"Janakye Bai’s Story in New Colours: Velip Oral Traditions Illustrated" in the JOÃO ROQUE LITERARY JOURNAL (February 2025)

The illustrated book The Story of Janakye Bai (Goa 1556, 2026) chronicles a tale that has been passed down over several generations amongst Velip people, one of Goa’s Indigenous communities. The story revolves around Janakye bai, a girl who chooses to run away from home rather than resign herself to a fate she refuses to accept. This book appears in two editions, one in Velip Konkani and the other in English. Vithai Zaraunker, a member of the Velip community and an Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies at the D. D. Kosambi School of Social Sciences and Behavioural Studies at Goa University, envisioned this book project which records the story of Janakye bai as narrated by Leelavati Zaraunkar and Sita Vaiz. Salil Chaturvedi translated the tale, which has been illustrated by Asavari Gurav.

As Zaraunker explains in her introduction to the book, The Story of Janakye Bai emerges from a project titled “Old Songs, New Stories: Tales from the Velips of Goa,” which was sanctioned by Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi under the programme for Safeguarding the Intangible Cultural Heritage of India. In 2014, Zaraunker participated in this mission as an independent researcher under the guidance of the late Professor Alito Sequeira of Goa University. This gave Zaraunker the opportunity to document the story that would become this illustrated book.

The development of the book occurred in a joint venture instituted by Goa University and Japan’s Konan University. Professor Kyoko Matsukawa who teaches at Konan created a consultancy that would allow Zaraunker to produce the book as part of the scheme, Anthropological Research on Education and Voicing of Self-Narratives and Multi-Media in Goa. Indeed, this anthropological approach and multi-media focus are mirrored in the book which, aside from the illustrated narrative, contains QR codes that allow readers to listen to recordings of songs associated with the oral tradition from which the story arises.

The Story of Janakye Bai highlights the importance of storytelling and oral tradition in Velip and other indigenous communities, not only for cultural and linguistic reasons, but also to challenge conceptions of tribal identity and ideas of what constitute Goanness. These are some of the matters Zaraunker considers in this interview.

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RBF: I am assuming that you grew up hearing of Janakye bai from the time you were young. What is your first memory of this story?

VZ: Yes, I grew up listening to this story. My mother Leelavati Zaraunkar narrated it to me as a child. At the end of telling me the story she used to say, “Look Janakye bai is there on the moon.” This is my first memory of the story.

RBF: In your introduction to the illustrated book, you explain how you first chronicled the Janakye bai story as part of the anthropological project “Old Songs, New Stories: Tales from the Velips of Goa.” This was an academic study and you are also a researcher and professor. Yet, in this iteration, the tale of Janakye bai is relayed to us in the shape of an illustrated text, one that “translates” its orality into writing while adding the visual element of pictures (along with a way to hear the songs that are traditionally part of the telling of this story). Why this form and who are the audiences you hope it will reach? 

VZ: I am hoping to reach the Indigenous community, young people especially. Many members of the
community may not be comfortable with formal academic writing. Some do not read or write fluently. I wanted the story to be accessible even to someone who simply turns the pages and looks at the images. The visual element allows the narrative to be understood beyond the barrier of literacy.

For instance, when I showed the book to my mother, Leelavati Zaraunkar, who is one of the narrators of the story as it appears in the book, she immediately connected with it. She recognised various scenes from the tale through the illustrations. She could relate the images to the oral story she carries within her memory. That moment confirmed for me that this form was necessary. The book was not alien to her; it spoke to her.

The inclusion of illustrations and the possibility of listening to the songs helps keep the essence of the performative and oral dimensions of the story. It does not treat the oral narrative as something to be “fixed” in text alone. Instead, it attempts to translate orality into writing while still respecting its rhythm and visual imagination.

Today, many young people from the Velip community are distanced from oral traditions. Due to stigmatisation and discrimination, tribal identity is often perceived negatively by non-tribal communities. Oral traditions are treated as primitive or backward. As a result, youngsters feel that learning or listening to these stories is not valuable.

I speak from experience. Growing up, I faced discrimination within educational spaces because of my language, social background, and community identity. I was repeatedly made to feel that the way my community dressed, lived, or spoke was inferior. I learned very early on how to remain silent, how to blend in, and how to hide my identity in order to survive in educational institutions. It was only during my postgraduate studies, when I encountered concepts like othering and orientalism, that I understood these experiences were not personal failures. They were outcomes of dominant knowledge systems that construct certain identities as inferior. That realisation changed how I looked at my community. I began to see my community not as one that is lacking knowledge, but that is rich in its own systems of wisdom, values, and lived histories.

This illustrated book is therefore also an intervention. It tells young people: your stories matter. Your language matters. The way you speak, the way you sing matters. Your identity is not something to hide. By presenting the story in a visually engaging and accessible form, I hope young people from my community can see their traditions and themselves represented with dignity.

At a time when these oral traditions are on the verge of extinction due to stigma and discrimination, the book becomes a bridge—between generations, between orality and print, between community and academia. So, this form is not merely aesthetic. It is political. It is ethical.

RBF: “The Velip language has been spoken for a long time … in Goa … Our language is also Konkani, but it has no status among the various Konkanis … Our Konkani is not known as Konkani but as a ‘tribal dialect,’” you underscore in your introduction.

Much has been made politically about Goan identity and its connection to the status of varying forms of the Konkani language, especially with regard to the differing official categorizations of Romi versus Nagri tongues and scripts. So also, when it comes to literary expression in Goa, there is a contentious history of the sidelining of Romi-scripted works, most notably in how the state chooses to render its support.

