Why the Portuguese succeeded in India?

In reply to the question, why did Indian powers permitted the domination of the Indian Ocean by a small and economically backward state such as Portugal for more than a century, Professor Satish Chandra is of the view: “… technologically the Indo- Arab boom and the Chinese junk could match the Portuguese galleons and caravels in their strength, holding capacity for goods in view of its tonnage, and capacity to sail even in the face of the wind with their triangular (lateen) sails. They had sufficient nautical skills to travel on open seas. Where the

Portuguese were superior was the maneuvering capacity of their ships, the Indo-Arab ships being slow and clumsy on account of their heavy sails.

Also, the hulls of the Portuguese ships were stronger to withstand the shock of firing cannons. But, it has been argued, it was the determination of the Por­tuguese sailors above all which decided the issue.

The Indians, more used to fighting pirates, had no stomach for fighting on sea, unbacked by their own rulers…. The Indian powers reconciled themselves to this domination because it did not threaten their own political positions on the mainland.

Nor did it adversely affect their income from overseas trade. Hence, the task of undertaking a naval conflict with the Portuguese appeared difficult, uncertain of suc­cess, and likely to yield little financial returns.”

Commenting, Professor Pearson says: “The whole matter shows clearly differing perceptions and inter­ests within the ruling elite of the powerful Indian sultanate of Gujarat.

Those members whose interests were threatened by the Portuguese responded vig­orously. Thus Malik Ayaz, like the Zamorins of Calicut and the Mamluk rulers of Egypt, saw Portuguese demands as intolerable and resisted them, in the Malik’s case successfully.

Similarly, the two Gujarati sieges of 1538 (helped by the Turks and 1546 were financed and led not by the suit” but by nobles who were strongly oriented to s trade, and so found Portuguese control unacceptable.

At the other extreme were the land-oriented rule of Gujarat, and later the Mughal empire, and mo of their nobles. Thus Bahadur in 1535 was hap to give the Portuguese a foothold in Diu in the hope that this would help him face the threat on land fro the Mughals. Later sultans did little to try a reconquer Diu; for them also it was not a vital resource.

The powerful Akbar petitioned for accepted a free cartaz each year. Relations between these sorts of rulers and the Portuguese cannot e really be described as pacific or friendly: con between the two sides was minimal, the Mughal attitude especially being one of neglect and indifference. One demonstration of this is the very references (and those casual), to the Portuguese the very lengthy standard Mughal chronicles.”

To the vast majority of the political e especially those at the head of large land-b empires, it was of not much consequence; it did affect them, even marginally; and so they ignored them or accepted their odious sea-control system when they had to.

It was only a few atypical rulers and governors of seaboard western India who had to bear the brunt of the Portuguese depredations. They put up a resistance, valiant mostly, but usually had not much success.

In medieval or pre-modern times the functions of rulers and political elites were much more limited than what it is in a modern nation state. As the merchants were not protected by the state from the Portuguese, it was no concern of the state what arrangements the merchants made with the Portu­guese to avoid the attacks.

This was not regarded by the land-oriented rulers as infringement on their rights, as poaching on their territories, as interference within their jurisdictions. Bahadur Shah expressed it neatly when he said: “Wars by sea are merchants’ affairs, and of no concern to the prestige of kings.”

The success of the Portuguese in their attacks against the Indians was also due to their superiority in naval warfare as also their effective use of artillery.

The Portuguese ability to withstand siege of their forts on seashores by maintaining supplies from ships was a measure of their overall naval supremacy.

The crucial element was the cannons on the ships; developed in Europe in the fourteenth cen­tury, artillery was used in ships towards the end of that century.