The Carreira da India Lives On:Houthi Red Sea Attacks Prompt Shipping Rethink

There is an apocryphal tale of how the Portuguese captain Vasco da Gama subdued a potential mutiny amongst his crew. Having rounded the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of southern Africa in 1497, the realisation of reaching India from Europe via a sea route was close. Yet, assailed by Muslim traders and buffeted by fierce weather, da Gama’s men wished to turn for home. In an act of righteous grandeur, the captain dispensed with the ship’s instruments and navigational maps overboard, imploring his men to trust in God, whose helmsman he claimed to be. A few months later they made landfall in Calicut and the history of the world changed.

Vasco da Gama arrives at Calicut, India in 1498. World History Encyclopaedia

The Portuguese sea route to India (the Carreira da India) would usher in an era of European colonialism in the east. Trade with sultans and emirs would mature into military conquest and subordination, the colossal voyages (giant ships travelling six months each way) awaited with eager anticipation by the rulers in Lisbon and continental merchants. Having seen Christopher Columbus claim the New World for Spain in his attempts to find a sea route to the ‘Indies’, da Gama had charted a course for the smaller Iberian power to create the first global empire.

Da Gama’s voyage was the culmination of over a century of progressive exploration and technological improvement. After Gil Eannes rounded the infamously treacherous Cape Bojador on the West Saharan coast in 1434 (Parry, p.146), subsequent Portuguese navigators charted increasingly southerly courses towards the base of the African continent, a region still shrouded in mystery. In early 1488, Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Agulhas (the Cape of the Needles), breaching the Atlantic-Indian Ocean divide. He initially named Africa’s southern promontory the Stormy Cape, only for Portuguese King Joao II to rename it the Cape of Good Hope, ‘because it promised the discovery of India, so long desired and sought for over so many years’ (Crowley pp. 31-33).

The Carreira da India. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Until the construction of the Suez Canal in the 1860s – connecting the Mediterranean with the Red Sea – maritime traffic between Europe and the East passed around the Cape of Good Hope. Fortunes soared and foundered on the treacherous passage. And yet despite Suez and the rise in long-distance air and rail freight, this lengthy southern route is still plied. Indeed, it is increasingly so due to the political instability of the Middle East.

Houthi rebels continue to attack commercial shipping in the Red Sea with a combination of missiles and drones. Despite retaliatory strikes by American and British forces, the Yemeni group appears undeterred and their Iranian patrons either unwilling or unable to rein them in. Consequently, commercial shipping lines are taking the almost unthinkable move of rolling back the clock a century-and-a-half and committing more cargo to the journey around the Cape of Good Hope.

Backed by Iran, the Houthis are causing chaos in the Red Sea. Source: Politico

Danish shipping giant Maersk has ruled out using the Red Sea route for the remainder of 2024. It is sending more ships southwards at great cost, with a 40% fuel increase required both due to the greater distance and speeds needed to get cargo to and from eastern ports in a commercially viable timeframe. The economic costs get passed on to consumers, whilst the environmental costs from increased fuel consumption are at this stage incalculable.

It is a reminder that our reliance on maritime trade networks is still very much comparable to bygone eras. Crucial chokepoints in shipping routes are blatantly evident, as demonstrated by the chaos caused when the Ever Given ran aground in the Suez Canal in 2021 and closed the waterway for 6 days. The Strait of Malacca, meanwhile, is the most critical shipping route between the Indian and Pacific Oceans and yet is only 40 miles wide at its narrowest point. Concerns regarding China’s intentions in the South China Sea give cause to fear a potential closure of this waterway, with alternative routes few and far between.

The pioneers of the 15^th and 16^th century made international trade possible. And yet despite substantial technological advancement, our desire for global goods remains undimmed and our reliance on historic transport routes amazingly high. The opportunity such a reliance gives nefarious state actors, rebels and terrorist groups is clear to see. Without a concerted transnational effort, the Carreira da India will live on beyond the 21^st century.

An Indiaman in a North-Wester off the Cape of Good Hope by William Daniell. Source: Royal Academy of Arts

Additional reading

Crowley, R. Conquerors: How Portugal Seized the Indian Ocean and Forged the First Global Empire (2015)

Parry, J. H. The Age of Reconnaissance (1963)

Modi in Ayodhya: Tensions Rise as India’s Hindu Nationalism Intensifies

Since 2014 Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been gradually eroding the secular state founded by anti-colonialist hero Jawaharlal Nehru in 1947. The BJP’s Hindu nationalism has become the state ideology, with minority religions increasingly sidelined from politics and undermined in society. Muslims have been a particular target of the increasingly virulent strain of Hindu supremacy, cultivated by Modi who has a seemingly unbreakable grip on power.