In the midst of this, what you point to is how Velip Konkani does not even factor into such debates when the language is dismissed as being a “tribal dialect.” If on the one hand efforts like The Story of Janakye Bai demonstrate diverse types of literary and linguistic traditions in Goa, on the other hand, it also draws attention very specifically to the stigmatization of Goan tribal identity and its representation.

This brings up two questions for me. The first is what might a project like this, one that comes from the community itself, do to counter the marginalization of Velip people and other Indigenous Goans? And the second question has to do with the book being produced in two languages: what does translation do to expand upon how Velip identity may be represented and preserved?

VZ: I would like to begin with the first query. We must first ask: how have Indigenous people been constructed through literature and scholarship? For a long time, mainstream scholarship has defined us as backward, primitive, illiterate, and without knowledge. Our struggles, our resistance are rarely recognised. When our knowledge systems are acknowledged at all, they are often reduced to “folktales,” stripped of their political, historical, and epistemic depth.

The Story of Janakye Bai directly challenges this dominant portrayal of the Velip community as silent, passive, or voiceless. We are not voiceless. We are not silent. What exists is a failure of dominant scholarship to listen, and a failure of academic systems to take Indigenous narratives seriously. This work was guided by critical questions such as: Why have stories like the one about Janakye bai never appeared in scholarly writings on the community? Why do such narratives remain confined within the community, even though the community itself has been extensively researched? Why are stories of exploitation absent from academic records? Why have histories of Indigenous resistance consistently not been recognised? Why are tribal knowledge systems dismissed merely as folklore?

When a project like this comes from within the community, it speaks to lived experience rather than about it. That itself becomes a powerful counterpoint to marginalisation.

I now come to your second question regarding translation and the book being produced in two languages. The translated version is meant for readers who may not understand Velip Konkani. It enables tribal literature and knowledge systems to reach a wider audience—academics, policymakers, students, and readers beyond the community. Translation, in that sense, becomes a bridge. It expands visibility and invites recognition. At the same time, publishing the Velip Konkani version is equally, if not more, significant. In dominant discourse, Velip Konkani is dismissed as a “tribal dialect.” It does not even enter debates about scripts or linguistic status in Goa. It remains invisible within conversations about identity and language politics. Bringing out the Velip Konkani version is therefore a political move.

The mainstream may marginalize Velip Konkani, but I see the sustenance of the language as an act of resistance. Printing it, preserving it, and circulating it affirms its legitimacy. It tells young people in the community that their language is worthy of print and worthy of intellectual respect. A book like this dignifies the language and expands the representation of the Indigenous communities of Goa. This project thus challenges the structures that have marginalised Indigenous communities in Goa.

RBF: This book has many components: the gathering and synthesization of assorted narrations of the Janakye bai story, illustration, translation, and the inclusion of songs via QR codes. How long did it take to make all this happen? What challenges did you face in the process?

VZ: A primary concern was about adequately representing the community with respect while keeping in mind the existing stereotypes about the community. With this in mind, I adopted a different approach, especially in how I wanted the illustrations to be produced. Since I know the Velip community is embedded in nature, I wanted the illustrations to reflect this. Working with the illustrator, I ensured that the illustrations would represent the way we are and the way we see ourselves rather than how others see us stereotypically. This required continuous engagement with the artist so as to deconstruct notions and ensure that the way the illustrations were done would counter the marginalization of Indigenous people. I had many challenges when I was working with the artist as they had their own perception about the community.

QR codes are included so that readers can hear the songs alongside the story. When one listens to the songs at the same time as they read the lyrics in the book, there is a difference. The character shift or addition or deletion of details happens in each telling depending upon the mood and environment of the storyteller. Therefore, oral traditions cannot be fixed in written form. To make people know and understand their importance, the QR codes allow readers to listen to the songs.

Translation was not an easy process, though. This work was translated through the use of a third language, which in this case was Hindi. The work was translated by Salil Chaturvedi, who does not know Konkani. Hence, the work was translated by Salil and me: we would sit together and, first, I would translate each word into English and then translate entire paragraphs or songs into Hindi for Salil. In turn, he would translate the Hindi text into English.

Before Salil, I had tried working with a person who knows Konkani. However, this translator could write and speak standard Konkani, but not Velip Konkani. Because this person was not familiar with Velip vocabulary, the whole meaning of a sentence would change. In one instance, the work “nagn,” which means marriage, was translated as “naked.” So, as I discovered, sending the content to someone who does not know Velip Konkani could lead to misinterpretations. Thus, translation was the biggest challenge. It took us almost a year.

RBF: I want to come to the text itself. Incest, as your introduction declares, is central to the Janakye bai story but, of course, it is not something exclusive to any community. The book deals with this issue very carefully through a feminist perspective. I see the story as offering girls and women a viewpoint that challenges patriarchy and not simply accepting things just for the sake of maintaining peaceable relations at home. At the same time, this must have been a delicate matter to consider. How has the book been received by the community?

VZ: Yes, of course the story had to be communicated with care because it is about incest. Before someone reads the story, as already declared in my introduction, the story is about incest and the Velip community resists incest. Incest is seen as a sin in the community. Janakye bai therefore is a symbol of resistance. Her story is a message to young girls about how to uphold their dignity, regardless of who they may have to contend with. Even if it is your family, you have the right to choose and you are an agent of your own life. When your freedom is in danger, you have every right to resist.

This book has not yet reached the community widely. I have not gotten any reaction to the question that you have asked about how the book has been received by the community. It will take time to learn this. However, I have received feedback from young members of the community with whom I shared an interview that was done with me about the book and that was published in The Navhind Times (23 January, 2026). Based on the interview, many of the educated youth from my community said they thought this was a great effort.

