Book Review
Posted on : August 3, 2022Author : Debdoot Basu Ray
Title: Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies and the Fortunes of Migrants
Author: Sunil S. Amrith
Published by: Harvard University Press
Publication Date: 16 October 2015
Length: 323 pages; Price: Rs. 1,500
“The rise and decline of the Bay of Bengal as a region parallels the rise and collapse of British imperialism in Asia” This is the bold statement with which author Sunil S. Amrith introduces us to his work on the largest bay in the world, the Bay of Bengal. Titled ‘Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants’ deals with the cultural, socio-political, human, and environmental history of one of the most important colonial arenas which saw continuous migration, bloodshed, and rapid trade ranging from Malaysia to Sri Lanka to Bengal.
In the Eighteenth Century, the Bay of Bengal allured the colonial ambition, allowing itself to see bloody conflict raging across its land and naval borders. The author Sunil S. Amrith points out that while there was a rapid decline in the Twentieth Century, the Bay of Bengal finds itself resurging as a major political region balancing between South Asia and South-East Asia. India and China have emerged as military superpowers in the Twenty-First Century and the Bay of Bengal plays a pivotal role in helping either side maintain a naval and trade superiority over the other.
However, geopolitics only comprises some of what the author has to provide in information to his readers as they sit down to understand the importance the Bay has held not only for a certain merchant or bureaucratic class but also for the subaltern and everyday people who have and continue to interact with the Bay of Bengal.
Divided into eight chapters with a prologue and epilogue, the book tries to establish ideas and allow for a perception to grow beyond what books on the same topic have historically covered. The author focuses much more on human interaction with the Bay in multiple chapters rather than providing various facts which may otherwise be found in multiple other books on the same topic.
The author deals with a brief history of the Bay of Bengal which includes nautical data on how the Bay exists and how important it is when it comes to the cultures of certain nations, especially India where it sees important rivers with religious significance (such as the Ganges) flow out to the Bay of Bengal. He talks about the historic points of rise and decline of activity along the Bay over the many centuries. The author talks about the Cholas who once vied a lot for the Bay of Bengal and even fought battles outside the Indian peninsula to consolidate their empire. The Bay faced a certain decline with the growth of the Silk Route and fewer expansions by medieval India and China. Another point of decline came when India became the centre of Islamic activities around the Fourteenth Century when the Arabian Sea gained more prominence due to continuous explorations and trade from West Asia to India. The author also argues that even when the focus shifted back to the Bay of Bengal during the Age of Exploration and Colonialism, due to continuous exploitation and lack of economic growth, most historians focus on the western part of India, often ignoring the importance of the Bay in multiple contemporary literature and texts.
The author continues to explain that the Bay of Bengal enjoyed human interaction and trade much before the Europeans claimed that it was their colonial ports and trade ideas that were benefitting the countries which shared the Bay of Bengal. The author points out that evidence can be found in the coastal towns of not only India but also other regions where there is evidence of major trade and human transfer from one region to another. Human flow also grew with the Arabs exploring and expanding their ideological reach beyond their holy lands in a quest which was deemed to understand the origins of Islam as it existed during that time. Trade between the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal saw great proliferation during this period and more and more people were continuously crossing these regions over sustained periods of time.
The dynamic of the growth of regions along the Bay has also been evident over history, with the shifting of capitals to port cities, the growth of the importance of the ministerial rank of ‘harbourmaster’ and the riches that allowed the cities to become targets of European colonialists which was rampant during the Age of Exploration. Here the Portuguese played a major role to ensure that major trading areas and ports would be under their control with locals speaking the frequent trade languages would serve as ‘captains’ to the Portuguese leadership. Soon the Portuguese would be challenged by the Dutch, and then the French and English would lay stake to the Bay.
The author also points out that political decay in South Asia (especially the Mughal conquest of South India), the religious rivalry between the Christians and Muslims and the sudden growth in the importance of mercantile trade forced the entire Bay of Bengal to collapse in a conflict with various European, South and South-East Asian powers. Once the Europeans had established dominance over much of the Bay and its ports, trade and human exchange surged in demand. People were being sent as slaves and bonded labourers all over the plantations which existed in various European strongholds. Bengal and Arakan (now Rakhine, Myanmar) peripheries became the most important market for the slave trade in Asia, sustaining the colonial obsession with having slaves to protect their trade bellies. These slave trades according to the author also helped various different people interact with each other, and various ethnic groups to mix with each other which was mostly an amalgamation of South and Central Asian people. The European expansion turned a profit for the sake of Asian ecology which was seen as expendable in the name of trade and commerce.
