 Water covers 70% of our planet. Oceans and rivers are the underlying fabric that bind all our lands. They are our conveyor belts, connecting civilizations and charting the course of human progress. Since ancient times, India, with all our natural wealth, has provided the thrust for sea-bound explorations, voyages that have formed the bedrock of modern-day maritime trade. The Indian Ocean touches the coastlines of 37 nations spanning three continents. With more than 80% of the world's seaborn trade in oil, one-third of the bulk cargo, and carrying half of the world's container traffic, the Indian Ocean region is the epicentre of economic activity. And India is strategically placed at the very centre of this network. Every conceivable route along the Indian Ocean region has seen India as a destination for trade. The ancient spice, silk and incense trade routes were inevitably linked to India. Sailors and soldiers from the Iron Age, fortune seekers and missionaries from the medieval era to geographers and administrators at the turn of the Industrial Revolution all have stepped ashore on the Indian land. From cotton to crude oil, India's maritime history beholds some of the most intriguing tales of wars and voyages, conquests and coalitions, events that have defined our world in the 21st century. The Indian Ocean has a much longer antiquity of sustained seafaring compared to Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the beginnings of which go back over 5,000 years to the earliest civilisations of mankind, the Mesopotamian and the Indus Valley. Thriving along the River Indus and its tributaries, the Indus Valley civilisation can be traced to the western regions of the Indian subcontinent. During its mature period, the Indic people harvested knowledge of river science and navigation. The world's first tidal dock at Lothal stands testimony to that. Built around 2500 B.C., Lothal's well-reserved anchorage was located away from the main current to avoid deposition of silt. Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro, Lothal, Srukotada, Dhola-Veera, Rakhi-Gadi, all these sites are located on trade routes wherein the urban centres have flourished. So the local people supplied things to them and from there they could export it to various areas. Lothal, for example, if you look at it, the granary is very near to the dock. So when things were brought from the dock, they could be easily, you can say, transferred to the granary, which is something very interesting. Field archaeology in Mesopotamia and Sumeria has unearthed 30 Indus seals. These were used as stamps to mark trading merchandise and point to signs of coastal sea trade between the city of Ur of Chaldis and the Gulf of Kambhat. Maritime trade in this period mainly involved carnelian beads out of which rings and bangles were made. During the later stages, lapis lazuli and other semi-precious stones were also traded till around 1500 B.C. The next phase in India's trade history began when a young king's army swept across the lands of western Asia, defeating Persians at battles. As he turned his attention towards India, he would meet the army of a formidable opponent and a new, even larger foe, the elephant. Fought in 326 B.C. along the river Jailam, one of the major tributaries of the Indus, the battle of Hydespress was fought between Alexander and King Porus. Alexander I, the trade between India and the European continent, multiplied. And Cotton was at the centre of commerce for more than 3,000 years, well into the 20th century. Of Indian Cotton, Herodotus wrote that there are trees growing wild which produce a kind of wool better than sheep's wool in beauty and quality. Strabo, another Greek historian, mentioned the vividness of Indian fabrics adorned with precious stones and made of fine muslin. The trade of cotton cloth from India between 350 and 100 B.C. laid down well-defined land routes connecting the Hellenistic kingdoms of Central Asia and the kingdoms of the Genetic Plains in India. The most clear written reference to trade in the Mauryan period is indicated in the Artha Shastra, a treatise authored by Chanakya. A chapter in it elucidates the responsibilities of a Navadhyaksha or superintendent of shipping. You had this Navadhyaksha not only on the coast but along the rivers also because riverine trade was more popular in Mauryan India. Maritime commerce is not possible without internal trade routes. They connect important commercial centres to ports. The Uttara Patha or the Northern High Road ran from the port city of Tamralipthi in Bengal across the Genetic Plains via Varanasi to eastern Afghanistan. The Great Southern Highway or the Dakshina Patha connected the ancient city of Pratishthan and Ujjain to Mathura. And the third major trade route was the Dwarawati and Kambhoja, which connected Dwaraka on the western