 

RBF: Late into its development, Janakye bai transforms into a member of the Mhar community so that she may visit her family. This is very striking because a celestial being allows her the opportunity to take on any form of her choosing but, even so, she deliberately asks to become a Dalit person rather than someone of a higher caste or status. There is an equation here between communities—tribal and Dalit peoples. What should readers make of this likening of Goa’s marginalized communities?

VZ: First, it points to an important social reality: tribal societies do not have caste divisions in the way caste society does. The very idea of caste order is something that tribal communities historically did not practise; rather, it was learned and imposed through continued interaction with caste-based society. Janakye bai’s transformation makes evident this division and, at the same time, critiques how caste enters and restructures social life.

Second, Janakye bai’s choice to become a member of the Mhar community can be read as an acknowledgment that tribal and Dalit lives—while shaped by different histories—share similar experiences of exclusion, and marginalisation in Goa. The story identifies that everyday experiences of discrimination, exploitation, and social humiliation are not isolated across the tribal and Dalit communities.

The likening of tribal and Dalit identities in this moment is therefore not accidental. It is a powerful statement that oppression does not function in separated categories. Instead, these are overlapping social realities. The story reminds readers that marginalised communities are often divided and classified differently by dominant systems, even when their lived situations are connected.

In that sense, the narrative offers a message both to readers and to the communities themselves: oppressed castes and Indigenous peoples should not be seen as essentially disconnected. Their struggles interconnect, and recognising this shared ground opens up the possibility of unity rather than division.

Janakye bai’s choice, even when she is free to assume any form, becomes an ethical and political gesture. It affirms self-respect in identities that dominant society devalues, and it challenges hierarchies that place some lives above others.

RBF: Finally, what is next for you? Will you be doing more work with Velip oral culture?

VZ: Yes. I have transcribed more than ten stories from the community so far. These stories are not merely stories but, rather, are the knowledge system of the community. I say this because when there was no formal school available for the children from the community, these stories were used to communicate moral values, freedom, and agency to the children. Hence, according to me, we do not get knowledge only from schools or educational institutions—we also get knowledge from our elders and communities.

From the João Roque Literary Journal. 

"'Outrage and Success go Hand in Hand': Stand-up Comedian Daniel Fernandes on Trauma and Controversy" in SCROLL (24 February 2026)

 

Daniel Fernandes’ stand-up shows and YouTube videos have led the comedian to deal with a fair bit of controversy. Yet, it is his attention to contemporary events that brings nuance to his comedic observations about society and politics, public and online life, and even free speech. Last year, the stand-up comic was once again in the news when he was served a notice by two Supreme Court lawyers that requested he take down a clip from one of his shows where his routine included, among other things, observations about goings-on in Kashmir.

Fernandes stood his ground, explaining in a post on social media that in a time when there is a global “trend of stifling voices, … [l]aughter wields a certain kind of power … that might make certain groups of people uneasy…” Even so, he stressed that the intent of his comedy “is never to change [people’s] point of view … I just enjoy talking about stuff that makes us uncomfortable and maybe offer some perspective. I am not important - politicians and the citizens they serve are.” 

Caste, religion, and gender are all fair game in the comedian’s repertoire. Nevertheless, this is not material that Fernandes takes on simply to get a rise out of his audience, his approach to these subjects demonstrating humor laced with analysis, even careful research. But the wry, cerebral touch Fernandes brings to his comedic artistry is balanced with more than a bit of ribaldry and raunch, for sex, salaciousness, and sex-positivity all feature in his entertainment.

Fernandes’ crowd-work is equally skilled: attendees of his shows are playfully skewered without being mercilessly shamed. Notably, while he may send up his audiences, the performer also turns his gaze upon himself, particularly with regard to matters concerning mental health.

In this interview, Fernandes discusses his latest and upcoming shows with Scroll (his new multi-city domestic and international tour kicks off on 20 February). The comedian reflects on his process, choice of topics, and his relationship with his audiences. Additionally, he also talks about his brushes with controversy, how the internet has affected comedy, and what his fans may expect of him in the near future.

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RBF: So, what’s a good Goan Christian boy like you doing in a profession like this?

DF: If you want God-given talent, you have to go to Church 😊.

RBF: What do you have against self-identified “Motivational Influencers”?

DF: I find it very hard to take directions from people who haven’t travelled to my destination. A lot of these “motivational influencers” come from privileged backgrounds whose biggest trauma might be caused by their parents cancelling a European summer holiday. How could they ever relate to the struggle of the common man? You want to take life advice from that guy?

RBF: In your shows, you are open about being in therapy but also about issues of mental health more generally. These would have been taboo themes in the past. What has changed in this regard, socially, and what role do you see comedy playing in facilitating more open discussions about mental well-being?

DF: I am open with my struggles regarding mental health because I need a creative outlet to deal with my condition. It also helps that we as a society have finally woken up to how damaged we are because of generational trauma that has been handed down as inheritance. Add to that a highly capitalistic system that traps you in an endless cycle of exploitation (aka jobs) where burnout is masked as hustle and worn with a badge of honor. As a result, we as artists have a ready audience of anxious, depressed and broken people who need an outlet for everything they’re dealing with. Nobody is okay. And that’s okay.

RBF: This year began with many adopting the 2016 challenge on social media. What would 2026 Daniel Fernandes say to his earlier self?

DF: 2016 Daniel is very pleased. 2026 Daniel says, “We’re just getting started.”

RBF: You have been very vocal in your support of Palestinians, bringing humor to your observations about their displacement, their political struggle, and the violence they experience. Often, the use of humor can aid the avoidance of heavy subjects, yet you have been able to do the opposite. How do you find your audiences reacting to this approach?

