group Jati / sect Community Origins

Hindu Banians Khatri 1. Multani S.W. Punjab: Multan caste: Kshatriya sect: Vaishnava Bhatia 2. Multani S.W. Punjab: Multan caste: Kshatriya 3. Sindhi Sindh sect: Vaishnava 4. Kutchi / Kanthi Kutch: Kanthi Patt (Kutch’s Coastal Belt region) 5. Halai / Kathiawari W. Gujarat: Halar District of the Kathiawar peninsula 6. Gujarati / Meshri E. Gujarat: Surat, etc. Lohana 7. Sindhi Sindh jati: Bhaiband 8. Kutchi / Kanthi Kutch: Kanthi Patt (Kutch’s Coastal Belt region) caste: Kshatriya sect: Vaishnava 9. Halai / Kathiawari W. Gujarat: Halar District of the Kathiawar peninsula 10. Gujarati / Meshri E. Gujarat: Surat, etc. Jain Jain 11. Shravak (jati: Lad) Gujarat caste: Vaishyaa 12. Marwari (jati: Oswal) Rajasthan: Marwar sect: Svetambara Muslim Khojas Nizari Isma‘ili Shi‘a / 13. Sindhi Sindh, mainly Hyderabad Agha Khani Shi‘a 14. Kutchi / Kanthi Kutch: Kanthi Patt (Kutch’s Coastal Belt region) 15. Halai / Kathiawari W. Gujarat: Halar District of the Kathiawar peninsula 16. Gujarati E. Gujarat: Surat, etc.

continued 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. Potter Table 9.2 Continued

Faith Group Jati / sect Community Origins

Ithna‘ashari Shi‘a 17. Sindhi Sindh (Nizari converts, 18. Kutchi / Kanthi Kutch: Kanthi Patt (Kutch’s coastal belt region) 1860s–) 19. Halai / Kathiawari W. Gujarat: Halar district of the Kathiawar peninsula 20. Gujarati E. Gujarat: Surat, etc. Lawatiyya 21. Sindhi-Kutchi in Oman Sindh & Kutch (Arabised Ithna‘ashari Khojas, 1860s–) Bohras Musta‘li Isma‘ili Shi‘a 22. Da’udi / Dawoodi Gujarat Memons Hanafi Sunna 23. Kutchi / Kanthi Kutch: Kanthi Patt (Kutch’s Coastal Belt region) Mappilas Shafi‘i Sunna 24. Malabari Malabar coast (Kerala) (Indo-Arab) (Malayali, Keralite) Christian Catholics Luso-Indian 25. Gujarati Gujarat: Diu (P) (Indo-Portuguese, 26. Konkani, Marathi, etc. Konkan coast: Eurasian) Daman / Damão (P) Bassein (P, B) Bombay (P, B) Chaul (P, B) Mangalore (P, B) 27. Goan / Konkani Konkan coast: Goa (P) 28. Malabari Malabar coast: (Malayali, Keralite) Cannanore (P, D, B) Cochin (P, D, B) Quilon (P, D, B) 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. Potter

East Indian 29. Gujarati Gujarat: Diu (P) (Indian converts) 30. Konkani, Marathi, etc. Konkan coast: Daman / Damão (P) Bassein (P, B) Bombay (P, B) Chaul (P, B) Mangalore (P, B) 31. Goan / Konkani Konkan coast: Goa (P) 32. Malabari Malabar coast: (Malayali, Keralite) Cannanore (P, D, B) Cochin (P, D, B) Quilon (P, D, B) Anglican Anglo-Indian 33. Konkani, Marathi, etc. Konkan coast: (Eurasian) Bombay Presidency (B) Madras Presidency (B) Marathi Christian 34. Marathi Konkan coast: (Indian converts) Bombay Presidency (B) Sikh Sikhs 35. Punjabi Punjab Zoroastrian Parsis 36. Gujarati Gujarat (Indo-Persian)

Faith Group Jati / sect Community Origins

Key: P = Portuguese colony (during part of the era indicated) B = British Colony (during part of the era indicated) D = Dutch Colony (during part of the era indicated) a Jains are a casteless religious community, but Hindus have long accorded them the status of Vaishyas (merchants) within the Hindu caste system because of their engagement in trade, although many Jains object to this. 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. Potter 240 M James Onley from Kanthi Patt, the coastal belt region of Kutch), then Mandvija Bhatias (being Bhatias from the port of Mandvi). Religion was a social barrier to the emergence of wider trans-religious group solidarities like Kutchiness (Kachchhiyat), Sindhiness (Sindhiyat), and Indianness (Hindiyat), which did not emerge until the twentieth century.14 A full list of all regional religious communities in the Gulf would be too long to include here. These communities were more than religious, regional, and social in nature, and they functioned like guilds, often dominating a particular segment of a town’s economy to the exclusion of other rival communities. The practice of endog- amy, therefore, had an additional commercial purpose: the reinforcement of business ties and preservation of specialized skills and trade secrets within communities.15 Despite the Gulf’s strong trade links with Konkan and Malabar ports, there appears to have been few, if any, Indian merchants in the Gulf from those places, except during the heyday of the Portuguese Empire in the Gulf in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when one found Catholics from the Konkan coast in Hormuz, Bandar Abbas, Bandar Kong, and Muscat, and Mappilas from the Malabar coast (Kerala) in Muscat. This also applied during the heyday of the British Indian Empire, when one found Anglicans from Bombay on the Konkan coast in Baghdad, Basra, Bahrain, Bushehr, and Bandar Abbas. A possible reason for this is that the Gulf’s summer climate, in the low 50s°C, was not a deterrent to Sindhis, Kutchis, and Gujaratis because it was similar to their homelands, while Konkanis and Malabaris, who were used to maximum temperatures in the low 30s°C, would have regarded the Gulf in summer as intolerable. Instead, Konkani and Malabari merchants, when they did leave home, preferred to travel to the east coast of India and Southeast Asia, where the climate and business prospects were better. The sections below provide brief sketches of the main groups, starting with the oldest group of all: the Banians.

Banians: Hindus and Jains Banian or Bania was a general term used by Arabs and Europeans for people from one of the many merchant jatis (occupational groups) within the Hindu caste system, which also encompassed Jains. All Jain merchants and most - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright Hindu merchants are Vaishyas (members of the third caste, merchants). All the Hindu merchants in the Gulf, however, appear to have been Kshatriyas (the second caste, warriors and rulers), with the exception of a small community of Brahmins (the first caste, priests and scholars) in Muscat in the eighteenth to twentieth centuries. From a caste-conscious perspective, the term Banian would not have been welcomed by the Brahmins and Kshatriyas, but they evi- dently put up with the Arab and European’s understandable ignorance.

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The Arabs adopted the term Banian (with an -n) in the distant past from the Gujarati word for merchant: vaniyo (sing.) and vaniya (pl.), originating from Sanskrit vanija (root), vanik (sing.), and vanijah (pl.).16 The Portuguese adopted the term in the sixteenth century after they established their empire in the region. When the English, Dutch, and French arrived in the seventeenth century, they too adopted the term. Aside from Banian, the Arabs also used the term al-Hindi (pl. al-Hunud), meaning Indian. Iranians do not appear to have used Banian at all. The Persian term for a Hindu merchant was Gur / Gaur (pl. Guran / Gauran) and Gabr (pl. Gabran), meaning infidel—the name originally used for Zoroastrians. Another Persian term was Hindu (pl. Hunud), meaning Hindu, although it could also mean Indian. Other Persian terms were Hindi and Hindustani (pl. Hunud), both meaning Indian. Although Iranians did not describe Hindu merchants in Iran as Banians, Arab and European visitors did in their travel accounts. In the interests of clarity and consistency, therefore, this study uses Banian for all Hindu merchants in the Persian Gulf region, even through Iranians and Indians did not use the term themselves. Hindu merchants accounted for the majority of Indians in the Gulf region’s ports and towns from antiquity until the 1860s. The largest single group of Indians in the Gulf region during the Safavid era (1501–1722) was the Khatris: Hindu Kshatriya merchants from Multan in the southwest- ern Punjab. Travelers’ accounts usually described them only as “Multanis.” Thousands lived in the bazaars of Iran’s inland cities, from Mashhad to Tabriz. They dominated the caravan trade between India, Iran, and Central Asia. The largest community, which numbered around 10,000 at its height, resided in Isfahan while it was the Safavid capital (1598–1722).17 The Khatris lived together in caravanserais, inns constructed around a courtyard large enough to accommodate a caravan, located in the town bazaars and along the caravan routes. The biggest caravanserais and the greatest number were in Isfahan, Mashhad, and Shiraz. Some of these were likely owned and operated by the Khatris exclusively for their own community, as was the case in Central Asia, allowing them to live separately from Muslim society. In contrast, Indian Muslim merchants, being Shi‘a, chose to live among Iranians or stay in communal caravanserais with Iranian travelers.18 In the ports of the Persian Gulf, the majority of Indians between the - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright tenth and sixteenth centuries were Gujarati Jain merchants—collectively known as Shravaks (a.k.a. Jain Vanias)—who are comprised of numerous jatis.19 From the seventeenth century onward, Jain merchants along the Gulf coast were displaced by Hindus, virtually all of whom were from the Bhatia and Bhaiband Lohana merchant jatis of the Kshatriya caste from Sindh, Kutch and western Gujarat. After the decline of the Multani Khatri communities following the collapse of the Safavid Empire in 1722, Bhatias and

