Indian Ocean Imperialism

Throughout its long life, European imperialism in the Indian Ocean was successful under popular assumption that not only did it gain political and economic dominance, but it also fractured the cultural unity that existed among its indigenous people by the 18th century. However, Sugata Bose, in A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire, (London: Harvard University Press, 2006), argues that the Indian Ocean kept its edge and rigor in times of globalization through a kaleidoscope of activities and interregional connections that existed within what he calls the “Indian Ocean arena.” As expressed by Bose, the Indian Ocean had maintained its validity under colonialism through activities and connections of people working within it. With the use of primary sources and accounts Bose accumulated in the archives and libraries in different cities within the Indian Ocean, he argues that these …show more content…
Bose traces the pilgrimage of the Bengali poet, Rabindranath Tagore and connects his observations with the idea of universalism. According to Bose, Tagore’s pilgrimage to Iran was the most important because it was there Tagore witnessed the unity of the Indo-Persian culture. Visiting the tombs of the Persian poets, Hafiz and Saadi, Tagore sought to trace the lineaments of universal brotherhood of Sufi poets bridging the Arabian Sea” (235). The trip to Iran had brought to light a sense of universalism based on similar historical links and cultural heritage. According to Bose, Tagore’s voyages weave together cultural and religious similarities and actually reunite them with what they once were in the pre-modern times. And Bose concludes with the idea that whether or not the economic and political unity of the Indian Ocean was interrupted by European globalization, the religious and cultural bonds within the arena preserved its