HIDDEN HISTORIES KAVITA PURI on the history of Anglo-Indian relations
INDIA HAS JUST CLINCHED A LANDMARK DEAL with the European Free Trade Association, which it says will result in some tens of billions of pounds of investment in the country. Prime minister Narendra Modi, whose Bharatiya Janata Party is currently campaigning for a third term in power, has called it a “watershed moment”. Meanwhile, trade discussions between India and the UK – after 14 separate rounds of talks – are frozen. The much-talked-of deal, particularly important in the post-Brexit landscape, doesn’t seem likely to happen before the next UK general election. One cannot help thinking – at this moment in time – that the deal is perhaps more important to Britain than India.
Reading about the talks made me think about the first trade mission by England to Mughal India in the early 17th century, sponsored by King James VI & I and funded by the East India Company. England may have been small, but it was commercially ambitious, and was keen to rival Spain and Portugal’s lucrative new overseas trading interests. Sir Thomas Roe, the MP for Tamworth, was sent to India in 1615 to drum up interest in English trade and establish an embassy on the subcontinent. The Mughal empire accounted for 20 per cent of global GDP; England, by contrast, accounted for around 2 per cent.
By the time Roe reached his destination, the East India Company – which had been founded in 1600 – had already established its first home on the subcontinent with a factory in Surat, Gujarat. Roe’s main task was to seek Emperor Jahangir’s support for this venture and negotiate a treaty enabling further trade.
In her fascinating book Courting India, the historian Nandini Das charts the encounters between Roe and the Mughal court, as well as his meetings with Jahangir. In his diaries, Roe describes his talks with the emperor in detail; in Jahangir’s own memoirs, the politician doesn’t get a mention. The power dynamics were clear: Jahangir was, after all, one of the richest men in the world, and ruled over 100 million people from Kabul to Dhaka.
A portrait of Sir Thomas Roe now hangs in the newly refurbished National Portrait Gallery in London, and if you visit the Houses of Parliament, you will also find th