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Lohanas accounted for the majority of Indians in the Gulf until the 1860s and the majority of Hindus until the arrival of Hindu oil workers and soldiers in the 1910s. During the Safavid era, the largest Hindu community along the shores of the Persian Gulf was to be found at Hormuz, the region’s leading port at the time, under Portuguese control from 1507/1515 to 1622.20 Various European accounts tell us there were 800 Hindu households in Hormuz in the sixteenth century, but, unlike the Iranian interior, they were outnum- bered by 1,200 Indian Muslim households.21 It is unclear which castes the Hindus belonged to, but most of these “Hindus” were in fact Shravak Jains (most likely from the Lad jati) from Jamnager, Porbandar, Diu, and Cambay in Gujarat, who accounted for the majority of Indians in the Gulf before the late sixteenth century.22 The presence of 2,000 Gujarati households, both Hindu and Muslim, on the island gave Hormuz the feel of an Indian city.23 After the Anglo-Safavid destruction of Hormuz in 1622, Hormuz’s Indian community fled to nearby Bandar Abbas and Muscat. Following the fall of Hormuz, Bandar Abbas’s population rose to 1,400– 1,500 houses by 1670, of which one third belonged to Indians, mainly Banians. Assuming an average of six people per house, Indians might have numbered as many as 2,800–3,000 during the busy sailing season of October–April.24 The Indian presence in Bandar Abbas remained the largest along the shores of the Gulf, followed by Muscat and Basra, until Bandar Abbas’s economic decline in the 1740s–1750s. Between the 1750s and the 1950s, the Indian presence in Oman—mainly Muscat and neighboring Matrah—was the largest in the entire Gulf region, followed by a steadily increasing number of communities of fluctuating size in ports throughout the region. During the era of Portuguese hegemony in Oman (1507–1650), the wealthiest Indians in Muscat were Banians and Christians from the Portuguese colony of Diu in Gujarat.25 Muscat’s strongest trade links with India before the economic rise of Bombay in the eighteenth century seem to have been with Gujarat. Even as late as the 1750s, when Bombay began to dominate Indian Ocean trade, one Dutch East India Company employee in Gujarat was still able to remark that “the roadsteads of Kathiawar teemed with Muscati ships and many Banians in Muscat came from Kathiawar.”26 - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright By the eighteenth century, however, Bhatias from Thatta in Sindh had become the dominant Banians in Muscat. Danish explorer Carsten Niebuhr, who visited Muscat in 1765, observed: “In no other Mahomedan city are the Banians as numerous as in Maskat; their number in this city amounts to no fewer than 1,200.”27 Aside from the Indian merchant communities, there were also builders, carpenters, and shipbuilders from India.28 By 1809, one observer thought the Banian communities in Muscat to number 4,000,

10.1057/9781137485779 - The Persian Gulf in Modern Times, Edited by Lawrence G. Potter Indian Communities in the Persian Gulf M 243 which was about 6 percent of the estimated population.29 By the early 1820s, Captain Brucks of the Bombay Marine (as the Indian Navy was then known) thought the Banian communities in Muscat to be about 2,000, also 6 percent of the estimated maximum population, while he believed there to be 1,000 Banians in Matrah (all Sindhi and Kutchi), which was about 55–66 percent of the town’s estimated population.30 In 1835, Lieutenant Wellsted of the Indian Navy visited Oman and observed that there were about 1,500 Banians in Muscat, remarking that this was the largest Indian presence in Arabia.31 From the 1790s onward, however, economic circumstances forced the previously dominant Sindhi Bhatia community to slowly relocate to Bahrain and Bandar Abbas, and eventually Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the 1890s. By 1900 only two Sindhi Bhatia merchants still resided in Muscat and by 1914 there were none.32 As the Sindhi Bhatia community dwindled, a new community of Kutchi Bhatias emerged. Basra had the second largest Indian presence after Muscat during the mid-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries. James Buckingham, who spent three months in Basra in 1817, noted that there were about 200 Indians in Basra at this time, out of a total population of 100,000. The majority of Indians were Banians, the most senior of whom was a British East India Company broker. The Banians imported goods from India and East Africa through their agents (likely family members) in Muscat, although a few traded directly with Bombay.33 The other Indians in Basra were Hindu sepoys (Indian infantrymen) of the East India Company’s factory guard.34 In the Trucial States, the oldest Banian communities seem to have been at Sharjah and Abu Dhabi, both of which were noted in 1822 by Captain Brucks, when he conducted his maritime survey of the region.35 He noted “a number of Banians” in both ports, with many of those in Sharjah wear- ing Arab dress. There may also have been a Banian community in Ras al- Khaimah before the town’s destruction by the British in 1819. The Banian community in Dubai— today the largest in the UAE—was established in the 1890s, when Sindhi Bhatia merchants, as well as Khoja merchants, from elsewhere in the Gulf moved there. By the early 1900s, there were 67 Banians (all likely Sindhi Bhatia) and twenty-three Khojas, with an additional 20 Banians visiting the port during the pearling season.36 - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright

Khojas and Lawatiyya Since the sixteenth century, if not before, it appears that most Muslim Indian merchants in the Gulf were Khojas (sing. Khoja / Khojah, pl. Khawaja) from Gujarat and later Bombay. Khojas have been the major Muslim trading caste of western India for centuries. Today, all Khojas from Gujarat, Kutch,

10.1057/9781137485779 - The Persian Gulf in Modern Times, Edited by Lawrence G. Potter 244 M James Onley and Sindh are Shi‘i, most of whom are Nizari Isma‘ilis (Agha Khanis) who follow the Agha Khan as their Imam. In the Gulf, the vast majority of Khojas were Agha Khani until the 1860s, when about half converted to Ithna‘ashari (Twelver) Shi‘ism after a schism with the Agha Khan. By the early twentieth century, John Lorimer notes that not more than half of Khojas in the Gulf region were Agha Khanis.37 Most of the Agha Khanis who had converted to Ithna‘ashari Shi‘ism in the Gulf resided in Oman, where they accounted for 90 percent of the Khoja population in the early twentieth century.38 Outside of Oman, the majority of Khojas from Sindh, Kutch, and Gujarat were Agha Khani, and only a minority were Ithna‘ashari. The Ithna‘ashari Khoja community in Oman is known as the Lawatiyya / Luwatiyya (sing. Lawati / Luti). The Lawatiyya are distinct from main- stream Khojas in that they are the descendants not of Lohana Hindus from Gujarat but, as Calvin Allen argues, of Bhatia Hindus from Sindh. Many Lawatiyya claim to originate from Hyderabad in Sindh and were sometimes given the nisba “Hyderabadi” as a result.39 Analysis of their language, Khojki (a hybrid of Sindhi and Kutchi), however, indicates the Lawatiyya came from both Sindh and Kutch. They therefore must have formed a single community on the basis of their shared clan ancestry and subsequent intermarriage over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Today, most are Omani nationals who wear Omani national dress and consider themselves Omani Arabs. The word Khoja is both the name for anyone belonging to the Khawaja and the title used by them, coming before one’s name. The origins of the word khoja are debated, but the most common explanation is that it is a corruption of khwaja (pronounced khajeh, Persian for “master” or “lord”), which corresponds to thakur or thakkar (Hindi for “master”)—the title of respect used by Rajput notables and members of the Kshatriya caste of warriors and rulers, from whom the Khojas are descended through their Lohana and Bhatia Hindu ancestors.40

Memons The Memons (Memans) were one of the two smallest merchant communities in the Gulf region, along with the Bohras, although larger communi- - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright ties resided in Aden and East Africa. Memons (pronounced May-mon) are Sunnis, unlike the majority of Indian Muslim merchants in the Gulf who were Shi‘a.41 They come from Sindh, Kutch, and Gujarat, but trace their origins back further to Rajasthan. Like the Lohanas, Memons are Rathore Rajputs and were once Lohanas themselves. Memons, like Khojas, were originally from Thatta in Sindh, but most moved east to Kutch in the sixteenth century and, in the seventeenth

10.1057/9781137485779 - The Persian Gulf in Modern Times, Edited by Lawrence G. Potter Indian Communities in the Persian Gulf M 245 century, further east again to the Kathiawar peninsula of Gujarat. By the twentieth century, the Memoni identification with Kathiawar became so strong that Kathiawari Memons—the largest group, being comprised of the Halai, Dhoka, Bhoraji, and Veravada—were known simply as Memons, while those still in Kutch were known as Kutchi Memons and those in Sindh as Sindhi Memons. The Memon communities beyond the shores of India were almost entirely from Kutch.42 After partition in 1947, most Memons in Kutch and Gujarat moved back to Sindh, now in Pakistan. The size of the Kutchi Memon communities in the Gulf region is unknown, but the British authorities in Bombay in the 1890s believed they were generally to be found in the ports of the Arabian Peninsula, except for Muscat, where they had recently been forced out by the Khojas.43 Despite this assumed presence, Lorimer’s Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf records just one tiny Memon community in the entire Gulf, at Bushehr, in the early twentieth century, comprised of just four people.44

Bohras The Bohras, like the Memons, were one of the two smallest Indian communities in the Gulf, although larger communities resided in Aden and East Africa. The Bohras are Musta‘li Isma‘ili Shi‘is from Gujarat. The word bohra (also spelt bohora, bohrah, borah, vohra, vora) means “trader” or “merchant” and comes from the Gujarati vohorvu, meaning “to trade”—indicating that the first Bohras were merchants at the time of their conversion to Islam by Isma‘ili missionaries (known as pirs) from Yemen in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. In contrast to the Khojas and Memons, Bohras were originally nonmartial Hindus from the Brahmin and Vaishya (merchant) castes. Bohras share the same religious ancestry as the Khojas: Hindu and Fatimid, although they follow a different imam.45

Christians: Roman Catholics and Anglicans Before the nineteenth century, the Christian Indian presence in the Gulf was comprised entirely of Roman Catholics from the colonies and former colonies of Portuguese India (the Estado da Índia)—see Table 9.3. - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright Most were converts, or the descendants of converts, from Hinduism from the sixteenth century. The Portuguese called them Canarims,46 a corruption of Canara / Kanara: the coastal region of Karnataka state, forming the southern section of the Konkan coast. Today they are more commonly known as “East Indians” in India. A secondary group of Indian Christians were Eurasians: Indo-Portuguese, the descendants of Portuguese men (known as Casados, meaning “married”) and Indian women from the sixteenth century.