coast of Gujarat to the Kambhoja regions in modern day Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. These three internal routes connected the overland trade route running from eastern Asia to Europe via Persia to the entire coastal belt of India. These are the routes which give you your entire hint and I think what needs to be remembered here is that economically there is a sense of the unity of India because these are defined by direction not king. So Uttara Patha and Dakshina Patha give you the cardinal directions. They do not give you the political systems. So here you've got the sense of the economic unity of the region from the point of view of commerce and I think that's something that we need to remember more often. The thrust in overseas trade, especially along the west coast of India, gave rise to the Satavahana dynasty. The most telling evidence of the importance of trade during this period is an iconage of an Indian ship on a lead coin from the realm of Vasishtaputra Shri Pulamavi. A spectacular discovery by a group of Belgian speleologists indicated at the island of Sokutra in the western Indian Ocean was a transit point for traders between the 1st century BC and the 6th century AD. They found a large number of inscriptions and drawings deep inside the hawk caves. Up to 193 inscriptions found, majority of them were in Sanskrit. When one looks at it very closely, the ship design that comes along with the inscriptions on the walls of the cave hawk on this island has considerable affinity to the known shape and designs of ships. From western India, either known from the coins of the Satavahana rulers, double-musted ships or even very large ship depicted in the paintings of Ajanta. As the incense trade route grew as a channel for goods like frankincense, myrrh, pearls and cotton. Ports like Surat, Mangrool and Baruch formed an important part of the trade network connecting the Persian Gulf and eastern Africa. Goods from the Kingdom of Aksum in modern-day Ethiopia and South Arabian kingdoms of Quataban, Himyarite and Sabian in modern-day Yemen all found their way to India's western coast. From the 7th century onwards, the Siddhis from Ethiopia travelled to India as merchants, sailors and indentured servants. Even today, a large community is settled in the states of Karnataka, Gujarat and Maharashtra. Zanzibar in Tanzania also has an interesting commercial connection with India from early 17th century onwards. The old stone town in Zanzibar has beautifully carved wooden doors, the origins of which can be traced to Kutch in Gujarat and were probably carried to Zanzibar by sea from Baruch. So Indian merchant communities, the old merchant communities settled in Zanzibar and they were patronised by the Umani Sultan. So they actually flourished. They became custom farmers, a custom collector for Zanzibar and for the mainland and across from Zanzibar. They were very big merchants. They controlled the trade in Surat clots, you know, Indian cottons in commodities like rice, ghee, spices in ivory. Even in modern times, the Gulf of Kutch and India's west coast is of great importance to meet our growing energy needs. With a ship taking three to five days to reach India's west coast from the Arabian Peninsula, the bulk of the crude oil is imported from West Asia and Africa. India is the fourth largest exporter of refined petroleum in the world today. With Jan Naga on India's west coast, India is having the biggest petroleum refinery complex in the world. Aided by the Karnala and Vardinar ports, majority of the refined petroleum is exported from India's west coast. The Vardinar oil terminal has contributed significantly to India's petroleum industry, owing to cost competitiveness and favourable weather conditions. The port of Karnala has also seen a rise in trade of essential commodities. India is the largest port of India by volume of cargo handled and one of the busiest in recent years. The geographical proximity of India's west coast with West Asia and Africa has not only allowed for a robust trade association, but has also led to a constant exchange of people between the two regions. Since ancient times, the eastern coast of India has also been frequented by merchants and monks. India traverse the same routes across land and seas, seeking fortunes and answers to life. It was from 1st century BC onwards that the spread of Buddhism followed the wake of commerce. The Silk Route Overland became a gateway, exporting the ideals of Buddhism into Chinese, Korean and Japanese cultures. To preach the Dhamma of Buddhism, 33-year-shoken edicts were placed on important trade routes, ensuring their presence to as many travellers as possible. Merchants supported Buddhist monasteries along trade routes, which were used as places to stay in as they travelled from city to city. From the 6th century AD