Long before Indian merchants began populating the Strait of Hormuz, Jagadu Shah—also known as Jagdusha—was already navigating these waters. A 13th-century Jain merchant from Kutch in Gujarat, he owned a fleet of ships that carried him westward to Persia, Arabia, and Africa. Jagdusha, however, was not an isolated figure, but part of a much wider web of Indian Ocean commerce.In an interview with indianexpress.com, historian Radhika Seshan explains that coastal trading networks extended from Gujarat along the Makran coast, around the entrance to the Persian Gulf, and further west toward the Red Sea. “While the precise scale of this trade and the identities of those involved remain uncertain, there is evidence of its deep antiquity: from the third century CE onwards, a Tamil-Brahmi inscription has been found on the island of Socotra, off the coast of Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia).”Within this broader commercial world, Hormuz emerged as a key nodal point. From around the 13th century, its prominence grew steadily, and under the Safavids in the 16th century, it became a crucial strategic centre. Indian merchants, interestingly, appear across nearly all stages of this story.The dawn of commerce in HormuzAccording to author James Onley in The Persian Gulf in Modern Times (2014), “The Gulf’s trade links with India extend back into antiquity, as evidenced by the countless Indian artifacts one finds in Bronze Age archaeological sites (from 2300 to 1000 BC) and modern-day museums in the GCC states, Iraq, and Iran.”While there may have been an Indian mercantile presence in the Gulf since the Bronze Age, the earliest account we have of an Indian community there comes from a 916 AD book by the Arab historian Abu Zayd Hasan, referring to over 100 Hindu merchants at the southern port of Siraf, Iran.Maritime and business historian Chhaya Goswami, speaking with The Indian Express adds, “Maritime linkages between India and the Persian/Arabian Gulf region trace back to the time of the Indus Valley Civilization (ca. 2500–1500 BCE), with the port site of Lothal at the head of the Gulf of Cambay standing as a striking early hub of seafaring activity. Although Gujarat lay beyond the trans‑Indus satrapies recorded in Darius I’s inscription at Naqsh‑e Rostam, there is strong evidence to suggest that maritime trade flourished between the Persian Gulf and Gujarat’s ports during the Achaemenid period, alongside overland commerce channeled through Taxila…” The city and fortress of Hormuz in the 16th century, (Wikipedia)The Jagaducharita, a 13th-century verse text, offers glimpses into the life and trade of Jagdusha on Persian waters. “The Jagaḍūcarita mentions the port of Hormuz on the Persian Gulf, where the merchant prince Jagaḍūsha Datar from Bhadreshwar ( a coastal town in Kachcch) conducted trade with Persia through an Indian agent named Jayantasiṁha stationed there. An inscription also records a Hormuzi nākhudā (ship‑owner) who came to Somnath on business, attesting the importance of maritime links between the Persian Gulf and western India…”Story continues below this adShe adds, “His trading partners from Hormuz regularly visited Bhadreshwar, and Jagaḍū took responsibility for providing them with a space for religious activities. This suggests a reciprocal relationship the merchants relied on Jagaḍū for trade and livelihood, while he, in turn, met their religious and social needs.”During the 14th century and at the beginning of the 15th century, Hormuz came to be known as the most important commercial maritime stopover in the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf region. Academic Mohammad Bagher Vosoughi notes in The Persian Gulf in History (2009), “Hormuz was the only city in the East in which economic activity was accompanied by political independence. The king, the merchants, and the administrative system, in mutual cooperation, facilitated commerce.” Marco Polo with elephants and camels arriving at Hormuz from India (Wikimedia Commons)Goswami says that Marco Polo, in his late thirteenth-century account, describes Hormuz as a bustling port, receiving ships from India laden with textiles, spices, and luxury goods. It reads: “Merchants come thither from India, with ships loaded with spicery and precious stones, pearls, cloths of silk and gold, elephants’ teeth, and many other wares, which they sell to the merchants of Hormos, and which these in turn carry all over the world to dispose of again.”Indian dominance in Gulf tradeMany Indians in the pre-oil Gulf were merchants or members of merchant families. “They can be placed into seven main groups,” writes Onley, “Banians (Hindus and Jains); Khojas, Lawatiyya, Bohras, and Memons (Muslims); and