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Table 9.3 Portuguese colonies in western India

Region Colonies Dates Now in

Gujarati coast Diu 1535–1961 Daman & Diu union territory Konkan coast Damão or Daman 1559–1961 Daman & Diu union territory Bassein now: Vasai 1534 –1739 Maharashtra state Cacabe de Tana now: Thane 1530 –1739 Maharashtra state Bombay now: Mumbai 1534 –1661 Maharashtra state Chaul 1521–1740 Maharashtra state Goa 1510 –1961 Goa state Mangalore 1568–1640 Karnataka state Malabar coast Cannanore now: Kannur 1505–1663 Kerala state Cochin now: Kochi 1503 –1669 Kerala state Quilon now: Kollam 1519–1661 Kerala state

They were known as Mestiços (mixed race) and Descendentes (descendants), but more commonly today as Luso-Indians (from Lusitania, the Roman name for Portugal). Indian Catholics typically had Christian given names and Indian surnames, while Luso-Indians had Christian given names and Portuguese surnames like Pinto, da Silva, and de Souza.47 In the nineteenth century, another denomination of Christian Indians appeared in the Gulf: Anglicans from British India. Some were the descendants of converts from Hinduism, like Catholic East Indians, but most Anglicans were Eurasians, known as “Anglo-Indians”: the descendants of mixed marriages between British men and Indian women. Indian Anglicans typically had Christian given names and Indian surnames, while Anglo- Indians had Christian given names and British surnames like Campbell, Edwards, and Smith. Christians from India were visibly distinct from the other Indian communities in the Gulf: they dressed as Europeans, not Indians. During the height of Portuguese power in the Gulf (1507–1650), they resided mainly in Hormuz, Bandar Abbas, Bandar Kong, and Muscat. After the Portuguese - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright were expelled from Muscat in 1650, a small community lingered on in Bandar Kong, which remained under Portuguese control until 1750.48 Hormuz had 300 Indian and Eurasian Christian households in the early seventeenth century.49 After the demise of Portuguese power in the Gulf, the number of Christians from India declined. By 1869, there were only 20 Christians from India in coastal Iran, all in Bushehr—the headquarters of Britain’s political residency in the Gulf. Of these, half were Luso-Indians and half were

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Anglo-Indians. Their occupations give some idea of their status and position in society: all but one of the Anglo-Indians held clerical posts within the Gulf Residency and the local British telegraph station, while all but two of the Luso-Indians worked as domestic servants for British officers at the Gulf Residency and British telegraph station. One Luso-Indian worked as the Gulf Residency postmaster, while the other worked for a British shipping company. From the 1920s on, the establishment of modern governments in the Gulf Arab states under British Indian guidance resulted in the recruitment of many Indians, especially Christians, to fill administrative positions in their expanding civil services—posts they continue to fill up the present. From the 1940s on, the same pattern occurred in state-owned oil companies and local businesses.50 Luso-Indians from Goa continued to account for the majority of domestic servants in British and American employ in the Gulf until at least the mid-twentieth century.

Gulf-wide Patterns The formation of an Indian community in a given place was the result of many factors, including trade routes, economic opportunities, local demands, religious tolerance, and the policies of the local ruler. Community formation was a quiet and gradual process that largely went undocumented, with the result that historians have great difficulty dating it. The dwindling or disappearance of a community, on the other hand, was often the result of dramatic circumstances that were documented by European observers. Thus, war sometimes forced a community to relocate, for instance, as happened in Hormuz in 1622, Isfahan in 1722, Zubara in 1811, Bahrain in 1842–43 and 1869, Sur in 1865, and Doha in 1867. Sometimes a town’s economy declined, motivating the Indian merchants there to relocate to anther town, as happened in Bandar Abbas in the 1740s–1750s. Sometimes an Indian community’s own economic prospects declined, as happened with the Sindhi Bhatia community of Muscat in the early nineteenth century, which was displaced by a Kutchi Bhatia community. Sometimes a local ruler came to regard the entire Indian merchant community in his town as an unwanted commercial rival, so he forced them out, as happened in Doha in the early 1880s and Kuwait in the early 1900s. And sometimes religiously - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright motivated attacks on individual Hindu merchants, or whole Hindu communities, forced them to flee for their lives, as happened in Iran during the reign of Nadir Shah (1736–1747) and in Bahrain in 1833—the latter provoking an armed intervention by the Bombay Marine.51 After a community’s departure, for whatever reason, a new one might form decades or centuries later; but occasionally the departure was permanent, as happened at Hormuz in 1622, Sur in 1865, and Qatif in 1900.

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Before the twentieth century, historians have only anecdotal accounts of different ports at random times to draw upon; there exists no survey or big picture of the Persian Gulf as a whole. Willem Floor’s monumental work, The Persian Gulf: A Political and Economic History of Five Port Cities, 1500 –1730 (2006), which draws upon archival records in Portugal, India, and Holland, and historical travel accounts in Portuguese, Dutch, Persian, French, German, and English, is the most extensive compilation of anecdotal evidence from the early period covered by this chapter. In it, one finds that most Indians in the Gulf were described as “Banians” or “Hindus” (many of whom were probably Jains in the sixteenth century), followed by Muslims, then Christians. Hindus and Jains were to be found in most if not all ports, Muslims in many ports, and Christians from Portuguese India at just Hormuz, Bandar Abbas, and Muscat during the height of Portuguese control of the Gulf, as well as Bandar Kong until 1750.52 This balance changed in favor of Muslims after 1868, when Imam Azzan bin Qais seized power in Muscat and imposed an intolerant fundamentalist regime over Oman’s ports, making life difficult for non-Muslims. In 1868, Muscat’s Banian population numbered 2,000; by 1870, it had dwindled to 250.53 Although Azzan was ousted in 1871 and religious tolerance restored, the Banian community never recovered. Thirty-five years later, when Lorimer conducted his Gulf-wide survey around 1905, he noted that the Hindu community in Muscat still numbered 250.54 Another notable feature of the sixteenth and seventeenth century Gulf was that the vast majority of Indians (and Indian imports) came from Gujarat, in contrast to the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Gulf, when the vast majority of Indians came from Sindh, although Indian imports came from across western India via Bombay by then. European accounts of the pre-nineteenth century Gulf rarely distinguish between Muslim sects, but it would seem likely that most Muslim Indians described in them were Shi‘i. The first maritime survey of the Persian Gulf in which Indians were recorded was conducted in the early 1820s by Captain George Brucks of the Bombay Marine. In the survey, he provides a general description of each coastal town on both shores of the Gulf. He remarks that Banians were to be found in “most ports” and that “the trade with India, particularly with - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright the Malabar Coast and Bombay, has become very considerable.”55 He found Banian communities in Muscat, Matrah, Khur Fakkan, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi, Manama, and Bandar Abbas. In Muscat, he observed about 2,000 Banians who were “brokers to most of the Arab merchants, and generally agents to any European ship that trades to this place. Some have great influence with the Imaum [the ruler, Sayyid Said], who finds it greatly to his interest, and the benefit of his revenues, to give them every encouragement.”56

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In Matrah, he discovered about 1,000 Banians from Sindh and Kutch, all engaged in trade.57 In Khur Fakkan, he found about 50 Banians, who comprised about 25 percent of the population.58 In Sharjah, he observed “a number of Banians” working as pearl merchants, goldsmiths, and cloth and grain dealers who “generally adopt the Arab dress.”59 In Abu Dhabi, he found “a number of Banians” working as traders and goldsmiths.60 In Manama, he observed about one hundred Banians working as merchants and shopkeepers.61 At Bandar Abbas, he noted “a few Banians.”62 He mentions no Indian communities in Kuwait, Bushehr, Kangan, and Lingeh, despite the considerable trade these ports had with India—but it is likely some resided there as well.63 Brucks mentions no Indian Muslims in the Gulf, although it is possible that he used “Banian” as a generic term for any Indian merchant—a practice not unknown at the time. The earliest comprehensive survey of Indians living in the Gulf is an 1869 census of all people entitled to British protection in southern Iran, compiled by the British Government of India. The census includes everyone from Princely India (comprised of British protectorates and protected states) and British India, as well as Portuguese Indians in British employ. It provides a fascinating demographic snapshot of the Indian communities along the southern coast of Iran. Table 9.4 offers a summary of the census. Of those listed, Muslims were the largest group (80.4 percent), followed by Hindus (15.5 percent), and Christians (4.1 percent). The majority of Indians (85 percent) were either merchants, their families or assistants, most of whom were Muslim (70 percent). Forty-nine Muslim men—all Khojas, all merchants but one—were accompanied by their wives. In contrast,

Table 9.4 Indians under British protection in southern Iran, 1869a

Location Number Demographics

Bandar Abbas 307 Muslim: 260, Hindu: 47 Bushehr 77 Muslim: 56, Christian: 20, Hindu: 1 Qishm Island 35 Muslim: 35 Lingeh 33 Hindu: 17, Muslim: 16

Minab 29 Muslim: 27, Hindu: 2 - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright Kish Island 7 Hindu: 7 Henjam Isand 3 Hindu: 2, Muslim: 1 TOTAL 491 a The following information comes from J. A. Saldanha, ed., Précis of Commerce and Communications in the Persian Gulf, 1801–1905 (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1906), Appendix E: “Returns of British Subjects and British Protected Persons on the Persian Coast and Islands, 1869,” 119–47.

