This year is the 500th anniversary of Vasco Da Gama's "discovery" of India. The idea that the earth is round goes back a couple of centuries before Christ at least. If it was round, then a European could reach India by going west as by going east. King Afonso I of Portugal thought of finding this new passage to India, and sought information, such as it was, on global geography. Hearing of his interest, Cristoval Colon went to his court in 1774. Known in India and the English-speaking world as Christopher Columbus, Colon was a Genoese and would have been known as Cristoforo Colombo. Afonso I somehow did not finance Columbus's voyage; as I shall relate later, a less speculative route beckoned. So after cooling his heels for eight years at Afonso's court, Columbus went over to the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabel, who ran a co-regency in Castile, a couple of hundred miles away from Lisbon, where he would be known as Cristoval Colon. They finally financed his voyage; he went and discovered America in 1492.
There is no such ambiguity about the name of Vasco Da Gama, however, who was born in Sines, lived and died in Portugal in the service of its kings. There he is a great hero, and his anniversary was celebrated with enthusiasm. But 1998 also happens to be the (delayed) 50th anniversary of India's Independence, where our ruling classes have tried to capture some brand equity by reviving the resentments of colonial times. However, history is not a pep-up pill. History is what happened; and the consequences of Vasco Da Gama's arrival in India have been so portentous for our country that he deserves at least one headline.
As it happens, Sanjay Subrahmanyam has just published an outstanding biography (The Career and Legend of Vasco Da Gama, Cambridge 1997) which makes it easy to follow Vasco Da Gama's career. Not much is known about the man. Sanjay reproduces three portraits of him, which look utterly different. In one he is a glowering, low-browed, grouchy, fierce fellow. In later portraits the scowl is absent, and the face that peers out of a huge white beard has fine features and sad, reflective eyes.
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It is not even certain where he is buried. He died on Christmas Eve in 1524 in Cochin, and was buried in the monastery of Santo Antonio, later renamed the Church of San Francisco. But in 1538 Dom Pedro da Silva Gama, a son of Vasco Da Gama, took the remains from Cochin and buried them on Da Gama's estate in Vidigueira in Portugal. On June 7, 1880, they were taken from Vidigueira to a more impressive mausoleum up the River Tagus from Lisbon and reburied with honours. Before long, however, it was discovered that the remains were not those of Vasco Da Gama but of his grandson Francisco da Gama. Francisco was distinguished, having twice been Viceroy of (Portuguese) India, but not distinguished enough. So on the 400th anniversary of Vasco Da Gama's arrival in Calicut in 1898, his real remains were similarly transported and reburied with ceremony. Except that it is not quite certain that they were his real remains. When Sanjay visited Vidigueira in 1994, a member of the family that owns the estate told him that the
owner in 1898, Visconde de Ribeira Brava, had palmed off the wrong skeleton to the removal committee.
Of course, India was there before Vasco Da Gama "discovered" it; the Europeans not only knew it, but were inordinately fond of its spices -- pepper in particular. At that time, it was difficult to feed animals in the European winter; there was no green fodder, and not enough of other fodder could be stored. So animals were slaughtered in autumn. But there was no refrigeration, and the meat was liable to rot. The best way known to preserve it was to mix it with pepper. Hence pepper was a necessity then; and it came from either Kerala or the Moluccas -- the present Java and Sumatra. From there it was taken to the port of Jeddah in Arabia, and then carried overland to Alexandria, where Venetians came and bought it up. Thus the spice trade was a monopoly of the Arabs (Moros or moors as they were called by the Iberians, after Mauritania, the Roman name for North Africa) and the Venetians, both of whom added heavy margins. The whole idea of "discovering" India was to find an alternative route to India which would
break the Arab and Venetian monopoly.
However, long maritime expeditions required royal patronage and support, and European kings were not businessmen. They were descendants of ancient dynasties which had launched crusades against the Muslims in Palestine. These crusades had given rise to clubs of warlords -- the Knights Templar and the Knights of Malta -- who combined war with business and who ended up as landlords, traders and politicians. Their model led to later, more local military clubs as Europe divided into a number of kingdoms. Portugal had three such -- the orders of Christ, Santiago, and Avis. They hovered around the kings of Portugal and vied for power, business and fiscal rights. The kings of Portugal were in competition with their seniors the kings of Castile; in their conflicts, members of this Iberian melange often sought the intervention of the Pope in Rome.
By the 15th century, the concerns of the Spanish and Portuguese kings began to spill beyond their immediate surroundings. They began to explore the west coast of Africa and the outlying islands. In this quest for new lands, the Portuguese Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1487, but returned without going further. Once Africa was known to have an end, a route to India around it awaited "discovery".
Vasco Da Gama was the son of a nobleman of the order of Santiago. In 1492, while in his early 20s, he is known to have carried out a mission for King Joao II. French ships had waylaid a Portuguese caravel returning with gold from West Africa; in retaliation, Da Gama seized passing French vessels and forced them into Portuguese ports.
In 1494, King Joao II died and was succeeded by King Manuel. Manuel chose Vasco Da Gama to lead the expedition to India, and Da Gama left Lisbon on July 8, 1497. His fleet was small -- three ships and a supply ship, with fewer than 200 men. It took them over four months to reach the Cape of Good Hope, which they sighted on November 18. It was the 22nd before they rounded it.
Da Gama then sailed north along the coast, stopping in Mozambique, Mombasa, Kilwa and Malindi amongst other places. His encounters there were marked by suspicion and occasionally by violence -- as Portuguese relations with India came later to be. Finally, on April 25, 1498 he left Malindi with a pilot. The pilot as well as the southwest monsoon winds made for a swift journey; on May 18, land was sighted, and on May 21, Vasco Da Gama reached Calicut. Thus began India's tragicomic relationship with Europe which continues half a millennium later.