Abstract
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This noteworthy account on how markets were framed during the high-noon of the British Empire across the Arabian Sea is conceptually ambitious, empirically strong, lucidly written and engaging in nature. It entices the reader to ponder over the multi-layered networks of contraband items, clandestine social networks and the process of capital formation. Johann Mathew has successfully brought the subject of trafficking to the attention of historians, a subject which is otherwise reduced to the margins of business history. Through a trans-regional interpretive framework, he has scripted one of the important strands of the history of global capitalism.
The longish introduction craftily demonstrates the theoretical base of the book around land, labour and capital and explains how each one—from Adam Smith, Karl Marx to Karl Ploanyi—referred to these triad concepts of political economy. Applying Michel Callon’s concept of intermediaries, the chief argument of the book is developed showing how slaves, firearms and precious metal had an ambivalent place in the market, as these were conveniently framed in and placed out of the market. In the subsequent chapters, the examination of who struggled to frame the market and who profited out of it makes an interesting read, which is probably why when Mathew lobs the chapters at the reader, one instinctively wants to read it word by word. This in-depth research is culled from a diverse range of archival sources including private papers and legal records. These papers show how the British imperial bureaucracy constantly strove to regulate the Arabian Sea lanes by marking what could be licit or illicit.
The commercial exchanges of the littoral regions across the Arabian Sea till the close of the nineteenth century were largely controlled by the indigenous shipping vessels. With the introduction of steam navigation, the dhow, baghela, batela and kotia lost their singular domination but not the business. The first chapter, thus, juxtaposes the dhow-centric navigation with steam-shipping which spearheaded the use of engines. Mathew metaphorically views how the conventional vessels were dwarfed by the giant steam liners. Taking advantage of the limited reach of the steamers, the skilled nakhudas (captains) not only preffered cost-effective freight of merchandise but also as one of the players in the smuggling networks, they facilitated trafficking in various forms. Because of such indiscernible networks, the bureaucratic agencies were also left scrambling for an effective riposte.
By arguing on how the slavery abolition mission eventually, created a market of bonded labour, the second chapter then interestingly conjures up open sea spaces and shady deals. It showcases dramatic encounters of wily slave dealers with the patrolling navy and how intelligently such dealers eluded the watchful eyes of the British. Mathew narrates case studies revolving around human trafficking. What is particularly interesting are the examples of Indian girls and boys who, under the subterfuge of ‘domestic help’ or the guise of a ‘family member’ were transported across the Arabian Sea into slavery. By tracing their account, the chapter picks up the long history of amorphous exchanges across the Arabian Sea which have not completely withered away as yet. Everything, from purchase to sale, leads to particularities of a specific region and also at times culminates into questions of nationality and disputed jurisdiction issues. To check the slave traffic across the Arabian Sea the British officers sometimes indiscriminately seized, burnt and destroyed those vessels, which also carried the British goods for distribution at various ports. Such ineffective searches were not merely ‘comical’ as Mathew sums up but checked a huge amount of ‘real and good commerce’. Captain Felix Jones, who knew the affairs of the Persian Gulf from 1828 to 1864, was of the opinion that by seizing vessels indiscriminately, ‘we have been cutting our throats to a great extent’. This indicates how naval patrolling reflected on the British political economy in the Arabian Sea. Further, the abolition mission was not all about the British; there were also some silent participants, who took it upon themselves to fracture the human trafficking network. Unlike the British, their intentions were not diplomatically driven. The least consulted Gujarati literature thrillingly un-bounds the stories of such noble resistance and suggests the stretch of trafficking networks from south Gujarat to the Red Sea arena and beyond.
Mathew’s discourse on the dealings in explosives takes the reader on a different but an intricate tapestry. Citing the example of Ratansi Purshottam, one of the leading firearm dealers of Muscat, the chapter builds up the core argument on violence and property and how the British struggled to regulate the dealings in a volatile commodity which changed its meaning at the time of consumption. The British restlessness and dilemma in checking arms dealings was quite evident, since British exporters were adamant in its continuation. It was evident that arms trafficking was dominated by the interests of powerful capitalists, rather than any external country with whom the Government of Bombay could more easily negotiate. To be sure, French legal cover shrouded the activities of the arms merchants and foiled British diplomatic efforts to curb the trade.
Much before the British became the dominant power in South Asia, the Minas, who hailed from western India, were actively involved in the gola-no vepar, that is, arms trade along with the slave trade across the Arabian Sea. Their unnoticed role raises some questions—where do we situate these local suppliers of slaves and arms in the trafficking network? How did the British subvert them first to the category of ‘criminal tribes’? And, how, eventually, were they were listed as ‘scheduled tribes’? The book has apparently taken little interest in sketching the ethnography of such trades and functioning of community networks.
The last two chapters suggest how the history of circulation of currencies and exchange of documents was complex in its relations with capitalism and free enterprise. The political economy of the Arabian Sea triggered a scanning and labelling process which was most often voiced in the official correspondences. The whole narrative of the fourth chapter deals with the diverse range of currencies in circulation and wide prevalence of counterfeits in the early twentieth century Arabian Sea. It also views how the much-prized bullion transfer was booted out of the market and how the gold smugglers then learnt to hoodwink the customs men. Such kind of ploys and intrigues came to the fore as the custom regulations became tighter. Bureaucratic anxiety was quite evident in regulating the wide range of currencies and counterfeits since all effort was directed to standardising the diverse forms of monetary exchanges as per the European system. To this the mercantile networks across the Arabian Sea responded by contriving oral and secret deals, or designing deceptive documents which Mathew captivatingly describes in Chapter five.
The narrative of the book is deftly written, in what I count as Mathew’s hallmark style of using some substantive terms such as inversion, subversion, framing, elision and opaque to adhere large analytic interventions. However, what is problematic is the selection of the phrase ‘half naked brown man’ levelled to a seafarer (p. 21). It somewhere bogs down the romantic imaginary with which the first chapter starts. For a while the study sounds reductionist in approach when a Kachchhi ‘map’, which acts more like a sketch depicting landmarks, is compared with the ‘scientific navigation’ used by the British. Several malamni pothis or rahmanis, that is, pilots’ logbooks having scores of cartographic maps and diagrams, tables of longitude and latitude and usage of compass rules out the erroneous understanding that Asian navigation was not scientific and was simply approximated. And of course, the vibrantly adorned map with the sketches of the landmarks in no manner appears ‘cartoonish’, as Mathew has characterized it. Mathew’s assumption that ‘pilot’s map reveals “hidden itineraries” which helped nakhudas to short-circuit colonial framing of free trade’ seems nebulous (pp. 28–29).
The overall take away of this investigative account on the history of trafficking across the Arabian Sea is quite rich, for it creates the further scope of studying the problem and the modus operandi of smuggling networks initially responsible for the making of fortunes, and capital formation and yet later as a factor explaining the losses it started incurring. Especially for the scholars of business history this book is a must read.