10.1057/9781137485779 - The Persian Gulf in Modern Times, Edited by Lawrence G. Potter 250 M James Onley only one Hindu merchant was accompanied by his family, though just his sons, no wife or daughters. Between 27 and 37 percent of British-protected Indians in southern Iran were born in the Gulf—in Bandar Abbas, Lingeh, Qishm Island, Muscat, and Sharjah—of which just five were Hindu and the rest Muslim. The five Hindus were born in Lingeh and on Qishm Island, indicating the presence of Hindu families there before the mid-nineteenth century. A quarter of all British-protected Indians in southern Iran were third generation residents, their fathers having been born in the lower Gulf. The census also shows that Sindhis were the largest regional group (42.8 percent), of whom half were born in the Gulf, mainly Bandar Abbas. Gujaratis were the second largest regional group (18.5 percent), a quarter of whom were born in the Gulf. People from the Konkan coast accounted for 14 percent of British-protected Indians in southern Iran, although they might have originally come from elsewhere, such as the soldiers, who were most likely Marathi, Rajput, or Baluch (the main “martial races” of the Bombay Army). None of those from the Konkan coast were merchants or born in the Gulf. Kutchis were the fourth largest group, accounting for 10.4 percent of British-protected Indians in southern Iran, all merchants or from merchant families. The majority of Kutchis (56.8 percent) were born in the Gulf, most likely in Muscat, suggesting that the largest concentration of Kutchis in the Gulf was in Oman. Punjabis were the next largest group; all but one originated from Multan, but their families had lived in Shikarpur in northern Sindh for two or more generations. The most extensive survey of Indian communities in the Gulf before the 1920s is to be found in Lorimer’s Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, compiled from information gathered by local informants around 1905. Lorimer’s survey covers only towns on the coast or close to it; it omits Iran’s interior towns, like Shiraz and Isfahan, and towns in Iraq north of Baghdad. These limitations aside, it is possible to assemble an overview of the size and com- position of the Indian communities in the Gulf over 100 years ago. From this survey, we can make a number of observations. There were around 4,840–5,060 Indians in southern Iraq, coastal Iran, Bahrain, the Trucial States, and Oman around 1905. There were no Indians in Kuwait, Qatif (in Hasa), Doha (in Qatar), Ajman, Khur Fakkan, or Fujairah, although we know that Indian merchants had resided in most of these ports in the - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright past. Muslims formed the largest grouping, numbering around 3,610–3,860 (about two-thirds), the vast majority being Sindhi Khojas. The Khojas in Matrah, Oman were the largest Indian community in the Gulf, numbering 1,050. Hindus in the Gulf numbered around 1,090–1,250 (about one- third), most of whom came from Sindh or Kutch, the largest group being in Muscat: 202 men and 51 women and children. Up to 1868, however, the Banians in Muscat had been the largest Indian presence in the Gulf:

10.1057/9781137485779 - The Persian Gulf in Modern Times, Edited by Lawrence G. Potter Indian Communities in the Persian Gulf M 251 numbering 2,000 at their height. During the intolerant fundamentalist regime imposed by Imam Azzan bin Qais between 1868 and 1871, however, most Banians fled Oman and never returned. Just like the 1869 census, Lorimer’s 1905 survey also reveals Sindhis to have been the largest single group in the Gulf. Interestingly, more Indians resided in Eastern Arabia (2,265–2,430) than in coastal Iran (995–1,050) or southern Iraq (1,580), with Oman having the greatest number (1,650– 1,665; with Gwadar: 2,058–2,073). Unlike the 1869 census, however, Hindu merchants appear to have been almost as likely to be accompanied by their wives and daughters as Muslim merchants: Lorimer records Hindu families in eight places (Qishm Island, Chabahar, Gwadar, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Umm al-Quwain, Matrah, and Muscat) and Khoja families in ten (Lingeh, Bandar Abbas, Minab, Gwatar, Gwadar, Sharjah, Khaburah, Suwaiq, Matrah, and Quriyat)––all located in the lower Gulf. In fact, Indian women and children probably resided in far more places then this, for Lorimer notes that the Khojas were “generally accompanied by their wives and children” in the Gulf.64 The most likely reason for the presence of wives and children in some locations and not others is that they were safer and more tolerant environments than the other ports and towns. The wives and daughters of unaccompanied Indian merchants in the Gulf would have resided with the merchants’ parents in India. Merchants usually returned to India to see their family every year or two, leaving affairs in the hands of a business partner during their absence––often a relative. In Oman, Robert Landen observes how

Usually the Hindus remained in Musqat for only 15–20 years, interrupt- ing their stay with long visits to their homes and families in India. They did not bring their families to live in Musqat, preferring to shield their loved ones from the harsh climate and the necessity of coping with an unfamiliar and often unsympathetic culture.65

The Khojas, in contrast, “were more or less permanently settled in Oman” with their families.66 Another explanation for why Hindu merchants in some Gulf ports were unaccompanied by families is that they were bach- elors: they spent their careers overseas and only married when they returned - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright home to retire.67 The presence of Hindu women in the lower Gulf is a startling find, for it contrasts sharply with the observations of Claude Markovits and others, whose work concludes that Hindu merchants rarely took their wives and daughters with them overseas. He observes that “Diverging concepts of purity and impurity made it rare for Hindu merchants to take their wives out of India, while Muslim merchants generally travelled with their families,

10.1057/9781137485779 - The Persian Gulf in Modern Times, Edited by Lawrence G. Potter 252 M James Onley especially to Muslim lands.”68 Overseas travel––known as crossing the kala pani (black water)––was regarded as taboo by many twice-born Hindus (Brahmins, Kshatriyas, and Vaishyas) because it might pollute one’s soul, causing one to lose his/her varna (caste), which can only be restored through ritual purification. Despite this belief, a minority of Hindu merchants have always been willing to travel overseas. Markovits hypothesizes that the deci- sion by Hindu merchants to leave their wives and daughters behind in India was a compromise, done to maintain the purity of the family and family home, although some Indian historians refute this idea.69 Merchants returning from overseas could restore their purity by undergoing ritual penance and purification ceremonies. The lower Gulf’s relative closeness to India may have been why Hindu merchants were less reluctant to bring their wives and daughters with them, if it was safe to do so. Despite the apparent thoroughness of Lorimer’s Gazetteer, however, his survey is far from complete and is, no doubt, full of errors. This survey gives us, at best, only a general picture of the Indian communities in the Gulf in the early twentieth century. When we compare Lorimer’s c.1905 survey with two estimates of Indian nationals in the Gulf region in 1948, the population appears to have increased by perhaps a third, from roughly 5,000 to roughly 7,500 (see Table 9.5).

Table 9.5 Indians in the Gulf, c.1905 v. 1948

c. 1905 1948 Country Total pop. Total pop.a Oil workersb

Iran 995–1,050 2,500 2,470c Iraq 1,580 650 ? Kuwait 0 1,250 3,211 Bahrain 191–325 1,138 658 Qatar 0 ? 552 Saudi Arabia 0 ? 914 Trucial States 408–428 ? 33d Oman 1,650–1,665 1,145e 0

TOTAL 4,824–5,048 6,683 7,838 - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright a C. Kondapi, Indians Overseas, 1838–1949 (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1951), 528. Kondapi’s numbers are likely limited to Indian nationals, although the “nationality” of some people was still unclear in 1948 owing to the ongoing population transfer between Pakistan and India at the time. b Seccombe and Lawless, “Foreign Worker Dependence in the Gulf, and the International Oil Companies, 1910–50,” 563. c No figures are available for 1948, so this is the number from 1947. d No figures are available for 1948, so this is the number from 1947. e This number likely excludes the Lawatiyya community in Oman.

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The other main Indian population centers in the Middle East in 1948 were Aden (5,594) and Egypt (1,000).70 The apparent gradual increase revealed here disguises periodic spikes in the population, such as World War I when the British Government of India employed over half a million Indian servicemen and civilians during its occupation of Iraq,71 or World War II, when it employed thousands more in a second occupation of Iraq and Iran. With the gradual dawn of the oil era in the twentieth century, the South Asian population in the region steadily increased, rising to over half a million Indian and Pakistani nationals by 1975 and almost six and a half million South Asians by 2002.72 The demographics accordingly became increasingly diverse and complex.