DF: Comedy is about frequency. I feel my audience and I are on similar wavelengths which is why we are able to get into a room together and laugh at things that would make most people uncomfortable. I believe as an artist you must find your voice before you find your audience. I am thankful that I have a growing tribe of people who enjoy my work while I attempt the former.

RBF: The internet has expanded the reach of comedians, yet it also means that a controversial joke – especially if it has to do with religion or politics – may be amplified, misinterpreted, or weaponized. You are no stranger to such occurrences and, rather than sweep them under the rug, in your shows, you have been known to remind your audiences of such episodes! Are you a glutton for punishment?

DF: Outrage and success go hand in hand in Indian comedy. Given what I talk about on stage, if I didn’t piss a few people off, I’d be very disappointed with myself. An important distinction to note here is that I do not set out to offend anyone. I just like talking about the world we live in and not everybody enjoys their biases being challenged. Add fiber optic internet and unprocessed trauma to the equation, and you have a very volatile online audience. It’s an occupational hazard I don’t give much thought to.

RBF: Crowd-work or observational comedy. Do you have a preference?

DF: Both require skills that often complement each other so it’s hard to have a preference. I enjoy how written jokes land just as much as the ones I come up with in the moment. Crowd-work done right feels like magic because the comedian is dropping punchlines out of thin air with little to no prep. At the same time a very astute observation that’s crafted into an excellent joke leaves the audience thinking, “How did I not see this? It was right there!” To get nearly as good as the room demands for both these styles, you have to be a good joke writer first, and that takes a while.

RBF: Death, family, inter-generational trauma and conflict, the pandemic and collective trauma, and your relationship with your late father are some of the fun topics that come up in Do You Know Who I Am? What would you like your audience to take away from this show?

DF: Do You Know Who I Am? (the show I’m currently touring) is an exercise in processing loss. I relive everything I went through during my father’s passing every time I perform these jokes. I also know that my audience is grieving – the loss of a loved one, a friendship, a career, or the box of stash they can’t seem to find, and I guess if I can show them the funny side of the pain they’re in, maybe it won’t hurt that much. It worked for me.

RBF: Your latest tour begins in India and then expands abroad with several dates in Europe. Are you going to any new cities this time around? Is there a location you’re looking forward to visiting? How do you prepare for new places?

DF: The European leg of my tour includes first performances in cities like Luxembourg, Gent, Eindhoven, Rotterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Lisbon, Riga, Helsinki and Tallin while also returning to favorites Amsterdam and Utrecht. I’m looking forward to having my endurance tested.

Preparation in terms of performance is minimal. I write material that translates easily across borders. The European audience is going to watch the same show I’m touring in India, as is. The only real prep needed here is me packing the right amount of winter clothing.

RBF: A lot of your set has to do with topical situations. Do you still work in political goings on in India into your international performances?

DF: I talk about Indian politics only if it’s relevant to an international audience. My set has much more to offer otherwise.

RBF: From past experience, how have your European audiences differed from ones at home in their reaction to your comedy?

DF: At live shows, Indians are more energetic compared to Europeans. The laughs are bigger and the applause is thunderous. As a performer you have to calibrate your expectations accordingly while performing abroad. But what the Europeans lack in volume, they make up for in exchange rate. 

RBF: “How would you feel if someone made fun of you after you died?,” you ask in your YouTube special, Alive and Vaccinated (2023). Along those lines, how would you like to look back on what I hope will be a long-lived career and what might audiences expect from you in the years to come?

DF: My nervous system willing, I’d like to keep building a global audience and continue touring as much as I can. I’ll save some time for self-reflection only after I’m gone.

For now, I would like to expect audiences to watch me perform across India from 20 February to 21 March followed by dates in Europe from 2-24 April. You can find ticketing details on my Instagram account @absolutelydanny and here.

"Why Dhows continue to Sail into the Future: Nidhi Mahajan on her Book, Moorings" in SCROLL (21 September 2025)

 Dhows, we might imagine, are wooden sea vessels of yore, legendary in their circumnavigation of the waters of the subcontinent and beyond. Yet, as Nidhi Mahajan offers in her new book, Moorings: Voyages of Capital across the Indian Ocean, these sailboats are very much part of the contemporary world, its economy and even its politics.

Mahajan follows the travels of sailors and their boats to understand how the mobility of people, goods, and even their crafts, contribute to the makings and limitations of sovereignty in commerce and finance. Within this, climate change, labor relations, patronage, risk management, faith, and family all play their part. While Mahajan’s book may be about oceanic travel and trade, it also reckons with the politics of the lands seafarers have ties to and are sometimes unmoored from. These include South Asia, the Emirates, East Africa, and Iran among others.

An Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at University of California, Santa Cruz, this is Nidhi Mahajan’s first book. It is available to read, open access, at the University of California Press website. In this interview with R. Benedito Ferrão, Mahajan discusses her over decade-long research that led to Moorings and why sea-based dhow trade continues to be an important indication of the times we live in.

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RBF: What led you to the study of dhows and trade in the Indian Ocean world?

NM: When I first began my doctoral dissertation research in 2007, I wanted to examine contemporary connections between South Asia and East Africa. This interest was fostered through early travel with family to Kenya, and courses I took as an undergraduate that gave me  historical context to why I, as someone who was born and raised in Bombay, felt immediately at home in Kenya. Given the long histories of mobility between these two littorals, or coastal areas, as a PhD student in Anthropology, I was interested in examining the shape of these connections in the contemporary moment, and how Indian Ocean trade continued in the margins of states through small-scale traders.

