3 - Maritime Violence and Power in the Gulf of Kachchh

From the early modern period to the modern period the issue of maritime violence represented diverse paradigms in the Gulf of Kachchh of the eastern Arabian Sea. Across the different ages, the Gulf of Kachchh variously defined its commercial and political relations with the Indian Ocean regions. The frequent reference to ‘predation’ ‘marauding’ and ‘violence’ in the Portuguese and East India Company’s correspondences generate a debate over defining such terms along with situating the legitimate rights of the former privateers. Hinging on the interplay between linear and layered power relations, how did pirates integrate or juxtapose with the existing oceanic and transoceanic entrepreneurial networks. To see this demonstrated, this paper relooks at the Arabian Sea and re-evaluates European hegemonic interplay around the Gujarat, Bombay, and Indian Ocean supply network, reordering overlying linkages between the empires, merchants, and pirates of the Gulf of Kachchh.When the sea going communities of the Gulf of Kachchh encountered with the European companies in the early modern period, what kind of reaction did it spark. What was the impact? How did they negotiate their protection and faced their opponents? Finally, how did they succumb to the power politics? This paper will seek to address these unanswered questions through a combination of narratives, and evidence from the early modern period.