Occupations Besides religion, another way of categorizing Indians in the Gulf is by occupation. Before the twentieth century, the vast majority of Indians were merchants of one sort or another—ship owners, wholesale merchants, pearl merchants, investors, property owners, brokers (dalals), agents (gomasthas), bankers (sarrafin in Arabic, sing. sarraf; shroffs in English), retailers, shopkeepers, and customs collectors. The sarrafin in particular were indispensible for the economy of Bahrain, the Trucial States, Oman, and many Iranian ports.73 There were also small numbers of artisans in many Gulf ports: jew- elers, builders, carpenters, and ship-builders. Countless Indian sailors fre- quented Gulf ports as temporary visitors for millennia, while small garrisons of Indian soldiers guarded British diplomatic missions in a few towns from the late eighteenth century onward. During the twentieth century, Indian office workers and oil workers began to appear, the latter eventually numbering in the thousands by the 1920s. These different groups are examined in more detail below. Some Indians lived in the Gulf on a short-term basis, others settled down there with their families, but very few integrated into local society. The only ones to have fully done so are the Lawatiyya, who intermarried with Omanis and are today Omani nationals. The most prominent Indians in the Gulf were pearl merchants, wholesale

merchants, and sarrafin, but only the latter two (often one and the same - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright person) seem to have resided there permanently. Indian pearl merchants, unlike their Arab and Persian counterparts, neither owned pearling fleets, nor employed divers. Instead, they visited the main pearling centers of the Gulf during the summer pearling season of May to October—principally Bahrain and, during the Portuguese era, Hormuz and Bandar Kong in Iran, as well as Julfar (Ras al-Khaimah)––where they bought pearl harvests from their Arab and Persian counterparts. They sometimes bought them directly from pearling dhow captains or the Gulf’s minor pearling centers of Kuwait,

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Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, and Umm al-Quwain. At the end of the pearling season, they brought them back to India where they sold them on the Indian and world markets. Gulf pearls were more prized and expensive than Indian pearls, in part because perfume and body oil do not fade their luster.74 Some idea of the number of Indian pearl merchants in the Gulf can be gauged by the larger Indian presence in Bahrain and Dubai during the summer pearl season: 134 in Bahrain (out of a total Indian population of 240) and 20 in Dubai (out of a total Indian population of 110) in 1905. Hindus appear to have dominated the pearling trade, accounting for about 80 percent of Indian pearl merchants in Bahrain and Dubai.75 Before oil, pearls were eastern Arabia’s single most important export item, bringing in more money to the economies of the shaikhdoms than anything else. They were as important for local prosperity then as oil and gas are now. In contrast to Indian pearl merchants, their wholesale counterparts resided in the Gulf year round. They were engaged in the importation of food (rice, sugar, coffee, tea) and material (wood, metal, cloth) from India and the export of dates and horses to India, which they transported on their own dhow fleets. As Eastern Arabia and southern Iran were heavily dependant on goods and food from India, Indian wholesale merchants played a central role in the economies of these coastal regions. Table 9.6 shows how dependant the Gulf ports were on trade with India in the early twentieth century.

Table 9.6 Gulf trade with India (as a % of overall trade), 1904a

Imports from India Exports to India Lingeh 63.0% Bahrain 75.3% Bahrain 59.7% Bandar Abbas 75.2% Muscat 57.2% Muscat 74.0% Trucial States 55.0% Trucial States 71.3% Kuwait 49.4% Lingeh 35.6% Bandar Abbas 47.4% Kuwait 34.8% Bushehr 34.6% Muhammara 32.2%

Muhammara 32.8% Bushehr 22.4% - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright a Government of India, Foreign Department, Administration Report of the Persian Gulf Political Residency and Muscat Political Agency for the Years 1904–05 (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1906; reprinted by Archive Editions, 1986), 23, 34, 56, 65, 78, 86, 91, 96, 104, 108, 116, 123, 128–31, 135, 139, 145, 147, 153, 155. Note: the earliest statistics available for Kuwait come from S. G. Knox (Political Agent, Kuwait), “Trade Report for Kuwait, 1905–06,” April 12, 1906, in ibid. Administration Report of the Persian Gulf . . . 1905–06, pp. 5, 8.

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Jerome Saldanha notes that “Bahrain has always maintained a large direct commercial intercourse with India; in fact about two-thirds of its trade has always been Indian, while, in the trade of the Arab Coast [Trucial States], India has at any rate, from 1873 to 1902, taken a place second to that of the Persian ports in direct traffic and it is only since 1903 that India holds the first place in this respect.”76 A comparison with Hormuz, the leading port in the Gulf in the fourteenth to early seventeenth centuries, shows a similar dependency on India. In the 1540s, 46 percent of its customs revenue came from Indian imports: 36–38 percent from Gujarat (Diu, Cambay, and Surat), equaling its imports from mainland Iran, and 7–8 percent from Sindh (Thatta and neighboring Lahori Bandar), which was marginally smaller than its imports from Basra.77 Some of the wealthiest Banians were also sarrafin, loaning money and providing credit to Arab and Persian Muslims. They connected the Gulf to India’s financial centers, dominating the credit market in Bahrain, the Trucial States, Oman, and many Iranian ports as a result. India’s financial dominance in the Gulf was such that, between the 1890s and the 1960s, the Indian rupee was the main unit of currency in Eastern Arabia. Arab and Persian debtors typically used property as security and those unable to repay their Hindu creditors lost their land—a common occurrence due to the high rates of interest. As a result, Banians became one of the largest landholding groups in the Gulf, as Mark Speece explains in the case of Oman:

. . . landholdings were closely linked with the banking functions of the Banian community, as many land transfers were the result of mortgage foreclosures. Land, houses, and date palms [date plantations] were about the only collateral that the local population had to offer in return for a loan that would tide them over to the next date harvest. The level of indebtedness was high, and foreclosures a regular occurrence. . . . The Indian community certainly held extensive properties in urban areas, acquired either through purchase or default.78 . . . It is not always clear in the sources whether holdings were gained through foreclosure or pur- chased as investments, but this is an irrelevant question when simply establishing the rent capitalist involvement of the Indian merchants.79 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

By the early twentieth century, most of the waterfront property in Muscat and Matrah was owned by Kutchi Banians,80 while Indian landholdings throughout Oman during this time were also extensive, even though the number of Banians had dwindled to just 35 in a total Hindu population of 290 in both Muscat and Matrah.81 In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the status of most Indians as British-protected persons meant that they could appeal to the British authorities to enforce debt repayment and

10.1057/9781137485779 - The Persian Gulf in Modern Times, Edited by Lawrence G. Potter 256 M James Onley foreclosures in the British-protected states of Eastern Arabia and Iraq during the British Mandate. Indian merchants completely dominated the import–export and finance sectors of Muscat, Matrah, Bandar Abbas, and Gwadar.82 The Danish explorer Carsten Niebuhr, who visited Muscat in 1765, observed that the Banians, as moneylenders and bankers, held sway over the Arab ruling elite.83 In 1869, Britain’s Political Resident in the Gulf observed that, with the exception of two or three Omani merchants, Muscat’s trade was entirely in the hands of Banians and Khojas.84 In 1920, the British consul in Bandar Abbas noted that three-quarters of that port’s trade was controlled by a hundred Banians (likely Bhatias) from Shikarpur in Sindh.85 In a number of cases, notably Bahrain and Oman, local rulers or governors farmed out the administration of their customs administrations to Indian wholesale merchants. In Bahrain, for instance, a series of Banian firms managed the Manama customs house from at least the 1890s until 1924. In 1905, customs collected by the Banian firm running the Manana customs house accounted for 50 percent, or Rs.150,000 (Rupees), of Bahrain’s annual revenue.86 In Muscat, Banian firms managed the customs administration for much longer, from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. Indian wholesale merchant firms seem to have been run as family businesses, with a large firm typically having relatives in two or more Gulf ports. Members of the firm would circulate from port to port and from the Gulf to their hometown every few years. Merchants in towns and ports deemed “unsafe” kept their families with their parents back in India and returned to visit them from time to time.87 Before the establishment of formal civil courts in the twentieth century, a number of rulers in Eastern Arabia appointed wealthy Indian wholesale merchants to their commercial courts, known as the majalis al-tujara or majalis al-‘urf. In Bahrain, for instance, two Banians, two Bahraini Arabs (one Sunni, one Shi‘i), and two Najdi Arabs sat on the local majlis al-‘urf.88 The councilors met informally, as need arose, to arbitrate all cases not involving Islamic law. The majlis resolved commercial disputes according to local customary law. It had no judge (qadi) and reached all its verdicts by consensus.89 The rulers appointed only the most influential local merchants as members of these courts. - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright Indian retail merchants (shopkeepers), artisans, and their families were another sizable group of Indians in the Gulf in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Indian shops sold all manner of goods from India (from peppers to pencils), while Indian builders constructed buildings, and Indian artisans made jewelry, furniture, ships, and clothing. These shopkeepers and artisans were the most public face of the Indian communities in the Gulf. Arabs, Persians, and Europeans encountered them on a daily basis. Theirs are the faces that appear in the early photographs of the Gulf ports. It was