It was the British who first saw reason to not only control the ports to muster trade but control land which was fertile and start taxing them for their benefits. This idea became a reality after the defeat of Nawab Siraj-ud Daulah in 1757 at the Battle of Plassey whereupon the Mughal domain came under the British who started levying taxes and sustaining their wars in Europe, most notably the Napoleanic Wars which Britain fought debt free. Similar models were implemented in Madras and Bombay where the British started exploiting the people and started collecting taxes. To consolidate their hold on other Asian powers, the East India Company commissioned the British Indian Armies which at 150,000 soldiers strong was one of the largest standing armies in the world. The army was used to fortify British assets in India and the Bay of Bengal along with the conquest of other Asian islands and countries which were of strategic importance. This saw one of the largest migrations of people from one side of the Bay to the other. The author also comments that in whichever direction British power grew, Indian labour would follow. Along the Bay, cities such as Singapore and Penang (George Town, Malaysia) became culturally diverse and saw people from every section of society exist and participate in trade and labour. The Strait of Malacca also during this time saw the interactions between Indian and Chinese labours after a long period of time.
Migrants who started leaving their homes started establishing some sort of resemblances in their new land and thus these new lands started accommodating and mimicking various subcultural ideas which were akin to the migrant who was a part of this new land. This also helped shape their cities, towns, ports and other forms of architecture which are still prevalent today. As Malay, Chinese and Tamil cultures continued to interact, they started creating compromises of coexistence in a foreign land, as well as race-based demarcations to identify members of their communities. Wherever there was migration, there was the creation of newer societies and structures.
The author further talks about the ‘traffic’ which was being generated by the exchange of humans from one continent to another. These people who went abroad, unlike the Atlantic trade did not return and preferred to settle in those regions. By the 1930s around six to seven million people of Indian and Chinese origin had decided to settle abroad and not return home. Another reason for this traffic was the opening of the Suez Canal which allowed for transport between Europe and Asia to become quicker and thus led to the exchange of human labour much faster on a wider scale.
It is important to note that while the book focuses much on the transfer of human labour from various parts of the Bay of Bengal to another, the cultural collaborations and the ecological and environmental identities of the Bay, it also resonates with concern that is prevailing today.
It is undoubtedly certain that India and China are vying for supremacy in the Indo-Pacific region as well as focusing on increasing their trade capabilities. India until Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh was not looking at the East of its borders to re-establish the cultural and political ties with the various countries surrounding the Bay. While it is true that ASEAN has been successful in its economic and trade policies, the Bay of Bengal has the potential for much more growth. This renewed interest comes as policy makers forgo their obsession with the west of the country and are now looking towards the east again. With China’s acquisition of ports around India, India has decided to choke China in the strategic Strait of Malacca and other key areas as India negates China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific Region. However, very few initiatives are being taken to refocus the Bay of Bengal region and bring together the nations once more to engage in expansive trade and commerce. Ideas such as the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) also have a long way to go before they can realise their full potential.
Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants is not just a book about how much the Bay and its people have endured over long periods of time, but it is also a reminder of the shared past, shared culture and shared connection between the various countries that exist in this region. The Bay of Bengal has been important for India in the past as well as for all the nations that benefitted from the trade in the region and only with proactive measures can that same trade culture and past be perhaps re-established.
The book also serves as a reminder that how often it is easy to replace the human value with numbers and statistics much like the colonial empires did during their reigns. It is important to remember that the history of the men, women and children who crossed the Bay each has a story to tell and each represents the harsh realities of colonialism in Asia. Today Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand come across as multi-cultural cities housing people from different ethnicities and backgrounds, however, the reality of how these countries and cities were established remains to be taught and remembered.
The book provides a brilliant insight into the lives of these people of the subaltern who continue to form diasporas not only in the Bay but all over the world and thus an understanding of why the Bay of Bengal still matters today, is established with the readers who may be looking to understand Asia from a human and multi-cultural perspective.
Reference
Amrith, S. S. (2013). Crossing the Bay of Bengal. Harvard University Press.
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