While I was aware of the long history of the illegalization of dhows on the Swahili coast, at the time, I had no sense of the structure or scale of the trade in the present. But I did know that I wanted to travel and live in Kenya for research. I was interested in seeing Indian Ocean connections not from South Asia, which has often been treated as a center for these histories, but from East Africa, especially port cities such as Mombasa and Lamu that have been viewed as more peripheral to structuring the Indian Ocean system of trade and commerce.

At the time, I knew that vahans (a type of mechanized sailing vessel or dhow from Kachchh) still visited East Africa but did not know how to enter this world. When I arrived in Mombasa in 2011 to do long-term fieldwork, a dhow from Mandvi had just docked at Mombasa’s Old Port. My host in Mombasa, Mohamed Mchulla, an archeologist, insisted that I should interview the sailors. With a research permit from the Kenya Port Authority, I got access to the port and met the sailors, who were just as surprised to see me, as I was them.

The sailors welcomed me onboard as they were curious about a young woman from India working in Mombasa. The captain, a Bhadala from Mandvi, whom I call Yusuf in the book, and the rest of the crew saw me as a naïve, young girl and took me under their wing. Despite differences of class, caste, and gender, we became fast friends as they invited me to spend afternoons eating lunch with them on board. Besides, we were all new arrivals in Mombasa and together tried to navigate the city. Their hospitality, our shared homesickness, and unfamiliarity with Mombasa created a bond that transformed over time, into friendship and patronage.

In fact, hospitality was a key practice through which these sailors dealt with strangers, whether government officials, merchants or anthropologists. Patronage too, was a familiar form in which labor in the trade is structured. This initial encounter onboard a dhow from Mandvi altered the course of my research. Yusuf became a key interlocutor for me, and as my research focus changed to the contemporary vahan trade, he insisted that to understand it, I would have to be as mobile and itinerant as the vahan itself, becoming moored and unmoored in different port cities.

Yusuf suggested that I interview dhow owners such as his seth, the owner of the vessel, in Bombay; visit seafaring families and Sufi shrines in Mandvi and Jam Salaya; understand how policies in ports such as Mundra and Tuna functioned in India; and compare these to the dhow ports of Sharjah and Dubai in the UAE and to their connections to Somalia. My early interests and encounter with the dhow in Mombasa thus forged a whole new voyage across the Indian Ocean. 

 

RBF: In your book, you remark that “[t]he Indian Ocean arena—long a space of connection across difference—is a particularly poignant place from which to think of encoun­ters.” You note that “India and East Africa have had a long history of cross-cultural contact, dating back to at least the ninth century,” with dhows and their crews playing a key role in forging these connections. As you point out, “Indian seafarers have long had a presence in East Africa, predating European contact. Hindu and Muslim Indian merchants and seafarers were crucial intermediaries for European and non-European imperial powers in East Africa, including the Portuguese, the Omanis, and the British.”

Despite this, “scholars have largely focused on Indian merchants in East Africa and not seafarers,” an oversight your book seeks to correct. What does this shift, emerging from an oceanic point of view, allow us to understand differently about the contact and relations between different cultures and regions?

NM: While scholars have focused on merchants who traveled and lived in different parts of the Indian Ocean, especially Gujarati merchants in East Africa, the seafarers who brought them there have largely been studied historically. For instance, historian Abdul Sheriff has argued that dhow sailors were crucial to forging cosmopolitanism across the Indian Ocean as they carried goods, ideas and people across the Indian Ocean. Dependent on the monsoon winds, these sailors lived for months on end in different port cities, and would often even have a wife in each port. While this was also true of some Indian merchants, power dynamics at play were rather different.

While merchants would come to settle in different parts of the Indian Ocean, sailors were always more itinerant, and they had a different kind of relationship to local populations whether in East Africa or elsewhere. Unlike merchants in East Africa, such as the figure of the shopkeeper or dukawalla who came to be viewed as exploitative or an intermediary for British commercial interests, the sailor (especially if he did not own the dhow) was always working-class. In the ports where these itinerant sailors would live and work, they mingled with a diverse cast of characters—whether Hadhrami merchants, other Swahili sailors, Somali shipping agents, or government officials. Indeed, as Jatin Dua has argued, hospitality even shaped relations between dhow sailors and pirates!

As working class, itinerant sailors, hospitality was central to making connections on strange shores. Many of these sailors came from the Bhadala community from Mandvi in Kachchh, and had long connections to the Bhadala diaspora in Mombasa. These Bhadalas in Mombasa are still associated with seafaring, even if many of them no longer go out to sea. Unlike many other Indian communities in Kenya, Bhadalas in Mombasa are often viewed as being more closely intertwined with Swahili and Bajuni populations of the coast as they once intermarried. Even today, Bhadalas are seen as part of a precolonial history of Indian Ocean connections in Kenya, as they came as sailors long before Indian laborers and merchants settled in East Africa during British rule. Indeed, a view from the dhow, and from these Bhadala communities offers a different entry point for the history of connections between India and East Africa.

In the book, I take a “view from the dhow” by focusing on these seafarers. In his work on mobilities elided by the imperial frame, Engseng Ho argues that although Bernard Cohn once described the imperial point of view as the “view from the boat,” “there were other boats as well.” The vahan is one of these boats that hold mobile lifeworlds that existed prior to colonialism and that persist today—albeit in transformed ways—its sailors responding to a series of ruptures through repetition and by continuing to traverse the Indian Ocean. This view from the dhow thus offers a non-liner history of Indian Ocean connections, and is always flexible, contingent and partial; the relationality between land and sea becoming visible through an interplay of what I call “moorings” and voyages.

