The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History

by Sanjeev Sanyal

Indian soldiers and mercenaries have often fought wars from Europe to China. Once one begins to notice them, they seem to pop up everywhere in the historical record. In ancient times, one finds them fighting for the Persians against the Greeks and a little later, driving war elephants for the Macedonian general Seleucus against his rivals in the Middle East. During the medieval period, one finds Indian mercenaries fighting for Sinhalese rulers in Sri Lanka, dying for the Shiite cause in Karbala and protecting commercial interests of Tamil corporatized guilds in South East Asia. Later still they would serve the British in the Opium Wars in China, the Boer Wars in South Africa and across the globe during the World Wars.