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Piracy

Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Kunhali Marakkars from the Malabar coast in India are known locally for their extensive naval battles against the Portuguese Estado da Índia in the sixteenth century.From the 1520s until 1599, many members of the family took up arms against the Portuguese not only along the Malabar and Konkan coasts, but also across Coromandel and Gujarat coasts.The Portuguese authorities consistently identified them as corsairs and pirates to be eliminated, while the local rulers of Calicut appointed them as admirals and honored them with titles and gifts.Despite an anticlimactic turn in which the Portuguese and the Calicut rulers united against them, European sources continued to describe the Marakkars across centuries as corsairs and pirates of Malabar, while they remained venerated by local communities as pioneers who resisted European intrusions and defended their land and sea. 1 Even more, in recognition of their struggle for the country, the postcolonial Indian Navy commemorated their legacy with a memorial erected in Calicut and named an establishment in Mumbai as INS Kunhali.These contrasting makings of heroes and corsairs out of the same people encapsulate the conundrum of piracy in the Indian Ocean.Piracy has a unique trajectory in premodern oceanic history, as it does not present as clear a picture as one might imagine.Such layered perspectives on piracy, beyond blanket generalizations, are captured in The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty, which tells the story of the titular character set across the northwestern Indian Ocean in the mid-twelfth century.1. On the different takes on Kunhali Marakkars, see O. K. Nambiar, The Kunjalis: Admirals of Calicut (London:
DOI: 10.52214/uw.v33i.14154
Language: English
Subfield: Anthropology
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4416247243
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