Imperial frontiers and conquests

Unwanted Neighbours

The Mughals, The Portuguese and their Frontier Zones

Jorge Flores

Oxford University Press

Rs 895, 328 pages

This meticulously researched study by an Italian historian tells the story of the interface between the Mughals and the Portuguese empires, focusing on the borderlands that, according to the author, “seem to have predominantly been areas of tension and separation”. 

The Portuguese had established the Estado da’India, “the political and administrative framework of the Portuguese Empire in Asia,” in 1505 and made Goa their capital in 1510. Babar laid the foundation of the Mughal empire in 1526, and up to the end of Aurangzeb’s reign in 1707, the Mughals expanded their territorial domination over the country, so that “Mughal India and Portuguese India shared, negotiated, disputed and imagined both the space in between and space within borderland”. 

In six chapters, the author devotes his attention to Gujarat, littoral Bengal (Hugli), Western Deccan or the Sultanates of Ahmadnagar and Bijapur and the period of study is from circa 1570 to 1640. 

Unwanted Neighbours

Emperor Akbar was an “expansionist” and his first contact with the Portuguese took place when he attacked Gujarat where the Portuguese had established close contact with Ahmedabad and the port city of Surat. The importance of Gujarat for both empires was immense and the author has devoted two chapters to these campaigns. “The Mughals, it goes without saying, had the upper hand in the evolving relationship. But for the Portuguese, labelling these undesired neighbours as foreign (albeit white) and alien to India and its peoples seems to have translated into a form of political legitimacy and moral compensation for themselves,” Mr Flores writes.

Akbar’s “Mughalisation” of Gujarat after its conquest in 1572-73 disturbed the Portuguese because “the interests at play in the Mughal-Portuguese borderlands of Gujarat over time were multiple” so conflicts and convergence between the two competitors became a normal affair. During Akbar’s reign, “the Portuguese who traded in the province ran the risk of being imprisoned and losing their merchandise”. Expanding on the Mughal-Portuguese interaction in Gujarat, the author says, “It offers a rich mixture of politics and religion, trade and war, court and provinces, in individual agendas and geo-political strategies, dissimulation and realpolitik, orthodoxy and accommodation”. 

After Akbar, the two major conflicts of 1613-15 and 1630-32 between the two empires throw much light on the contests about borderlands. The author refers to a “shift” in interests and relations between Mughal ruler Jahangir and the Portuguese because “mercantile commerce was Jahangir’s main interest in Gujarat and … this led to conflicts between the two”.  The conflicts of 1613-15 and 1630 on maritime boundaries were triggered by the Portuguese assumption that the sea was theirs. The crux of the issue was that the Portuguese arrived in India as a major maritime power and the Mughals were late entrants to maritime trade. 

Chapter 5 is devoted to the Deccan. The Portuguese had a close and extensive relationship with Ahmadnagar and it is interesting to note that it was not only conflict; negotiated settlements also took place between these two contending empires. “Once the Deccan wall crumbled the southern Mughal-Portuguese border settled at the gate of Goa, and the Mughals did not knock down the door,” Mr Flores writes. 

The final chapter is on Bengal, which “proved to be a harsh land for both the Mughal Empire and the Estado da’ India. Bengal was …considered a wild territory by both empires, a sort of eastern ‘far West’ as seen from Fatehpur Sikri and Goa alike”. Since, Bengal was considered “unstable ground” for both, the Mughals took the difficult path of establishing a subah (province) in Bengal and the Estado made “recurrent endeavours to secure some sort of influence in the region”. This led to clash between the two “over the control of ports, commodities and also land and rents”. 

The author’s description of the Portuguese challenge to Akbar, Jahangir and Shahjahan in Bengal is particularly informative. He observes: “The event of 1625 thus represent just one link in a long chain of skirmishes…as a rehearsal for the major crisis of 1632, a final warning tremor before a full blown earthquake was to burst”. When Shahjahan attacked Hugli, a vital port for the Portuguese in the Bay of Bengal, he launched an offensive from July to September 1632 and used the victory to enhance his image both abroad and at home. It has also been suggested that “…the fall of Hugli often became associated with the decadence of Estado da’ India”.  It deserves to be noted that Shahjahan directly intervened in the war in Bengal as Akbar had done in Gujarat. 

The main contribution of this study is to bring into sharp focus the fact that the expansion of empires in India was gradual and shifted from region to region. The author has used a wide variety of sources to construct his narrative and when his sources suggest diverse interpretations, he chooses to be ultra-cautious in drawing definitive conclusions. If there is a message for those who are busy making history a playground for politics, it is that facts are important and interpretation should be based on solid facts, not myths.