Was there ever an Indian colonisation of Southeast Asia, or was it a nationalist mirage? When Radha Kumud Mukherjee advanced this claim in 1912, he was not merely writing history but reclaiming pride under colonial rule. Yet the sharp critiques that followed, both Indian and European, expose how deeply historical narratives are shaped by power, politics, and the anxieties of their age.
In the evolution of a maritime consciousness in modern India, Radha Kumud Mukherjee’s book on Indian shipping has a central position. Published in 1912, its full title is: Indian Shipping: A History of Sea-Borne Trade and Maritime Activity of the Indians from the Earliest Times. It predates the better-known and iconic Asia and Western Dominance (1953) of K M Panikkar by four decades and is therefore a real pioneer in the field of maritime scholarship in India.
The context in which Indian Shipping was written and published is provided by the outrage at and ferment generated by the 1905 partition of Bengal, and also the ripple effects of the Japanese defeat of Tsarist Russia in major naval engagements the same year. In brief, both Nationalism and an incipient Pan Asian sentiment contextualise Indian Shipping.