Reading the Indian Ocean

Oceanic Studies have both intensified and diversified considerably in recent times. There appears to be a visible revival of attention and curiosity in exploring the maritime. Academic interest and publications in the West, for long, however, had concentrated upon the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the Pacific, disregarding the Indian Ocean. The Eurocentric approach was in keeping with the tradition of designating the Indian Ocean as merely a “half ocean” or perhaps can be attributed to the fact that the Indian Ocean was negotiated and engaged predominantly by people from its littorals. In the face of insularity, Indian Ocean Studies in terms of historical imaginaries and strategic as well as political constructs has been thriving, comprising what has been termed as “subaltern cosmopolitanism” contrary to the traditional “hegemonic cosmopolitanism.”

Indian Ocean studies constitutes a somewhat contemporary, yet stimulating academic inclination, owing its realization primarily to the invaluable rewriting of maritime studies by the likes of Michael Pearson, Kenneth McPherson, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Sugata Bose, K.N. Chaudhuri, Gwynn Campbell, Randall Pouwells, Ed Simpson, Edward Alpers, Abdul Sheriff, Erik Gilbert, Marcus Vink and John Hawley among others. A plethora of research centres specialising in Indian Ocean studies have emerged across the globe and almost all major publishing houses in their Oceanic Series embrace the study of the Indian Ocean ensuing in an ever-increasing literature on the Indian Ocean world.

A significant approach in understanding the Indian Ocean world is to delve into the cultural setting of the space and study the communities that traversed through it thereby looking beyond the geographical and ecological confines and into the intricate relationship between these communities and the physical landscape. This methodology studies both the oceanic societies and coastal communities as well as their commercial networks and exchange systems. The emphasis therefore is on commerce, movement and mobility through the Indian Ocean and on Indian Ocean Islands and coastal regions. Perceived in the framework of possessing a continuous history, the Indian Ocean in this approach is viewed as a string of movements of both the animate and the inanimate. In contrast to being regarded as a “void”, the Indian Ocean in this paradigm is assumed as a “circulation”, facilitating an interface of the global and the local, a feature that has been characterised as “connectivity in motion.” The Indian Ocean world in this vision is understood as a space intrinsically interconnected by a shared history, geography, culture, economy, ethnicity and religion yet constituting a multi-layered, heterogeneous expanse with permeable boundaries and myriad overlaps with neighbouring regions that necessitates engagements and interactions among them. The objective of this framework is to “humanize” the ocean with its attention on the “human factor.”

In contemporary times, locating islands at the core of an “empirical and methodological” research of the Indian Ocean world has gained ground where the accent is on explicating “islandness.” Ports and port cities form a key component of this approach. Within this paradigm, the term commonly used to describe ports and islands is “hub” and the activities they undertake are defined as “hubbing.” The Indian Ocean islands are diverse and dissimilar in terms of their origin, (both in the historical and geographical sense) size and distance from the mainland, as such, oversimplification and broad categorisation is problematic. While some of these islands became important links in the maritime network, others with inherent possibilities (for instance, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands) were left behind. The colonial history, postcolonial reality as well as the intersection of global and local forces determine the present circumstances of the islands.

In the aftermath of the colossal Belt and Road Initiative, in particular, and the emergence of China and India, as the principal initiators and protagonists in both a rhetorical and real sense in the context of connectivity, the criticality of the Indian Ocean region has come to the fore. However, Chinese and Indian notions regarding the spatial and structural relevance and use of the Indian Ocean are at variance. China looks at the ocean as a vacuum that has to be traversed summarily. This visualization/perception, in turn has ramifications with regard to the use of sovereign territorial spaces. The infrastructural linkages envisioned to fuel economic movements possess spatial structures/characteristics that can transform nations into what is termed as “logistical corridors.”

For India, on the other hand, the Indian Ocean is the primary “channel of communication” and it seeks to carry out the role of a custodian to protect what it considers as its “sphere of interest”, and the concomitant imaginary is that of islands as the hub of its connectivity archetype as an alternative to the Chinese paradigm of corridors. This vision, to some extent, originates from the Indian perception of “strategic autonomy,” which reveals India’s aversion towards tactically engaging with big and intermediate states, at the same time, it’s complete ease with enhancing security collaborations/alliances with lesser powers, who are significantly less influential than her. As such, the small and susceptible island states of the Indian Ocean region are deemed as appropriate allies for collaboration. India’s “spatial” conceptions/visualizations are in contrast to China’s as it aims at creating a regional economic expanse founded on the notion of the “Blue Economy.” The idea is grounded on the synchronization between “economic development and maritime ecosystem protection.” The difference in approach can plausibly be attributed to the presence or absence of historical and cultural linkages with the island nations of the Indian Ocean.

Priya
9/9/2018

References

Burkhard Schnepel, Edward A. Alpers, (Eds) Connectivity in Motion: Island Hubs in the Indian Ocean World, Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
Himanshu Prabha Ray, Edward Alpers, Cross Currents and Community Networks: The History of the Indian Ocean World, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Markus P. M. Vink, ‘Indian ocean studies and the “new thalassology”’, Journal of Global History, 2 (2007), 41–62.
Maximilian Mayer, (Ed) Rethinking the Silk Road: China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Emerging Eurasian Relations, Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
Shanti Moorthy and Ashraf Jamal, (Eds) Indian Ocean Studies Cultural, Social, and Political Perspectives, New York and London: Routledge, 2010.