10.1057/9781137485779 - The Persian Gulf in Modern Times, Edited by Lawrence G. Potter Indian Communities in the Persian Gulf M 257 through them that Indian material culture found its way into the homes of Arabs and Persians, and even shaped their homes, with the result that, over the course of centuries, Indian food and design became an integral part of Gulf coastal culture. Another group of Indians in the Gulf was the hundreds, later thousands, of Indian soldiers and sailors stationed there to protect British Indian interests in the region. They were recruited from the Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh “martial castes” of India. From the late eighteenth century onward, the British Indian residencies in Basra (1778–1809), Baghdad (1798–1914), and Bushehr (1778–1946) each had a guard of sepoys (Indian infantrymen) and sowars (Indian cavalrymen) to protect their establishments. From the late nineteenth century on, British Indian consulates and political agen- cies around the region were also assigned their own Indian Army guards. During World War I, the Indian Army sent nine divisions to Iraq as Indian Expeditionary Force D, comprised of over half a million Indian servicemen and civilians.90 It sent another eight battalions to Iran, a force known as the South Persia Brigade. After the war, the Indian Army maintained a reduced presence in Iraq until the end of the British Mandate in 1932. During World War II, four Indian Army divisions returned to Iraq and Iran. Lascars (Indian sailors) were first stationed in the Gulf in 1821 when the Bombay Marine, as the Indian Navy was then known, established a Gulf Squadron to protect British Indian shipping from piracy, although lascars had been sailing in the Gulf since 1612. At any one time, there were up to a hundred lascars in the squadron patrolling the Gulf. In 1863, the squadron, along with the entire Indian Navy, was disbanded as an ill-conceived cost-saving measure, but it was reestablished in 1869 by the Royal Navy. Lascars continued to serve in the squadron until Britain’s military withdrawal from the Gulf in 1971. Lascars also served on the British India Steam Navigation Company ships that sailed between the Gulf and India from 1862 to 1972. Another important group of Indians in the Gulf, although small in number, was white-collar office workers, mostly Christians. From 1864 onward, the British Government of Bombay, which was then responsible for Britain’s relations with the region, began to employ Indian and Eurasian officers and clerks from the Bombay Uncovenanted Civil Service (known as the Bombay Civil Service after 1891) on the staff of its Gulf Political Residency at Bushehr - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright and its Indo-European Telegraph stations dotted along the southern Iranian coast.91 After World War I, ruling shaikhs began to recruit such men from India for the new municipal councils, government departments, and oil companies they were establishing, starting with the Manama Municipal Council in 1919. Local shipping companies soon followed suit due to the increasing paperwork involved with global trade. Indian office workers were distinct from their mercantile counterparts in both their social background and appearance: they came from Indian clerical and civil service families

10.1057/9781137485779 - The Persian Gulf in Modern Times, Edited by Lawrence G. Potter 258 M James Onley and dressed as Europeans. Through them, the Gulf Arab states inherited the bureaucratic traditions and practices of the Government of India—norms that still shape the GCC governments today due to their continued large- scale employment of Indian civil servants. Yet another group of Indians was the skilled, semiskilled, and unskilled oil workers. They held a wide variety of jobs both in the field (such as engi- neers, mechanics, artisans, blacksmiths, drivers, drillers, and laborers) and in the office (such as clerks, accountants, typists, office attendants, and storekeepers). Indian oil workers were first recruited by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC, now British Petroleum or BP) from 1909 onward to work in the oil fields of southwest Iran and its refinery at Abadan. By 1910, APOC employed 158 Indians. Around 1922, APOC opened a recruiting office in Bombay. By 1925, APOC employed 4,890 Indians, after which the number of Indians gradually declined as qualified Iranians took their place.92 The Bahrain Petroleum Company began to recruit Indians in 1933. It opened a recruitment office in Bombay in July 1936 and, by October 1937, it employed 236 Indians, rising to a high of 659 by 1949.93 The Kuwait Oil Company began hiring Indians in 1935, although the number of Indians never exceeded a few dozen until oil production began in 1946, after which the numbers shot up dramatically: 28 in 1945, 177 in 1946, 723 in 1947, 3,211 in 1948, and 4,908 in 1949. It recruited its Indian employees through the APOC office in Bombay. Petroleum Development Qatar began hiring Indians in 1937, although its circumstances remained the same as Kuwait’s, with the number of Indian employees not rising above a few dozen until the start of oil production after World War II: 194 in 1947, 552 in 1948, 690 in 1949, and 841 in 1950. It also hired its Indian employees through the APOC recruitment office in Bombay.94 Both Petroleum Development Trucial Coast and Petroleum Development Oman started to employ Indians in the 1940s, but their numbers did not rise above a few dozen until the start of oil production in the 1960s.

Conclusion This chapter offers the first comprehensive survey of Indian communities in the Gulf region roughly between 1500 and 1947—a time before the oil era - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright and India’s partition, after which South Asian demographics in the region and the region’s relationship with South Asia changed dramatically. Chief among this chapter’s findings is that there was no single Indian community in any Gulf town in the same way that one can speak of the British community in Dubai for instance. Indians in the Gulf were divided into dozens of endogamous communities, three dozen of which have been examined here. The identity and solidarity of each community was

10.1057/9781137485779 - The Persian Gulf in Modern Times, Edited by Lawrence G. Potter Indian Communities in the Persian Gulf M 259 multilayered, based on a mixture of one’s religion, caste, clan, occupation, region (homeland), language, ethnicity, and/or ancestry. Within each of these categories, one’s identity was further subdivided. Thus, the term Banian, while helpful as an analytic category, merely scratches the surface of a multilayered identity. These layers of identity and solidarity largely deter- mined the community to which an Indian merchant belonged and the trade networks within which he operated. Another finding is that not all Indians in the Gulf were migratory, residing in the region temporarily as they do today: some were clearly diasporic, residing there for generations. Hindu men in the lower Gulf were more likely to bring their families with them and to put down roots in safe towns because of the geographical proximity to India, while Muslim men did so in safe towns throughout the Gulf region as a whole. The cultural integration of Indians with the local population varied considerably: most lived “among them, but [were] not of them,” as William Palgrave observed at the start of this chapter, while others adopted local dress to some degree, as George Brucks saw in Sharjah in 1822. One Indian community, the Lawatiyya, became thoroughly Arabized by the 1870s. The Indian communities in each town, while comprised of both transitory and diasporic members, were themselves long-lived. They built temples, churches, mosques, community halls, graveyards, and crematoria, while their members had extensive property holdings in the Gulf, especially in Oman. The Indian communities in the port towns of the Gulf were a physical manifestation of these ports’ intimate connection with, and heavy dependence on, India in virtually every aspect of daily life. This connection and dependence was self-evident to anyone living in the region before 1947, even though Indians accounted for a minority of the region’s population. The end of the Raj and British Indian control over Eastern Arabia in 1947 coincided with the dawn of the oil era in what would become the GCC states and their subsequent reorientation toward the Arab world and the West. This reorientation ended symbolically with the replacement of the Gulf rupee by local dirhams, dinars, and riyals in the 1960s and the demise of the British India Steam Navigation Company, which had connected the region with India between 1862 and 1972. Today South Asians form the largest single group in the GCC after nationals; in Qatar and the UAE, they actually outnumber - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright the national population. But, despite their great numbers, South Asians are no longer viewed as a dominant group in the Gulf because they no longer command the economic and political power they once held. There are sev- eral reasons for this. After each GCC state passed nationality laws, most Indian business families found themselves on the wrong side of the national/ non-national divide. When new visa restrictions were introduced for non- nationals, it became difficult for these families to stay together. After the

10.1057/9781137485779 - The Persian Gulf in Modern Times, Edited by Lawrence G. Potter 260 M James Onley states passed laws restricting property ownership and businesses majority ownership to nationals, these families were forced to sell their property and take on local business partners at a loss. These factors, among others, resulted in the gradual disappearance of the long-resident Indian diaspora in the Gulf, changing it to a predominately transitory expat presence with no family roots in the region. This, combined with the arrival of millions of South Asians in the construction and service sectors in the decades after 1947, transformed the region’s South Asian communities beyond recognition. Before writing this chapter, I was surprised that no comprehensive survey of Indians in the Gulf before oil had been written. After five years of pains- taking research, I now understand why. The diversity, geography, and dura- tion of the communities—three dozen communities residing in just as many towns over the course of nearly half a millennium—makes the endeavor extremely time-consuming and complex, a problem further compounded by the relative scarcity of published and archival sources. While ethnographic studies of some South Asian groups are abundant, very little has been published on others. Indian and Pakistani academics, for instance, rarely write about the Banians of Sindh, all of whom left for India after partition, because Indians and Pakistanis regard the subject as “foreign” history, looking at the subject as they do through a post-partition lens.95 After squeezing all one can from the published sources, both historical and academic, one turns to the archival records only to find them few and far between: historians have only fragmentary evidence with which to work and this is scattered around the world in public archives and private collections. Very few of the South Asian families in the Gulf today can trace their roots back to the pre-oil era, and those who can, such as the Jashanmals (Sindhi Banians), have sadly lost most of their historical records—in this case, during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. While it is possible to locate private papers in India and Pakistan belonging to people who lived in the Gulf before 1947, the difficulty of doing so increases the further back in time one goes: private papers from the 1910s might be possible to locate, but records from the 1510s almost certainly not. Autobiographies by Indian merchants in the Gulf—such as Ram Buxani’s Taking the High Road and Maghanmal Panchola’s Footprints: Memoirs of an Indian Patriarch—have begun to appear in recent years, but these are naturally limited in scope to the twentieth century.96 Interviews, too, typi- - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright cally limit one to the twentieth century. To compensate for this scarcity of private papers and personal accounts, historians must rely on the more abundant, but still fragmentary, information in government records compiled by British, Portuguese, Dutch, French, Ottoman, and Persian officials, as well as contemporary travel accounts published by their compatriots. The dispersed nature of these archives—in Karachi, Surat, Bombay, New Delhi, Goa, London, Lisbon, The Hague, Paris, Istanbul, Tehran—as well as the

10.1057/9781137485779 - The Persian Gulf in Modern Times, Edited by Lawrence G. Potter Indian Communities in the Persian Gulf M 261 multiple languages one must master to access them, are additional impedi- ments to anyone attempting to write a survey of Indian communities in the Gulf. What all this means is that a case study of one town, community, or century is practical, but a truly comprehensive detailed survey covering all towns, communities, and centuries, is not—that is, not yet. One hopes that the increasing availability of records and historical publications online in digital format over the coming years will enable historians to further explore this important but neglected topic.