onwards, Tamaralipthi, Puri, Masulipattnam and Nagapattnam emerged as major centres for Chinese silk and spices from Southeast Asia. You have three areas being connected here. You have the spice-producing areas of the Archipelago. You have the cloth-producing areas of India. You have China silk and China gold and Japanese silver probably. All of these are the motive force behind the trade of what we today call the Eastern Indian Ocean. One of the longest ruling dynasties in southern India, the Cholas, under the rule of Raja Raja Chola, created the first and only trans-sea empire in the history of India. Between 985 and 1030 AD, the Chola empire stretched from Sri Lanka to parts of Southeast Asia. Nagapattnam, located at the mouth of the Kaveri, was an important port settlement of the Cholas. A bustling hub of merchants and artisans, shipbuilding and trade flourished in this period between the 7th century and 11th century AD. The Chola trade during this period was supported by its trading guilds. By the end of the 9th century, southern India had developed an extensive trade network with the Sri Vijaya Kingdom in Southeast Asia and the Tang dynasty of China. We have again a large number of inscriptions talking about the 500, who are called the Ayuratti Ainutrivar. In fact, the inscriptions say, Dishay Ayuratti Ainutrivar. So, the 500 who trade in a thousand directions. So, the guilds are part of this entire network of trade across the southern Bay of Bengal. Trade guilds like the Nanadesis, Ihole 500 and the Manigramam guilds were very powerful and even financed temple constructions. The Cholas envisioned the temples not only as places of worship, but also centers of economic activity. The temples as an economic institution to which the guilds are connected are also very clear through inscriptions. There is an inscription for instance which says that the 500 deposited a sum of money with the temple and the interest on that money was to be used to buy perfumed oil from Arabia to light the Nandadeep. Look at the connections across. So, here you've got a guild that is trading primarily to Southeast Asia. Talking about the perfumed oils from Arabia to light the permanent Nandadeep in the temple. The temples of Bagan in Myanmar, Prambanan, Borobudur and Deng temples in Java and later the Angkor Wat in Cambodia bear architectural resemblances to the temples of Odisha and Tamil Nadu. Buddhist and Hindu iconography are replete in many of these temples. Even today at the banks of the river Mahanadi children float paper boats carrying small oil lamps. The people of Odisha or Kalinga as it was known then celebrate Bali Jatra to commemorate the voyages of ancient Uriya mariners or Sadabhas would sail on large vessels called Boitas to Southeast Asia for trade and commerce. Owing to the proximity to the international trade routes across the Indian Ocean, the southern coast of India occupies a pivotal position in India's modern maritime commerce. Chennai has emerged as Asia's fourth largest exporter of passenger cars. Exporting to the American continents, Africa, Europe and the Middle East India's automobile exports have grown consistently with over 300,000 cars exported annually from the Chennai-North port combined. A traditional engineering base and proximity to the ports has made the automotive corridor a base to 30% of India's automobile industry. Having automobile manufacturers from America, Europe, Japan and South Korea, Chennai has earned the alias of Asia's Detroit. Global trade is increasing exponentially with over 90% of trade carried by sea. From raw materials, finished products to food items, goods are traded in gigantic proportions. The containerized freight system allows for seamless movement between ships, trucks and trains. Cargos can now be moved faster and more securely. The International Container Transshipment Terminal at Valarparam in Kuchin serves as an access point to mainland container vessels for transshipment. It is strategically ensconced in the Malabar Coast only 11 nautical miles from the direct east-west trade route. But before this, many eras of the civilized world witness Kuchin in the Malabar Coast as the nerve centre of maritime trade and commerce. The history of Kuchin can be traced to India's most lucrative commodity of export, spices. Kuchin is connected via waterways to places like Ediki, Kottayam and Alopee where spices grew extensively. It was the winds of the Indian Ocean that propelled maritime trade towards Kuchin and sustained it for the next 1,500 years. The Romans, for instance, they found in their pursuit to reach Kuchin the magic, the secret of the Mansoon winds so that they could come here faster and safer. And they also found out about the mudbanks of Kuchin. Mudbanks of Kuchin means it's a phenomenon that in the very violent sea there will be regions of stillness. So