The Indian Ocean - Michael Pearson [90]
His main concern with the sea was a result of his desire to send pilgrims to Mecca, leaving from Surat and travelling by sea. Yet this concern did not lead to his taking the trouble to found a navy: as was noted of a successor, Aurangzeb, in the second half of the seventeenth century, he contented himself 'in the enjoyment of the Continent, and styles the Christians Lions of the Sea, saying that God has allotted that Unstable Element for their Rule.'3 The whole mind-set of the Mughal emperors and their nobles was land-based. Prestige was a matter of controlling vast areas on which were located fat, meek peasants. Glory was to be won by campaigns on land, leading one's contingent of cavalry, galloping over the plains. To courtiers, including the emperors, the sea was a marvel, a curiosity, a freak. This was not an arena where power and glory were to be won.
In 1617 Akbar's successor, Jahangir, also came to Cambay. His account of what he saw is of a piece with his numerous other observations in his memoirs where he is describing curiosities, such as a rare fruit, or a brave man. 'In these days during which I was encamped on the shore of the salt sea, merchants, traders, indigent people, and other inhabitants of the port of Cambay having been summoned before me, I gave each according to his condition a dress of honour or a horse or travelling money or assistance in living.' He found out that 'Before the arrival of the victorious host some ghurabs from European ports had come to Cambay to buy and sell, and were about to return. On Sunday, the 10th, they decorated them and showed them to me. Taking leave they went about their business.' He concludes, 'As my desire was to see the sea and the flow and ebb of the water, I halted for ten days' and then went off to Ahmadabad.4
The Mughals, and other Indian rulers of large states, by and large pursued a hands-off attitude to trade in general, including that by sea. As Barendse puts it, the Mughals and the Safavids neither exploited trade nor encouraged it: they had very little in the way of a trade policy at all.5 However, at times merchant and ruler interests coincided, and then the state could help the merchant while helping itself. Studies by Om Prakash and Van Santen show a closer nexus between state and merchant in Mughal India than was depicted in my own earliest work. For example, the Mughals actively encouraged the importation of bullion, and also provided a very sophisticated minting process.6 Om Prakash's characterisation of the essential element in Indian trade being that of 'bullion for goods' is completely appropriate. Obviously merchants were concerned to acquire bullion, but rulers also were concerned to accumulate their own stocks of precious metals. They also more generally wanted there to be plenty of precious metals in India. It seems that they shared some of the preconceptions of their European fellow-rulers at this time, that is that a rich country was one with a large stock of bullion. Given that few European products found markets in India, while Indian products had ready acceptance all over the Indian Ocean area and also in Europe, 'bullionist' aspirations were much more adequately achieved in India than in Europe.
The general attitude of most Indian rulers, whether Hindu or Muslim, seems to be one of a rather remote benevolence. Trade could certainly provide revenue, and more inchoately it was meritorious for any ruler to rule over happy, prosperous people, but actual intervention either for or against was most unusual. A Marathi treatise on statecraft from the early eighteenth century describes this sort of attitude:
Capitalists are the ornaments of the kingdom. The land is prosperous and populous because of them. Goods otherwise