Notes

1. This paper was commissioned in 2008 by Lawrence Potter and Gulf/2000 for this book and has benefited immensely from his insightful feedback over the years, for which I am extremely grateful. It is based on archival work and/or field- work in London, Manama, Doha, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Bandar Abbas, Hormuz, New Delhi, Mumbai, and Goa. It was presented in the UAE in 2009 at the Gulf/2000 conference held at and cosponsored by the American University of Sharjah, in Paris in 2011 at Sciences Po’s Centre d’Études et de Recherches Internationales (CERI), and in New Delhi in 2012 at Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Centre for West Asian Studies and Jamia Millia Islamia’s India-Arab Cultural Centre. I would like to express my gratitude to Gulf/2000, AUS, CERI, JNU, and JMI for providing me with the opportunity to share drafts of this paper. Aside from Lawrence Potter, I also received very helpful feedback from Chhaya Goswami, M. H. Ilias, N. Janardhan, Shelly Johny, A. K. Pasha, Prakash C. Jain, Sima Baidya, A. K. Ramakrishnan, Kundan Kumar, Ginu Zacharia Oommen, Anisur Rahman, Shrideep Biswas, Fatemeh Teimoorzadeh, Nafla Kharusi, Abbas Al-Lawati, Alla Al-Lawati, Fahad Bishara, Andrew Gardner, Nelida Fuccaro, Rudi Matthee, Willem Floor, Marc Valeri, and Dionisius Agius. 2. William Palgrave, Narrative of a Year’s Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia, 1862–63, vol. 2 (London: Macmillan, 1865), 211–12. Palgrave visited Bahrain in 1862. 3. There are hundreds of studies of South Asian migrant workers in the post-1947 Gulf. Recent examples include Andrew Gardner’s City of Strangers: Gulf Migration and the Indian Community in Bahrain (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010), Syed Ali’s Dubai: Gilded Cage (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), and Neha Vora’s Impossible Citizens: Dubai’s Indian Diaspora (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013). Thanks to works like these and many others, we know a great deal about South Asians in the Gulf in recent times, especially - 2015-07-13 - PalgraveConnect of Exeter - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright migrant laborers. 4. The most famous of these is Calvin H. Allen, “The Indian Merchant Community of Masqat,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 44, no. 1 (1981): 39–53, based on his doctoral dissertation: “Sayyids, Shets, and Sultans: Politics and Trade in Musqat under the Al bu Said, 1785–1914,” (PhD diss., University of Washington, 1978). The most comprehensive book-length studies are: Stephen Frederick Dale, Indian Merchants and Eurasian Trade, 1600–1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), about half of which deals with Iran, and

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Chhaya Goswami, The Call of the Sea: Kachchhi Traders in Muscat and Zanzibar, c.1800–1880 (New Delhi: Orient Black Swan, 2012). Indian merchants are discussed extensively in M. Redha Bhacker, Trade and Empire in Muscat and Zanzibar: Roots of British Domination (London: Routledge, 1992), although they are not the focus of his book. There are also two anthologies on the subject: Prakash C. Jain, ed., Indian Diaspora in West Asia: A Reader (New Delhi: Manohar, 2007) and Prakash C. Jain and Kundan Kumar, eds., Indian Trade Diaspora in the Arabian Peninsula (New Delhi: New Academic Publishers, 2012). Surprisingly, the vast majority of the book-length studies of the Indian diaspora in West Asia and the western Indian Ocean mention the Persian Gulf only in passing. Examples of the Sindhi diaspora include Claude Markovits, The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750–1947: Traders of Sind from Bukhara to Panama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) and Mark-Anthony Falzon, Cosmopolitan Connections: The Sindhi Diaspora, 1860–2000 (Leiden, Brill, 2004). 5. For a more detailed study, please see my forthcoming book on India and the Persian Gulf. 6. Siraf (modern Tahiri) was located halfway between Bushehr and Lingeh, oppo- site Bahrain. André Wink, Al Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World, vol. 1: Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam, 7th–11th Centuries (Leiden: Brill, 1990), 65. 7. Allen, “The Indian Merchant Community of Masqat,” 39. 8. The records from 1667 are cited in R. J. Barendse, The Arabian Seas, 1640– 1700 (Leiden: Research School CNWS, 1998), 21 fn. 40. Willem Floor believes the community is much older than this (correspondence, Mar. 2009). Claude Markovits dates the community to at least the early eighteenth century in his book, The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750–1947, 11–12 and fn. 6. 9. J.E. Peterson, “Oman’s Diverse Society: Northern Oman,” Middle East Journal 58 (2004): 42; Allen, “The Indian Merchant Community of Masqat,” 48–50. 10. Kutch state became a district of Bombay state in 1956 and a district of Gujarat state in 1960. 11. Thomas Herbert found it in use in southern Iran in the 1620s. See Thomas Herbert, Travels in Persia, 1627–29, ed. Sir William Foster (London: Routledge, 1928), 35. 12. Konkan Coast: the coasts of modern-day Maharashtra state and Karnataka state in India, named after the Konkani people. Malabar Coast: the coast of modern- day Kerala state, named after Malayali people (Keralites), although the term is also confusingly used for the coasts of Karnataka and Kerala states. 13. For details, see Stephen Frederic Dale, Islamic Society on the South Asian Frontier: 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 The Mappilas of Malabar, 1498–1922 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980). 14. For more about regional identities, see Falzon, Cosmopolitan Connections: The Sindhi Diaspora, 29–38; Markovits, The Global World of Indian Merchants, 27–28; Sumit Guha, “The Politics of Identity and Enumeration in India c. 1600– 1990,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 45, no. 1 (Jan. 2003): 148–67. 15. John Ovington, A Voyage to Surat in the Year 1689 (London: Jacob Tonson, 1696), 278–79. 16. Henry Yule and Arthur Burnell, Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo–Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymology, Historical,

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Geographical and Discursive, 2nd ed. (London: John Murray, 1903), 63; correspondence with Shrideep Biswas, March 2014. 17. For more about the Khatris, see Dale, Indian Merchants and Eurasian Trade, 1600–1750, 57–59, 66–75; Baij Nath Puri, The Khatris: A Socio-Cultural Study (New Delhi: M.N. Publishers, 1988). 18. Scott Levi, The Indian Diaspora in Central Asia and Its Trade, 1550–1900 (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 122, 154, 212; idem, “Multanis and Shikarpuris: Indian Diasporas in Historical Perspective” in Global Indian Diasporas: Exploring Trajectories of Migration and Theory, ed. Gijsbert Oonk (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007), 50–51. Multanis during the Safavid era and Shikarpuris (Multanis from Shikarpur) during the Qajar era accounted for the majority of Indians in northern and central Iran, although Levy’s coverage of Iran per se in these two works is limited. 19. For more about the Shravaks, see R. E. Enthoven, The Tribes and Castes of Bombay Presidency, vol. 3 (Bombay: Government Central Press, 1920–22), 431–36. 20. The Portuguese initially captured Hormuz in 1507, but they waited until 1515 before taking control of the island’s government and stationing a garrison and naval squadron there, solidifying their hold on the region. 21. Willem Floor, The Persian Gulf: A Political and Economic History of Five Port Cities, 1500–1730 (Washington, DC: Mage Publishers, 2006), 16. 22. Ruby Maloni, “Straddling the Arabian Sea: Gujarati Trade with West Asia during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” in The Indian Trade at the Asian Frontier, ed. S. Jeyaseela Stephen (New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House, 2008), 194. 23. Floor, Five Port Cities, 29. 24. Ibid., 251, 271. 25. Ibid., 355–56. 26. Report dated January 4, 1755, from VOC/OB 2863, fol. 38, quoted in R. J. Barendse, Arabian Seas, 1700–1763, vol. 1: The Western Indian Ocean in the Eighteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 323. 27. Carsten Niebuhr, Travels through Arabia and Other Countries in the East, trans. Robert Heron (Edinburgh: R. Morrison & Son, 1792; translated from the origi- nal 1772 German edition), 116. 28. Floor, Five Port Cities, 356 29. Vincenzo Maurizi, History of Seyd Said, Sultan of Muscat; Together with an Account of the Countries and Peoples on the Shores of the Persian Gulf, Particularly of the Wahabees (London: J. Booth, 1819; reprinted Cambridge: Oleander Press, 1984), 23, 29, 127–30. Maurizi worked for the Sultan of Muscat during 1809–14. He estimated Muscat’s population to be about 60,000. 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 30. Capt. George Brucks, “Memoir Descriptive of the Navigation of the Gulf of Persia with Brief Notices of the Manners, Customs, Religion, Commerce, and Resources of the People Inhabiting Its Shores and Islands,” in Selections from the Records of the Bombay Government, new ser., 24, ed. R. Hughes Thomas (Bombay: Bombay Education Society Press, 1856; reprinted by Oleander Press, 1985), 629, 631. Brucks remarked that “The population of Muskat is constantly fluctuating. At times it amounts to near thirty thousand souls; at other times there is not more than ten to twelve thousand” (p. 631). He estimated the population of Matrah to be 15,000–18,000 (p. 629).

