The Theft of India: The European Conquests of India, 1498-1765 by Roy Moxham

Author:Roy Moxham [Moxham, Roy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: null
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers India
Published: 2016-11-09T18:30:00+00:00

At Gogha, the Portuguese heaped up the bodies of those they had killed in the temples. They then cut the throats of cows and defiled the temples by sprinkling them with the blood.

In 1559, again as a result of a temporary alliance with a ruler of Gujarat, the Portuguese acquired the port of Daman. This they also heavily fortified. From these strongholds, the Portuguese set about the subjugation of Gujarat. The Portuguese were well aware that they could never actually conquer Gujarat. The population of Portugal was only about one million, which severely limited the number of troops that could be despatched. Moreover, Brazil had become a drain on manpower. Many soldiers that were despatched to India died on the seas of scurvy or in storms. Those that did survive were subsequently depleted by tropical diseases. Unable to capture and hold large swathes of Gujarat, the Portuguese mounted a war of terror.

The slaughter started in Portuguese territory, where many of the Muslim traders were put to the sword. The Portuguese then went to Magdala (a town largely populated by people from the Horn of Africa, of which there were many in Gujarat), close to Surat, and set it on fire. They killed all the inhabitants except one man. He was left to live, with his hands cut off, to tell others of the atrocity. Hansot, close to Broach, was set on fire too. In Diu, they attacked the city adjacent to their fort. Many coastal towns were destroyed, including Una, Mahua, Gogha and the major port of Gandhar. Somnath was attacked and many of its famous temples and mosques destroyed.

Finally, a Portuguese expedition was sent to Broach, whose soldiers were absent. The Portuguese arrived by ship in the night to begin the slaughter. Once they had killed all those who had come out on to the streets, they set fire to the houses and burnt those hiding within – ‘the nobility and the people, the gardens and the houses, were reduced to ashes’.

These actions had the desired effect. The Gujarati merchants, the Vaniyas, were famously pragmatic. Their conciliatory behaviour, even when savagely provoked, was well illustrated by the Gujarati proverbs – ‘the Vaniya is ready for compromise’; ‘the Vaniya always changes allegiance according to circumstance’; ‘the Vaniya will not commit himself to anything’. Accordingly, the Gujarati merchants meekly took a Portuguese cartaz for their voyages and meekly paid at Diu the Portuguese levy on all imports and exports into and from Gujarat. Diu became the biggest financial contributor, after Goa, to the exchequer of the Portuguese state in India.

The pragmatism of the Gujarati merchants eventually paid dividends. Portuguese officials and the commanders of Portuguese ships were keen to conduct business on their own account, even though this was frowned upon by their government. They were strictly forbidden to deal in spices, which were the preserve of the crown, but Gujarat had much else to tempt them with. Gujarati cloth, sold willingly by the Gujaratis to their oppressors, became the staple of this private Portuguese trade.

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