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

by Sanjeev Sanyal

While most Indian farmers and weavers were hurt by the triangular trade system, some Indians also benefited from working for the European merchants as agents and brokers. Many of these were drawn from the Parsi community, descendants of Zoroastrian refugees who had come to India centuries earlier from Iran. From the late eighteenth century, many Parsis had migrated to Bombay where they prospered as suppliers, victuallers and shipbuilders. Opium exports were initially monopolized by Calcutta but Bombay gradually emerged as an alternative hub as cotton farmers in Malwa switched to growing opium. Soon, Parsi agents became an important part of the supply chain all the way to Hong Kong. This is why many of Hong Kong’s old institutions have Parsi founders. The famous ferry between Hong Kong island and Kowloon, for example, was set up by Dorabjee Naorojee Mithaiwala. The Indian brokers and agents were known as ‘shroffs’ (derived from the Hindi word ‘saraff’ used variously for agent, broker or money changer). The term ‘shroff’ survives in Hong Kong but is now used mostly for parking-ticket collectors—one of those odd artefacts of history!