Page 8 - K M PANNIKAR and The Growth of a Maritime Consciousness in India

CONCEPT NOTE

K.M. Panikkar played a formative role in orienting independent India to think
about the need of developing a maritime perspective. His seminal works such
as “The Strategic Problems of the Indian Ocean” (1944), “India and the Indian
Ocean” (1945) and the classic “Asia and Western Dominance” (1953) amongst
others may be seen as the precursors of current narratives that underline the
need for equibalance in India’s maritime and continental perspectives.

Panikkar’s perspectives on India’s maritime past drew both on the experience
of British dominance in the Indian Ocean and on the rich and long history
of Indian presence across the vast expanse of these waters and beyond. The
numerous facets of Panikkar’s personality: as a writer and historian, as a
diplomat, and as a statesman also need due emphasis. His seminal historical
and literary works influenced contemporary thought and perceptions
particularly independent India’s maritime consciousness. His role as an official
in the princely States of Bikaner, Kashmir and Patiala and as India’s Ambassador
to China, Egypt and France and later his short but significant political role as
a Member of the Rajya Sabha and the States Reorganisation Commission left a
significant legacy which merits revisiting and recall.
A period of 450 years from the arrival of Vasco da Gama in Calicut in 1498 has
been highlighted as a separate epoch of history by Panikkar in his classic “Asia
and Western Dominance” (1953). The phase which he refers to as the ‘Vasco da
Gama epoch’ may have undergone different stages and developments; however,
it was marked by singular unity in its fundamental aspect that is domination
of Asia by European powers. The Battle of Diu and Battle of Cochin were thus
significant in changing the course of history in the region and heralding an era
of Atlantic dominance over the Indian Ocean. European power and influence,
from Portuguese to Dutch and later from France to Britain, originally confined
to trade had become predominantly political by the end of the 18th century.
The extra regional power balance in the Indian Ocean Region, which deeply
interested Panikkar, remains of interest to this day in view of its impact on
Asian, and indeed global, geo politics.
The shift from Atlantic to Pacific powers’ dominating in the Indian Ocean
region with the decline of British control and the rise of Japanese, US (and
now Chinese) maritime assertion in the region needs attention. As Panikkar
described it, the growth of these powerful naval powers in the Pacific
revolutionised the naval competition in the Indian Ocean. This also provides the
backdrop for the contemporary 21st century geopolitical churning in the region
as the global strategic and economic attention shifts from Euro-Atlantic to the
Indo-Pacific region and it becomes important to look at the Indian Ocean in the
context of the expanded maritime geography of a broader Indo-Pacific.

8 K M Panikkar and the Growth of a Maritime Consciousness in India