Moorings here refer to regulatory mechanisms, forms of sovereignty, places, and material and social practices around which the dhow trade pivots. These moorings enable voyages, known in Kachchhi as ghos. These voyages are the unit through which time, space, and capital are lived, moved through and produced for these sailors. This interplay between sailors’ voyages and moorings enables one to see fixity and mobility, land and sea, time and space together, charting a relationality between different port cities and littorals. 

RBF: It is rather easy to think of dhows as being boats from the past, even if they may ply the seas presently. However, your book highlights how these “country crafts” are closely linked to modernity and nation-building. Simultaneously, they have also been assumed to be linked with illicit trading and the shadow economy by government agencies. Why do we see such a schism in how these vessels are regarded?

NM: As you rightly point out, there is a paradox or a schism in how dhows and vahans have been viewed by state agencies and wider public discourse. On the one hand, dhows are the most enduring symbol of Indian Ocean connectivity. Across Indian Ocean port cities, the dhow has become a symbol of cosmopolitan pasts celebrated in museums, heritage projects, cultural festivals, and nationalist imaginaries of a world before European colonialism. These romantic images of dhows occasionally shatter as news reports and government agencies assume that these dhows today smuggle goods across Indian Ocean port cities.

For example, in India, dhows have been associated, by government agencies, with gold smuggling (especially before the liberalization of the economy in 1991) or then have become a locus for anxieties around securing India’s coastlines, especially after the 26/11 attacks in Bombay in 2008. Yet, dhows were not always regarded with such suspicion by the Indian government.

In the early years of independence, the “country craft trade” was bolstered by the government as an indigenous form of shipping that could contribute meaningfully to the Indian economy by connecting minor ports, bringing in foreign exchange, and acting as feeders for larger ports. Indeed, up until liberalization in 1991, the government even had a cargo reservation policy for dhows, whereby dates imported into India could only be transported by country crafts. With liberalization, these protections were taken away. Simultaneously, given India’s desire to securitize its coastlines, country crafts were also seen as easy vehicles for the unauthorized movements of goods and people.

With increasing Islamophobia in India, given that many of these dhows are manned and owned by Muslim Bhadala and Wagher communities from Gujarat, these country crafts have been viewed with suspicion by government agencies, who celebrate these vessels as part of India’s rich maritime history on the one hand, and regard them as security threats on the other. Unlike other forms of transport—such as planes, trains, buses and so on which are also used to move contraband, country crafts are especially illegible to state authorities.

Rather than taking a presentist view of these security issues, this book argues that current suspicions of dhows across the Indian Ocean have emerged from a deep-rooted anxiety over the long history of trade and connection across the Indian Ocean. The anxiety about the movement of dhows reveals entanglements between long-standing mobile trade networks across the Indian Ocean and state authorities—not only imperial and colonial but also national. At the heart of ten­sions currently unfolding between states and mobile dhow networks, therefore, lie questions about territoriality and sovereignty.

In the precolonial period, dhow networks functioned as an “itinerant territoriality” across political entities that operated on the basis of a shared, overlapping, and lay­ered sovereignty. Since the colonial period, mobile dhows and their dynamic trade networks have contended with the boundaries of the sovereign state, defined and delimited by colonial and then national and international law and policy. These shifts in understandings of territory and sovereignty have led to the creation of regulations that seek to tightly monitor and control mobile people, goods, and vessels.

Yet it is precisely these regulations and difference created by national borders and jurisdictional struggles at sea that have offered the dhow trade opportunities for profit. As a result of state and international policy, the dhow trade has become an intermediary in the underbelly of global capitalism, becoming vilified by states in some moments, and conscripted by them in times of need.

Dhows, once viewed as peddlers across the Indian Ocean, continue to move creatively, flexibly, and quickly between port cities, becoming what some sailors have called the “Uber of shipping.” Indeed, these dhows are “tramp shippers” that do not follow a strict, pre-ordained itinerary, but move according to the needs of their clients and are always “just-in-time” in today’s global supply chains. 

RBF: “War and conflict offer risks and opportunities for dhows,” you state pointedly in the book. This is something you bore witness to firsthand in the course of your research. As you chronicle, on more than one occasion, you found yourself having to intervene on behalf of crewmembers (whom you got to know as research informants) when they unwittingly ran afoul of the law. Such situations, as revealed in the book, were made even more complex—in one instance—because these were Indian laborers with Emirati business connections who found themselves stranded in Iran!

In effect, the lived experiences of those involved in transnational dhow-based trading (which, ironically, are circuits that pre-date the establishment of nation-states in the Indian Ocean world,) seem to be at odds with ideas of sovereignty in this realm. What does one tell us about the other?

NM: War, conflict, and instability offer both risks and rewards for these dhow sailors and traders. Indeed, dhows operate in spaces where other forms of shipping may not be available such as in minor ports in Yemen, Somalia, and Iran. The UAE is a pivotal mooring for this trade as goods are supplied from UAE ports to places where container shipping is too expensive or risky due to high insurance costs or sanctions regimes.

For instance, dhows have acted as transhippers for goods to and from Iran, Somalia, and the UAE, even with changing sanctions regimes against trade with Iran. Disruptions in supply chains and containerized shipping also offer opportunities for these vahans—for example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, even as containerized shipping was interrupted, Dubai saw a boom in the trade through dhows as they filled the gaps in shipping across Indian Ocean ports.

