LAST PAGE

Traders Turn Conquerors

My dear Gauri,

Have you heard the statement that the flag fallows trade? First traders come from a foreign country. Then, when they find the trade lucrative, they seek to conquer the land. This has happened time and again in India.

India has always been a major source of attraction because of its riches, and because of what India could supply. Since the Greek helmsman Hippalos had discovered the monsoon, the regular wind which reliably drove the ships before it, Greeks had been sailing from Africa to India year after year between the months of June and September and returning from India to Africa between December and March. Likewise, the Arabs, too, would come to India for buying and selling.  

The newly rich Romans (who made their money selling slaves) insisted on procuring Indian merchandise. The Romans wanted luxury articles from India, but had to pay for them in gold and silver. According to the historian Pliny, some 25 million denari flowed from the Roman Empire to India every year. This has been confirmed by the numerous Roman gold and silver coins found in India.

One of the major exports of India was cotton; but soon cotton came to be grown in Egypt and, besides, India started buying various commodities from Rome and the amount of Roman gold coming to India declined.

The India trade, however, was picked up by the Arabs who quickly prospered. One reason was that the Arab rulers did not concern themselves with controlling or regulating the trade. They let private entrepreneurs take the risk and make their profits or losses. Bazaars grew in Indian coastal towns. It is said that in Anhilvada, in Gujarat, there were as many as 84 bazaars buying and selling a wide variety of goods.

The Arabs traded up and down the entire Indian west coast and far beyond. They knew what was available where and what the price would be. And they often acted as intermediaries between Greeks and Indians. It was by way of India that two important plants came to be grown in the West-rice and cotton. Cotton was frequently described as ‘wool’ growing on trees. Though now the Egyptian long-staple cotton is better known, it first went there from India and then its quality was improved.

India’s wealth was so great that it attracted the attention of traders not only from Arabia but from the Mediterranean as well. India bought linen from Egypt, bronze from Italy, tin from Spain and oil and wine from Asia Minor. India even bought Syrian horses.

With so much wealth around, it was inevitable that India should attract invaders. India had always attracted invaders but the new ones to come were Arabs. And it happened in A.D. 711.

Mohammad bin Kasim was a general under Hajjaj, a governor of Iraq and Khurasan. It was Mohammad bin Kasim who marched into Sind with an army of 15,000 men and appeared at Debal (a commercial port near Karachi) in A.D. 711. This is a year to remember because it had immense consequences for the future of India.

Sind was then ruled by a distinguished Brahmin king, Raja Dahir, who is held in high regard and respect in Sind to this day. He was a brave soldier besides, but Mohammad bin Kasim’s army was better equipped and Debal fell to the invader. But Dahir was not dismayed. He continued to fight but in a fierce battle at Aror, north of Hyderabad (now in Pakistan) he was killed in June 712. Aror surrendered and early next year, Multan was conquered.

Conversions to Islam now took place on a large scale. Exactly how many people opted to become Muslims and under what pressure it is hard to say, but then Mohammad bin Kasam was recalled and many of the local Sind chieftains repudiated their allegiance to the Arab governor.

Junaid, a governor who succeeded Hajjai, sent another general to seize Kacch (modern Kutch) and Malwa but the Pratihara and Gurjara kings foiled him. Sind continued to be ruled by Umaiyid governors but the actual administration remained in the hands of the local chiefs, both Hindus and converts to Islam.

The inroads by Islam into India thus first occurred in Sind. The next important Islamic attack on India came from the north-west, under the leadership of Mohammad of Ghazni. He wanted to call himself Mohammad the Idol Breaker. He delighted in destroying temples and idols as I shall tell you in a subsequent letter. It is a sad story of a barbarian people who had no understanding of India’s culture and tradition and who, in their new-found zeal in Islam, went about systematically killing people and robbing temples. The most notable of the temples was at Somnath. The sacking of Somnath marks one of the most tragic chapters in Indian history.

Your Loving,

Ajja