Delirious Hindu nationalists follow Modi wherever he goes. Source: Stratfor

With a general election due in April and May, Modi is doing nothing to temper his deliberately divisive rule, cultivating his fanatical supporters to forget the founding principles of the Indian state. Making up approximately 80% of the population, Hindus have a clear numerical advantage. Yet, there are more than 170 million Muslims in India (about 14% of people) and the discrimination and marginalisation they have been subjected to under Modi’s watch may eventually trigger a strong retaliation.

As Chief Minister of Gujarat, Modi oversaw vicious anti-Muslim riots in 2002. When 58 Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya died in a train fire, Muslims were blamed. Brutal Hindu attacks on Muslim property mutated into mass murder and rape, with Modi seemingly condoning the violence and doing little to protect the Muslim minority. Over 1,000 Muslims are believed to have died. Despite this apparent stain on his record, Modi’s reaction to the Gujarat horror seemed to strengthen his appeal with hardline Hindus and set him on the path to India’s premiership. Last year, 69 Hindus were even acquitted of the murder of 11 Muslims during the riots, one of them a former BJP minister.

Rioters in Ahmedabad in 2002. Source: The Wire

The holy city of Ayodhya was in the news again recently when Modi inaugurated a new temple dedicated to the deity Balak Rama, a form of Rama, who Hindus believe was born in the city. As one of the avatars of Vishnu, Rama is a big deal to India’s Hindus and so inaugurating a temple in his honour in the city of his birth seems perfectly reasonable. Controversy stems, however, over the fact that the temple is being built over the remains of the Babri Mosque, which was razed by Hindu mobs in 1992.

Modi consecrating the new temple. Source: The Independent

Mughal emperor Babur (r. 1526-1530) purportedly ordered the construction of the Babri Mosque. Architecturally it was unimpressive, yet its siting set the stage for the later controversy:

Historians are sorely taxed over this Ayodhya Babur-i (or Babri) masjid. Did it replace a Hindu temple which marked the spot where Lord Rama (of the Ramayana) was born? And what, if any, was Babur’s role in its construction? Ever since Hindu fanatics laid into the mosque with pickaxes in 1992, thus provoking a more serious cave-in of modern India’s secular credentials, more words have been written about this unimpressive site than about any other in India. (Keay, p. 301).

Despite judges finding the destruction of the Babri Mosque to be illegal, a 2019 Supreme Court judgement handed the site to Hindus. It stated that archaeological investigations had shown that features below the Muslim-era foundations were ‘suggestive of a Hindu religious origin’. The ruling awarded the Muslims of Ayodhya a plot of land to construct a new mosque, some 15 miles outside the city.

Dismantling the Babri Mosque in 1992. Source: The New Arab

Modi’s decision to oversee the inauguration was therefore a political act. Despite his low-key warnings for Hindus not to travel to witness the ceremony, they attended in their thousands. Muslim residents, meanwhile, feared that the religious fanaticism whipped up by Modi’s actions would lead to more inter-religious violence. Fortunately, this does not seem to have occurred but the future for Muslims in the country appears bleak.

Also in 2019, Modi’s government changed a 64-year-old law to allow illegal immigrants to become Indian citizens. The proviso was that they had to identify as one of six religions: Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian. Not only did this violate India’s secular principals, but it seemed a clear exclusionary attack on Muslims.

In the same year, the state of Jammu and Kashmir, the only one in India with a Muslim majority and which had enjoyed special autonomy from the Indian parliament, was dissolved. In its place were created two union territories, Jammu and Kashmir in the west and Ladakh in the east. The special autonomy was withdrawn, and the Indian government given executive powers to overturn local laws and enforce the legal provisions of the wider country. Security has been ramped up in the region and protests quashed.

Located in a disputed and unstable region, Modi’s government insisted that the Jammu & Kashmir dissolution would strengthen security. Source: BBC News

Hailed as the world’s largest democracy, Modi’s India is taking steps reminiscent of China’s treatment of its Muslim minority. Whilst perhaps not as blatant as the genocidal acts against Xinjiang’s Uyghur people, Modi has made clear that India is a Hindu nation for Hindus. Whilst smaller religious groups may be tolerated, the larger Muslim minority is a lurking threat that must be crushed or forcibly assimilated.

It is a dangerous ploy. With elections looming, and Muslims seeing themselves without a stake in India’s future, what is to prevent them from violently disrupting the electoral process? With neighbouring Pakistan harbouring Islamist extremists unafraid of wreaking havoc on Indian soil, Modi would be wise to temper the triumphalism of his followers before it is too late.

Additional source

Keay, J. India: A History (2022)