at these places the ships could be berthed and the cargo could be transferred to lighter faster. The phenomenon of the Mansoon winds was first recorded in 47 AD by a Greek navigator and merchant, Hippalis. A more important work in this connection is the Periplus of the Erythrarian Sea, a maritime guidebook written around 100 AD. The Mansoon wind system is absolutely indispensable and central to the understanding of the pre-modern sailings across the Indian Ocean. And if you have to depend on the Mansoon sailing it is almost impossible for a ship to complete a single voyage by following the Mansoon wind system. You have to stop over. And the ideal stop over along with the other facilities is provided by the Indian subcontinent along with Sri Lanka because they occupy the almost central place in the entire Indian Ocean. The importance of the Indian coast and its commodities is indicated in the Muzuri Papyrus, a second century contract document on trade. It mentions a Roman merchant ship called the Hermapollen, anchored at the port of Muzuri in Kerala and provides the route map that the cargo would take before reaching Rome. The ship will stop at a Red Sea port either Berenike, a very famous port now excavated or a port slightly north of Berenike on the Red Sea called Mios Hormos. From there the cargo would be unloaded taken on the back of camels to a place called Coptos on the River Nile. From Coptos then it will be taken to Alexandria. Then it is cleared to cross the Mediterranean and reach Rome. This flow or drain of gold from Rome for spices in the first century A.D. was the cause of alarm and regret to Pliny, who said, there was no year in which India did not drain the Roman Empire of a hundred million cestresses. So dearly do we pay for our luxury and our women. With the beginning of the Crusades around the 9th century A.D., the land routes across Central Asia were blocked. The Arab merchants thus came to dominate the maritime circuits in the Indian Ocean. Cairo and Basra became the new centres of eastern trade. By the 14th century A.D., travellers and geographers like Ibn Battuta, Mohammed Al Idrisi and Ibn Majid gave detailed accounts of trade in India. The cross-cultural migration of people and ideas was at its peak. Arab astronomers like Al Baruni and Al Quarizmi borrowed concepts from Indian mathematics and astronomy. The Ganesha letters of Jewish merchants were documents of trade which gave vivid accounts of maritime commerce on India's west coast. These letters throw light on the close association between Indian ship owners and their Arabian counterparts. These Ganesha letters of the Jewish merchants speaks of diverse types of ships mostly run by the Jewish and Arab Muslim merchants who are the ship owners. But it also speaks of at least 10 Indian ship owners also plying their own ships in the Indian Ocean. Owing to the volume of trade, the Arab and Indian merchants shifted their ship construction activities to the Malabar coast with Kerala's native teak plantations along the river Chaliar providing the wood necessary for the construction of the dowels. Locally called the Urus, the craftsmen of Baipur constructed these ships without the aid of documents or work plans. They used wooden dowels instead of nails and tar to seal joints. The Sanskrit treatises would call this ship nilloham without any iron nails. And the European travelers from 1600 onwards, 1500 onwards, 16th, 17th, 18th century with their different kinds of ships were amazed at looking at the Indian Ocean ships including Indian ships and called them the stitched assumed boats because the planks are literally stitched up with coconut coir. From the 15th century onwards, kingdoms of the European continent under the Vatican seal sponsored travelers like Marco Polo, Nicola de Conte, Ludovico de Vartema and Afanasi Nikitan to find a direct sea link to the Indian subcontinent. Three Portuguese ships commanded by Vasco de Gama left Lisbon in July 1497. Rounded the Cape of Good Hope, they nervously shadowed the eastern African coast and crossed the Indian Ocean, eventually anchoring in May 1498 at Capard near Calicut in Kerala. We see Christians and spices, said the Portuguese convict, sent ashore to a few Muslim traders from Tunisia. It was another eight days before Vasco de Gama himself dared to set foot on land and when he did meet the Zamoran of Calicut, it wasn't of much avail for Vasco de Gama had no gold as gifts for the Zamoran. The Gama's fleet headed home but not without carrying a few sacks of pepper. The Portuguese came back in 1505 and established trading posts along the western coast. The transition from trading posts to fortified factories followed the logic of commerce. Colonialism as an idea emerged as the quest for land and markets grew. Closely following the Portuguese, the Dutch East India Company set