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31. J. R. Wellsted, Travels in Arabia, vol. 1 (London: John Murray, 1838; reprinted Graz: Akademische Druke, 1978), 19, 21. 32. Allen, “The Indian Merchant Community of Masqat,” 43. 33. James Silk Buckingham, Travels in Assyria, Medina, and Persia (London: Henry Colburn, 1829), 379. 34. Ibid., 380. 35. Brucks, “Memoir Descriptive of the Navigation of the Gulf of Persia . . . ,” 544, 547. 36. J. G. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, vol. 2: Geographical and Statistical (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1908), 455. 37. Ibid., 2379. 38. Ibid., 1034, 2380. 39. For more about the Lawatiyya, see Allen, “The Indian Merchant Community of Masqat,” 48–52; Abbas Mustafa Al-Lawati, “The Lawatiya of Oman: The Identity Transformations of an Ethno-Religious Minority,” MA diss. (University of Exeter, 2012); Peterson, “Oman’s Diverse Society: Northern Oman,” 40–43. 40. Farhad Daftary, The Isma‘ilis: Their History and Doctrines, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 443. 41. The Memons should not be confused with the Momins, a predominantly Shi‘i group in Gujarat. 42. James Campbell, comp. & ed., Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, vol. 9: Gujarat Population, part 2: “Musalmans” by Khan Bahadur Fazalullah Lutfullah Faridi (Bombay: Government Central Press, 1899), 51. 43. Ibid., 51–52. 44. Lorimer, comp. & ed., Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, vol. 2: Geographical and Statistical (1908), 344. 45. For more about the Bohras, see Daftary, The Isma‘ilis, 238–41, 276–300; Shaikh T. Lokhandwalla, “The Bohras: A Muslim Community of Gujarat,” Studia Islamica 3 (1955): 117–35. 46. Floor, Five Port Cities, 364 fn. 232. 47. For more about Luso-Indians, see Charles Dias, The Portuguese in Malabar: A Social History of the Luso Indians (New Delhi: Manohar, 2013); M. N. Pearson, The Portuguese in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 48. João Teles e Cunha, “The Portuguese Presence in the Persian Gulf,” in The Persian Gulf in History, ed. Lawrence G. Potter (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 208, 214. 49. Floor, Five Port Cities, 16. 50. See Selma Carvalho’s Into the Diaspora Wilderness: Goa’s Untold Migration Stories from the British Empire into the New World (Goa: Broadway Publishing House, 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 2010), 57–130. 51. For details of the 1833 incident in Bahrain, see James Onley, The Arabian Frontier of the British Raj: Merchants, Rulers, and the British in the Nineteenth-Century Gulf (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 140–43, 174–78. 52. Floor, Five Port Cities, 16, 142–43, 251, 355–58, 436–39, 497–98; Cunha, “The Portuguese Presence in the Persian Gulf,” 208, 214. 53. Allen, “The Indian Merchant Community of Masqat,” 45–46. 54. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, vol. 2: Geographical and Statistical, 1185. 55. Brucks, “Memoir Descriptive of the Navigation of the Gulf of Persia . . . ,” 613.

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56. Ibid., 631. 57. Ibid., 629. 58. Ibid., 624. 59. Ibid., 544. 60. Ibid., 547. 61. Ibid., 566. 62. Ibid., 604. 63. Ibid., 575, 585, 591, 600–1, 627. 64. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, vol. 2: Geographical and Statistical (1908), 2379. 65. Robert Landen, Oman since 1856: Disruptive Modernization in a Traditional Arab Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 140. 66. Ibid. 67. John Watson, comp. & ed., Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, vol. 8: Kathiawar (Bombay: Government Central Press, 1884), 149. Watson observes: “From ancient times [the Banians of Gujarat] have been in the habit of making voy- ages to Zanzibar and Arabia, going in their youth and returning to their native town with the fruits of a life of industry and toil. On their return, they generally marry.” 68. Markovits, The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750–1947, 27. 69. Ibid. Ranabir Chakravati is one such historian. 70. C. Kondapi, Indians Overseas, 1838–1949 (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1951), 528. 71. Stefan Tetzlaff estimates they numbered 588,717 at their height, of which 295,565 were Indian servicemen and 293,152 were Indian civilian support staff. Tetzlaff, “The Turn of the Gulf Tide: Empire, Nationalism, and South Asian Labor Migration to Iraq, c. 1900–1935,” International Labor and Working-Class History 79 (2011): 14. 72. Myron Weiner, “International Migration and Development: Indians in the Persian Gulf,” Population and Development Review 8, no. 1 (March 1982): 5; Government of India, Report of the High Level Committee on the Indian Diaspora (New Delhi: Ministry of External Affairs, Non-Resident Indians and Persons of Indian Origin Division, 2000), 21; Andrzej Kapiszewski, “Arab Labor in the Monarchies of the Persian Gulf,” Acta Asiatica Varsoviensia 16 (2003): 21–36. Also see Ian Seccombe and Richard Lawless, “Foreign Worker Dependence in the Gulf, and the International Oil Companies, 1910–50,” International Migration Review 20, no. 3 (1986): 548–74, especially the table on page 563; Anisur Rahman, Indian Labour Migration to the Gulf: A Socio-Economic Analysis (New Delhi: Rajpat Publications, 2001), 17–31. 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 73. For more about Indian sarrafs and the money and credit markets in the Indian Ocean, see Ray, “Asian Capital in the Age of European Domination”; Lakshmi Subramanian, “Banias and the British: The Role of Indigenous Credit in the Process of Imperial Expansion in Western India in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century,” Modern Asian Studies 21 (1987): 473–510; idem., “Capital and Crowd in a Declining Asian Port: The Anglo-Bania Order and the Surat Riots of 1795,” Modern Asian Studies 19 (1985): 205–37; Om Prakash, “English Private Trade in the Western Indian Ocean, 1720–1740,” Journal of the Economic

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and Social History of the Orient 50 (2007): 215–34; Marina Martin, “Hundi/ Hawala: The Problem of Definition,”Modern Asian Studies 43 (2009): 909–37. 74. Floor, Five Port Cities, 514. 75. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, vol. 2, 455, 1160. 76. J. A. Saldanha, ed., Précis of Commerce and Communications in the Persian Gulf, 1801–1905 (Calcutta: Superintendent of Government Printing, 1906), 56. 77. Floor, Five Port Cities, 62. 78. Mark Speece, “Aspects of Economic Dualism in Oman, 1830–1930,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 21 (1989): 504. 79. Ibid., 505. 80. Allen, “The Indian Merchant Community of Masqat,” 40–47, 52. 81. Speece, “Aspects of Economic Dualism in Oman, 1830–1930,” 506; Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, vol. 2: Geographical and Statistical, 1185. 82. For Oman, see Speece, “Aspects of Economic Dualism in Oman, 1830–1930,” 503–06. For Bandar Abbas, see Willem Floor, The Persian Gulf: Bandar Abbas– The Natural Trade Gateway of Southeast Iran (Washington, DC: Mage Publishers, 2011), 30–31. 83. Niebuhr, Travels through Arabia, 116. 84. Pelly (Gulf Resident) to Gonne (Secretary, Bombay Government), June 19, 1869, in Saldanha, ed., Précis of Commerce and Communications in the Persian Gulf, 1801–1905, 32. 85. Floor, Bandar Abbas, 31, 161. 86. Prideaux (Political Agent, Bahrain) to Cox (Gulf Resident), June 24, 1905, L/P&S/10/81, register no. 1508/1905 (India Office Records, British Library, London). This is reproduced in Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, vol. 2: Geographical and Statistical, 251. 87. For details, see Ray, “Asian Capital in the Age of European Domination” and Markovits, The Global World of Indian Merchants, 6–7, 176–78. 88. “Memorandum Regarding the Bahrein Majlis or Permanent Native Court of Arbitration,” no author indicated [likely Prideaux, Political Agent, Bahrain], February 25, 1906, enclosed in Cox (Gulf Resident) to Secretary of Indian Foreign Department, February 25, 1906, L/P&S/10/28 (India Office Records, British Library, London). 89. Fuad Khuri, Tribe and State in Bahrain: The Transformation of Social and Political Authority in an Arab State (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 111. 90. See footnote 71 above. 91. For a list of these officers in 1869, see Onley, The Arabian Frontier of the British Raj, 242–47. 92. Seccombe and Lawless, “Foreign Worker Dependence in the Gulf,” 557, 559. 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 93. Ibid., 559–63. 94. Ibid., 562–64. 95. Markovits, The Global World of Indian Merchants, 3. 96. Ram Buxani, Taking the High Road (Dubai: Motivate Publishing, 2003); Maghanmal J. Panchola, Footprints: Memoirs of an Indian Patriarch, as narrated to Vasanti Sundaram (Dubai: Motivate Publishing, 2009).

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