Scholar Voices: Nichols

Indian Ocean: Cradle of Globalization
Scholar Voices
Robert Nichols

In "Imperial formations 700-1700, Thinking about pre-modern politics in the Indian Ocean" Robert Nichols poses the following questions.

What roles do political states, polities, and imperial formations play in the Indian Ocean world between the post-classical and modern periods?
How do we define, analyze, and think about these polities in the context of thinking about interregional connections, blurred boundaries, and processes of exchange as well as conflict?
What frames of space and time have bounded academic discussions?
What models of political organization have been used to reconsider too easily imposed retrospective projections of colonial or contemporary political structures?

Centralized political power has always influenced flows of trade, the development of ports, and the organization of agriculture and manufacturing. K. N. Chaudhuri frames his study, Trade and Civilization in the Indian Ocean, as "An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750". Chaudhuri argues that the rise of an Islamic state in the 7th Century combined with the rise of the T'ang dynasty in China (from 618 CE) contributes to interregional stability, economic growth, and an accelerating pace and volume of long-distance trade. The periodization of his study again recognizes an important political moment, the rise of European power, perhaps specifically marked by the conquest of Bengal by the British in 1757. Should we agree with Chaudhuri's choice of period of study? What alternatives might be used?

Questions to consider to help understand the nature of polities over centuries include:

To what extent do previous histories of dynastic "rise and fall" represent more general processes of political consolidation and decentralization?
How have politics been shaped by the tensions between state-building policies and ideas on the one hand and regional identities and assertions on the other?
What alternative models of political organization have scholars used to rethink histories of polities that were once too easily described as centralized and unitary states with clear territorial boundaries?
Are we able to use other political models from other disciplines and areas to help understand Indian Ocean politics after the rise of the first Islamic state?

For a discussion of these dynamics in South Asian history, Nichols suggests looking at the history Modern South Asia (Routledge, 1998) by Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal . Finally, Burton Stein's concept of the early south Indian "segmentary state," Nichols contends, finds historic evidence consistent with a decentralized politics of local and regional power centers tied to, but not absolutely dominated by, power centers invested with cultural rather than absolutely coercive claims to preeminence.

Reading List:

K.N. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilization in the Indian Ocean, Cambridge, 1985.

John Richards, The Mughal Empire, Cambridge, 1993.

Burton Stein, Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India, OUP, 1980.

Burton Stein, Vijayanagara, Cambridge, 1989

Robert Nichols

Professor of History
Richard Stockton College

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