Europeans in Early Modern India - Learning the Ropes

Paper Abstract: The role of knowledge transmission and vital information exchanges in shaping histories cannot be understated. The burning question remains as to how Europeans, in this case, the Dutch and the English, emerged from precarious beginnings to positions of dominance, in the highly profitable flourishing Indian Ocean trade, displacing the pre-eminence of indigenous mercantile communities and administrator-cum-merchant magnates. Further, what was the politico-economic and social ethos that permitted the entrenchment of Europeans within areas of not only trade, but also in a few instances, taking up revenue farming, which would normally be an administrative function of the ruling elite/and or, their indigenous allies. What were the networks, formal and informal, that were cultivated? Was this exchange of knowledge and information, and the extension of privileges among the entities involved balanced or skewed? I would like to examine some of these in the context of peninsular India in the 17th and early 18th centuries, using contemporary European sources, Persian sources and vernacular literary productions like the Mangalkabyas.