Yusuf, the sailor you refer to in your question, was incarcerated in Iran during the COVID-19 lockdown in Iran as he and the rest of his crew was found transshipping essential goods— foodstuffs, medicines and cigarettes—to Iran whilst in Omani territorial waters. Yusuf negotiated his release from prison in Iran by creating a contest between different patrons who could fund his bail, in effect, arbitraging between patrons. Indeed, sailors traversing across the sea often found themselves negotiating with different legal regimes.

However, dhows moved across the Indian Ocean long before the rise of nation-states and current ideas of nation-state sovereignty. In the pre-colonial period, dhows moved across the Indian Ocean without having to cohere to a singular notion of the law, instead subject to the law of whichever port city they were docked in, these laws not extending out to sea. During the colonial period, dhows would often move between shifting legal landscapes, finding spaces that were friendly for trade through policies such as low customs dues.

For example, princely states in India, such as Nawanagar, Kathiawar, and Kutch become pivotal centers for these trades as the rules for commerce were different than they were in territories directly governed by the British. Even today, dhows seek out spaces in the gaps between different sovereign nation-states. Built into notions of national sovereignty is an idea of dominion over territory, and a singular law. However, while nation-states seek to control mobility as a performance of sovereignty, this sovereignty is always incomplete and aspirational.

Yet, jurisdictional struggles at sea and the differences in rules and regulations created by national borders offer vahans new opportunities as they engage in what I call “geopolitical arbitrage.” This geopolitical arbitrage is a practice by which sailors and dhow owners capture value through price differentials created by geopolitical conditions across the Indian Ocean as they transship goods across spaces impacted by war or sanctions. So while on the one hand, enactments of national sovereignty through border regimes, jurisdictional control or policing produce risks for dhows, it is these same borders and differences in jurisdiction and legal regimes that produce the conditions for capturing value in this trade.

War and geopolitical conditions similarly enable the continuation of this trade. The lived experience of these sailors today as they navigate multiple sovereignties in the region enables one to examine the ways in which sovereignty functions, not only on land, but also at sea, profit created through arbitraging between geopolitical contests showing us that sovereignty and the creation of capital are deeply intertwined. 

Image courtesy Nidhi Mahajan

 RBF: In apprehending the place of the divine in the lives and labor of the seafarers you studied, you regard it as “a sovereignty rooted in pasts when Sufi saints were also arbitrators of kingly power.” Nevertheless, you also see the sacred as being of “continued relevance … [because] divine sovereignty and mobility in some moments can challenge state sovereignty and at others [move] in tandem with it.”

Inasmuch as these investments in religiosity may be testament to how mariners deal with the fickleness of the seas or the inconstancy of trade regimes, is it also how they contend with being minorities, rendered so especially because of the very faith they turn to (and are of)?

NM: The sailors I worked with were predominantly Muslims of the Bhadala and Wagher communities, from Mota Salaya in Mandvi and Jam Salaya in Gujarat. Both communities are classified as “Other Backward Classes” or OBC in India, and are often viewed with derision by, both, upper-caste Hindus and Muslims in Gujarat. Seafaring has been central to community identity for both, Bhadalas long associated with seafaring and fishing while Waghers have historically been associated with piracy in the region of Okhamandel. Religious practice too has been central for self-definition for both communities, whether as minorities in contradistinction to Hindus, or in caste hierarchies amongst Muslims as well.

Since at least the 1980s, conflicts between Hindu Kharvas, who once also worked on board vahans alongside Bhadalas and Waghers, have led to increasing segregation and tension between these communities. Anthropologist Edward Simpson has suggested that in Mandvi, these religious tensions were also a manifestation of class conflict as Bhadalas came to own vahans and Kharvas were increasingly pushed into the international labor market, especially in Oman, where they worked for Bhatia merchants and former dhow owners. Yet when I began fieldwork in Mandvi, the era of rising fortunes for Bhadala vahan owners had come to an end. Bhadala vahan labor­ers increasingly viewed labor migration to the Gulf as a horizon of possibility for youth.

While these tensions between Hindus and Muslims were palpable in Mandvi, they are less visible across the Gulf in the town of Jam Salaya, another center for the vahan trade. This is not because of the peaceful coexistence between Muslims and Hindus but because the town itself is segregated from the rest of the Kathiawar penin­sula of which it is a part. Jam Salaya has only a handful of Hindu families who con­tinue to live there, many having moved out of the vahan trade and migrated to other parts of Gujarat or to Bombay. The town’s fifty thousand inhabitants are predom­inantly Sunni Muslim Bhadalas and Waghers. While Mandvi has seen waves of Islamic reformism, Jam Salaya has kept both right-wing Hinduism and reformist Islam at bay. These class and caste tensions also converged with broader patterns of polarization of Hindus and Muslims in India. Even among other Muslim commu­nities in the region, Bhadalas and Waghers have been ostracized. In response, they craft their own religiosity based on Islamic piety in the shipyards as well as within collective bodies such as the jamaat.

For both these communities, religious identity and practice are central to self-definition. Bhadala and Wagher sailors view their lives and labor as shaped through Sufi Islamic religious practices on board the dhow and at home. Danger at sea—whether cyclones, or other adverse weather events—is managed not through secularized financial notions of risk management and insurance but through Sufi Islamic ideas of divine sovereignty and the “unity of life” according to which life and death are seen as open-ended.

In articulating a different vision of life and death, seafarers also link mobile dhows at sea to a constellation of Sufi shrines on land, especially those in their homeports in Kachchh. The Sufi shrine on land and its material life at sea become a portal through which one can examine ideas of divine sovereignty for these communities. The Sufi shrine on land becomes a spiritual, political, and economic mooring for those at sea, as well as for their kin who remain home. Divine sovereignty undergirds the laboring life of the seafarer, shaping class, caste, and religious identity on board the dhow, and back at home. These religious practices are grounded in Islamic pasts and enable these OBC Muslims to voyage out, seeking possibilities in the face of marginalization in India.

