Sailing Ships, Naval Expeditions and ‘Project Mausam’

In recent years, sailing ships of the Indian Navy have been increasingly involved in diplomatic missions and cultural voyages across the world, in addition to their primary purpose of providing practical training in navigation techniques and seamanship. These three-masted barques built at the Goa Shipyard and used by the Indian Navy are very different from wooden sailing vessels that traversed the Indian Ocean in the premodern period prior to the development of steamship navigation in the nineteenth century. Nonetheless, these distinctions have often been blurred as these modern naval ships have been utilised to recreate historical ‘expeditions’ such as the much-celebrated Chola invasion of Srivijaya in the Indonesian archipelago. Nor is India the only country to be involved in promoting this ‘popular history’ for contemporary geopolitical interests, as is evident from China’s efforts to rebuild ships used in the Voyages of Admiral Zheng He across the Indian Ocean. What gets short shrift in the process is investment in research in underwater archaeology and the discovery and preservation of shipwreck sites. This article highlights the urgent need for interdisciplinary research in premodern shipping and seafaring activity beyond the rhetoric of valorising national heroes.