up their first factory at Masuli Patnam. By 1659, the Dutch went on to conquer the Malabar coast, almost entirely driving out the Portuguese from the west coast of India. The French too started making inroads with Pondicherry as their major trading base. The Danes, to a lesser extent, were also participants in the spice trade with Danesburg Fort at Tranquabar being their main trading post. But by the end of the 18th century, the English were to emerge as the major player in maritime trade between Asia and Europe for the next 200 years. A Ferman given in 1613 by Jahangir the Mughal Emperor to James I, the King of England permitted the English to trade on Indian soil. With three principal trading posts of Fort St. George at Madras, the Bombay Castle and Fort William in Calcutta, the English East India Company had gained a steady hold on the Indian subcontinent. On a hot and humid morning of June 1757, the Army of Suraj Udaula, the Nawab of Bengal, with French assistance launched a massive cannonade against the British camp. At noon, a heavy rainstorm fell on the battlefield and the tables turned. The British guns had greater range than those of the French and they launched an attack against the Nawab's army. The Nawab's cavalry commander, Mir Jaffer, under British trickery just stood watching, revealing his treachery. By evening, the British had command of the field and the Nawab was forced to retreat and surrender. The Battle of Plasse transformed the English East India Company from traders to the rulers of India. The European powers however faced firm resistance along the western coast from the Marathas. Under the leadership of Kanuji Angare and subsequent admirals, they captured numerous vessels and levy taxes for plying on their territorial waters. So earlier, what happened? Indian coastal waters were free. Anyone could ply Indian coastal waters but the Angres were the first to impose their Dastak. They said that if the Europeans can charge a fee for plying for ships going through their coastal waters they would also charge a fee when they went past their territory. The beginning of the industrial revolution in the 19th century saw tea, raw cotton and opium as the major commodities traded by the East India Company. Demand for Chinese tea had greatly increased. Owing to a chronic trade imbalance with China, the British East India Company illegally traded opium for Chinese tea and established a monopoly on opium cultivation in India. Such was the avarice of the corrupt British East India Company that it forced the cultivators of the Bengal province to grow opium instead of food grains leading to the great Bengal famine of 1770. Towards the end of the 19th century opium constituted 40% of India's exports By the turn of the 20th century the British had virtually devastated the independent trading economies of India and China. With the dawn of the age of steam the Bombay Dockyard became a major centre for ship construction. When one of their factors of merchants went to Surat he came across this parsi shipwright called Nassarvanji Loveji Wadiya and he talked to him and said that why don't you come to Bombay and start or be part of our shipbuilding facility. The British were building ships in Bombay at that time. By 1821 a total of 159 ships of over 100 tons were built at the Bombay Dockyard. The Industrial Revolution had changed the material prosperity of Britain and left India economically poor. The recruitment of Indians as labourers was organised through what became known as the indenture system. By 1920 over 3.5 million Indians were transported to British and French colonies to work as labourers in sugar, coffee and rubber plantations. India under the British rule thus not only supplied raw materials and commodities but even labourers and soldiers. Hence Britain's most important colony and the key to the rest of the world. Since independence the Indian leaders of independent India always realised that the sea has played a very important role not only in our life and economy but also in our security and therefore the building up of our maritime capacity including the naval capacity was something which was considered at the beginning. In India's case what is happening along these routes of navigation where not only there are commercial ships but there are naval ships so all of that actually has a dimension of India's security. Is India's security? Is India's economic resurgence? The 21st century has ushered a trust in modern shipping where ports are piloting the economy. Burged on the precipice of development India's enormous wealth is in transit upon the seas. India is now poised to orchestrate a movement for global maritime cooperation. This perhaps will be the lingua franca of India's nautical narratives as it sails into the horizon of a poetic mesh between man, machine and maritime majesty.