RBF: The marine world of trade that you research is largely a masculine field. Even so, you underscore how the women on land were “key finan­cial actors. They not only managed the household income but also maintained social relations with patrons, creating the networks that allowed men to move … [I]t was often women, and not men, who were most insightful about the economic structure of the [dhow] trade, some of them even having a critical sociological view of their own communities.”

How did spending time with the women “left behind” on land, as it were, expand your understanding of the sea trade run by the men and the community more generally?

NM: As I spent time with women in both Mandvi and Jam Salaya, it became clear to me that the labor of women at home and their imbrication in debt and patronage relations were central to enabling the mobility of khalasis, or sailors, on board vahans. The transregional mobility of men was forged by the women who stayed at home, this labor being largely invisible but, yet, deeply legible to men who went out to sea. Labor in the dhow trade, such as seasonal contracts for work, and systems of remuneration, operated on a system of patronage rooted in older forms of jajmani relations that structured agricultural labor in Gujarat where landless laborers became the clients of landowners, their patrons.

Within this patronage system, it was often women who found new patrons/dhow owners for their male kin to work with; it was women who went to dhow owners to ask for credit during the year; and it was often women who ensured that khalasis were paid the salaries owed to them at the end of the sailing season. Although women did not move with men, their labor of being in relation, which included their movement between homes, care-work, and maintenance of social networks, made the move­ment of men across the ocean possible.

Women also owned dhows and were given dhows by their families as their dowry, thus shaping the fortunes of the homes they married into. Women acted not only as care givers in the absence of male kin but also harnessed their networks, which extended from one household to another to shape family fortunes.

By examining women’s labor at home and men’s labor at sea together, I argue that mobility across the Indian Ocean is moored to the home, especially through relations of patronage between dhow owners and sailors, as well as between men and women as kin, and that these relations are central to community identity. The monsoon regulates these relationships of patronage and labor, as contracts for work were drawn up on a monsoonal calendar, suggesting that the dhow economy, as an intermediary in global shipping lines, requires cultural and environmental forms that elide binaries of nature/culture and change/stasis. Instead, the entanglement of nature, culture, and the contours of gendered labor are at the heart of global shipping and capital.

 

By spending time with women and examining these relations of production that are seemingly out of place in capitalist forms of exchange, I realized that patronage, gendered labor, and the labor of being in relation are central to Indian Ocean trade networks and capital today. These forms of labor are often presumed to belong to economic systems that char­acterized different eras—feudalism or nonwage markets—but I suggest that they are the very moorings for capitalist production. These forms of production do not simply disappear with the rise of a global capitalism but in fact moor capitalism to an Indian Ocean setting that extends from the home to the ship, becoming a mode through which global capital articulates with the local.

RBF: As we close, I want to ask you about the warning you raise about climate change: “[T]he
Indian Ocean, the fast­est warming ocean, has seen rising sea levels, an increasing frequency of tropical cyclones, and other adverse weather events.” As they find themselves so often moored and unmoored from multiple lands, what lessons do dhows have to offer in these climatically challenging times?  

NM: Sailors are intimately aware of the way in which climate change has impacted their lives. They would matter-of-factly describe how the monsoon now arrives in India later than it once did, how adverse weather events such as tropical cyclones and storms are more frequent, and that the sea itself is more tempestuous. Dhow sailors and families who live along the Gujarat coast now face increased danger at sea and in coastal regions. Indeed, sailors are in awe of nature—they notice small changes in the environment, and pay close attention to wind, waves, and shifts on land. This is not only due to climate change, but because understanding these subtle changes has long helped sailors navigate the Indian Ocean.

Historically, dhow sailors from Kachchh read the winds, sky, and sea, using methods such as sighting of birds, sea snakes, the color of water, and sand to navigate across the ocean, and predict the weather. Today however, conditions at sea are read, documented, and communicated through weather applications like Windy.com, video footage, voice notes, radio, and other forms of digital communication. Yet, like sailors of yore, contemporary dhow sailors continue to be in awe of nature, and layer older ways of reading the weather with new forms of communication. 

However, they understand that human agency is limited, and that even the most sophisticated technologies can fail. For instance, in 2018, Cyclone Mekunu, the most powerful cyclone to hit the Arabian peninsula in recorded history, severely impacted sailors who were in the region. While the cyclone had been predicted by weather monitoring systems, it changed course suddenly. The cyclone was an instance where scientific forecasting systems failed, and sailors who survived the cyclone were deeply grateful for having been saved, remaining in wonder of nature.

Even in taking care of the dhows themselves, sailors are deeply attuned to the ways in which vessels must be repaired regularly and with care based on seasons and climate. As they repair leaks, clean and waterproof the entire vessel at least once a year, they come to care for it through an intimate understanding of the effects the elements have had on the vessel. This method of repair is slow and requires consistent maintenance, usually all done slowly by hand and not by machine, thereby allowing sailors to take even greater notice of the effect of the elements and human agency on the vessel itself.

Through these intimate ways of knowing the environment and the vessels they use to cross the sea, sailors teach us that first and foremost, we need to have a deep respect and awe for nature. They know that human agency is limited and that  disregard for the environment has unimaginable effects. They also teach us to be more attentive in reading the subtle signs that the weather and environment give us. Through the careful and consistent care of dhows that are repaired slowly each year, they teach us that caring for the environment, human life, and infrastructure is a slow, intimate process, one in which human beings are not at the center, but subject to a power greater than themselves. 

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