Catholics and Anglicans (Christians).” The vast majority of these merchants originated from the five regions closest to the Gulf—Rajasthan, southwest Punjab, Sindh, Kutch, and Gujarat—although they also had a substantial presence in Bombay by the 19th century.Story continues below this adBetween the 10th and 16th centuries, however, many Indians in the Gulf were Gujarati Jain merchants (known as Shravaks) from Jamnagar, Porbandar, Diu, and Cambay in Gujarat, who accounted for most of the Indian presence in the Gulf before the late 16th century. “The presence of 2,000 Gujarati households, both Hindu and Muslim, on the island gave Hormuz the feel of an Indian city,” writes Onley.The products transported between Iran and India via Hormuz included foodstuffs, aromatic and medicinal drugs, mineral water, various metals, textiles, and jewellery. India exported staple foods such as rice and pulses, wheat, and oil, for which there was considerable demand. The famed raw cotton of western India was also highly sought after in West Asian markets.Also read | From ‘kagaz’ to ‘naan’: How Persian became the ‘English of the era’ and wove itself into India’s cultural DNAThis exchange, however, was not one-sided. “Bullion, woollens, and horses attracted particular attention for India. The exotic special items such as wines, silks, carpets, rosewater, and medicinal gum resin,” notes Goswami in her work Transregional Trade and Traders (2019), “only made the import consignments from West Asia more profitable. However, the chief corollary of the entire trade with West Asia was bullion.” In the 1540s, Onley notes that 46 per cent of Hormuz’s customs revenue came from Indian imports.Vosoughi notes that Hormuz had a customs house called ‘bangsar,’ a word of Hindi origin meaning storehouse. Portuguese historians have also mentioned the active presence of Iranian merchants in Cambay, Calicut, Bengal, and Malacca.Story continues below this ad Pearls, horses, and slavesInterestingly, the Gulf’s most notable exports were pearls, horses, and dates. They were purchased by Indians and taken to India, where they were sold on the world market. Because of this, and the monopoly Indian merchants enjoyed in the Gulf credit market, Indian ports became banking centres for the Gulf—notably Bombay in the 19th and 20th centuries.“In addition, the importation of African and Indian slaves to Hormuz and, most important of all, the export of horses to India should be mentioned,” writes Vosoughi. Since the climate of southern India was not suitable for raising horses, the Bahmanid kings in the northern Deccan and the Hindu kings of the Vijayanagara region were regular customers. He notes in his essay that a horse could fetch a price of up to 300 Ashrafis, equal to 320 Réis. “In 1506, three thousand horses were exported to India and this amount reached ten thousand head in 1567,” he notes. Gujarat, whose location on the northwest coast of India made it a suitable trading partner for Hormuz, was one of the regions that imported horses. 9th-century drawing of a pearl diver (Wikipedia)Marco Polo reportedly noted that Gulf merchants refused to allow horse doctors to travel to India, ensuring that large numbers of the animals died each year and thereby sustained demand. “The horse trade also attracted small ‘pedlars’ like the Russian Afanasio Nikitin who embarked at Hormuz with his horses in a small tava boat bound for India,” writes Onley.The trade in slaves, who were employed in military forces or as servants, also formed part of the commerce between these two regions. In search of better employment opportunities and economic conditions, Iranian youths departed for India from various regions. Vosoughi notes that there were around 10,000 to 12,000 Iranian warriors in the Deccan. In addition to human resources, instruments and equipment used in India’s military affairs were also imported from Hormuz.Story continues below this adAnother group of prominent Indians in the Gulf comprised pearl merchants. Onley explains that Indian pearl merchants visited the main pearling centres of the Gulf during the summer pearling season from May to October—principally Bahrain and, during the Portuguese era, Hormuz and Bandar Kong in Iran, as well as Julfar (Ras al-Khaimah)—where they purchased pearl harvests from their Arab and Persian counterparts. Hormuz in the age of the PortugueseDuring the 15th century, on the eve of the arrival of the Portuguese in the East, Hormuz enjoyed such a high status that the reputation of its wealth enticed Europeans. “The merchants and traders of the different areas of the region, whether Iranian, Arab, Indian, or African, engaged in commercial transactions in a peaceful environment. Above all, the economy and society of Hormuz during the fifteenth century had a multinational character,” writes Vosoughi. According to Seshan, “It is a classic example of an island with virtually no natural resources of its own—so much so that the Portuguese described it as a ‘barren rock.’ Yet, its strategic significance grew immensely under their control.”Tomé Pires, one of the first Portuguese visitors to Hormuz at the beginning of the 16th century, writes, “This city has beautiful walls and houses with terraces and beautiful towers and citadel and is one of the four largest cities of Asia…”. Dinner in a Portuguese household at Hormuz (Wikipedia)A notable feature of the 16th– and 17th-century Gulf was that the vast majority of Indians came from Gujarat. Interestingly, the Arabs had adopted the term Banian from the Gujarati word for merchant, vaniyo. The Portuguese adopted the term in the 16th century, and when the English, Dutch, and French arrived in the 17th century, they too adopted it. Some of the wealthiest Banians were also sarrafin, lending money and providing credit to Arab and Persian Muslims.Story continues below this adHowever, the Portuguese presence soon posed a threat to the merchant base. In The World of the Indian Ocean Merchant (2001), a compilation of essays by the late Professor Ashin Das Gupta, he notes that “The Gujaratis were rising to commercial prominence, but not always and not necessarily fighting the Portuguese.” He explains that Gujarat’s expanding trade at this time accepted Portuguese control when unavoidable and defied Portuguese regulation when possible. “Thus a Gujarati vessel would normally keep a Portuguese cartaz [naval trade licence], but once out in the open sea would not necessarily obey the cartaz. This, in a nutshell, was the Gujarati response to the Portuguese in the sixteenth century.”Seshan argues, “In 1622, a joint English–Safavid force attacked and captured the port of Hormuz. After this, it came entirely under Safavid control, and while Hormuz remained important, its geopolitical significance declined somewhat compared to its pivotal role under the Portuguese.” This shift drove Hormuz’s Indian community to nearby Bandar Abbas and Muscat. Following the fall of Hormuz, Bandar Abbas’s population rose to 1,400-1,500 houses by 1670, of which one-third belonged to Indians, mainly Banians.The shifting fortunes of Gulf trade“The fall of Portuguese Hormuz and the establishment of Bandar Abbas in the 1620s opened the Persian Gulf more effectively than before to the merchants of this Coromandel port,” writes Das Gupta. An added impetus to expansion was provided by the desolation of Gujarat during the famine of 1630-32.“Over time,” says Goswami, “Basra (in present-day Iraq) emerged alongside Bushehr and Bandar Abbas (in present-day Iran) as the three principal ports of the Persian Gulf. Together, they became the main arteries of maritime trade and the broader amphibious network in the region.”Story continues below this ad English and Dutch trading posts in Bandar Abbas in 1704 (Wikipedia)Her research indicates that Gomrun/Gombroon/Bandar Abbas is chiefly interesting because, although it was once a prominent port, by the mid-eighteenth century it had lost much of its significance. The European powers had retreated, and after Nader Shah’s death in 1747, general disorder dramatically altered the balance of power and trade in the Gulf. Following the death of Karim Khan Zand, of the Zand dynasty of Iran, in 1779, Persian control weakened rapidly as the country descended into civil war. The three major ports of the Persian Gulf i.e.Bandar Abbas, Bushehr, , and Basra, experienced significant decline. By the late 18th century, the Persian Shah’s control over ports, islands, and coastal districts along the Gulf had further eroded, “While this was not a total collapse, political records clearly indicate a marked weakening of authority. In such turbulent times Muscat was in ascendance..,” she says. The Gulf increasingly became a theatre of conflict, with Arab powers taking the lead in controlling the straits and much of the maritime trade. Seshan, concluding her interview, cautions, “Narrow channels are always at strategic risk. These points act as pivotal chokepoints, making them inherently susceptible to attack,” yet reminding us that sea transport is far cheaper than land transport, and goods transported overland at prohibitive cost arrive late or fail to move efficiently.“Maritime openness is therefore essential to sustain world trade and global momentum. History repeatedly teaches this lesson, yet it is often forgotten—except by those in power who realise that controlling these chokepoints allows them to monopolise commerce,” she adds.