Piracy in India is a tradition of considerable antiquity. Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History (~1st century), recounts how Roman ships going to the Malabar coast (India’s southwestern coast) would carry companies of archers to fend off pirates. Centuries later (late 13th and early 14th century), both Marco Polo and Ibn Battutah would confirm that the Malabar coast was still quite pirate infested. The two would give rather interesting insight into the practices and identities of these bandits; Ibn Battutah noted that the pirates were Hindus and Marco Polo noted that piracy was a communal activity, where the pirates would set out to plunder alongside their women and children. These pirates have been identified as members of the Mukkuvar caste; the Mukkuvar were fisherman and, per the Portguese chronicler Duarte Barbosa (early 16th century), “expert seamen” and “shameless thieves” . Barbosa pointed out that the Mukkuvar were only part-time pirates, striking out only in the summer, and would spend the winter fishing for subsistence.

Both Marco Polo and Barbosa address the tactics of these pirates. They would set out to sea in small fleets - Polo puts the fleet size at 20 to 30 vessels. These vessels were small, quick rowing vessels filled with fighting men armed with bows and arrows (later replaced with firearms). When prey was sighted, these vessels would swarm the target from multiple directions and overwhelm the prey.

The Indian Ocean (and the Malabar Coast by extension) changed dramatically with the arrival of the Portuguese in the 15th century. The Portuguese had a decided naval advantage with their cannon armed ships and they leveraged this by attempting to control the Indian Ocean trade via the cartaz system. This was essentially a protection racket where merchants would purchase a pass which would protect the merchant’s ship and goods from seizure by patrolling Portuguese vessels. The Portuguese further restricted what goods the merchants could carry so they could corner the lucrative spice trade carried out on the Malabar Coast. Local rulers such as the Zamorin/Samoothri of Calicut and the local Muslim Mappila traders did not acquiesce to these strongarm tactics passively. The Zamorin formed an alliance with one of these Mappila families, giving them the title Kunjali Marakkar. Four generations of Kunjali Marakkars would serve as admirals for the Zamorin, waging a brutal and protracted naval guerrilla war against the Portuguese. The Marakkars did not directly confront the Portuguese on the open seas, they relied on the timeless swarm tactics of the Malabar Coast. Relying on information from Muslim merchants as well as lookouts posted on the coast, the fleet would strike out from hidden estuaries, swamps and shallow bays in rowed vessels known as paraos/paroes. As in the case of the Mukkuvars, the goal was to swarm and overwhelm the prey in great numbers. If the tide of battle turned against the raiders, the raiders would disengage and return to their hidden sanctuaries where the superior Portuguese ships could not follow. The Marakkars were only defeated when the Zamorin turned against Kunjali Marakkar IV and formed an alliance with the Portuguese in 1600; this was due to the admiral’s growing pretensions of independence from his overlord. In a way, the career of the Marakkars anticipates the career of the Angria family for their trajectory and tactics are uncannily similar.

Kanhoji Angria began his career humbly in 1688 with the rank of subedar in the Maratha fleet and a coastal fort. The following years would see him a key player in a disputed succession in the Maratha empire, his accession to the hereditary rank of Surkhail/Sarkhel (grand admiral) of the fleet and the inauguration of a 38 year war against the English East India Company which only concluded in the EIC’s favor in 1756 when the nominal overlord of the Angrias, the Maratha Peshwa, turned against the increasingly independent subordinates (Kanhoji was dead by this time and the unfortunate victim was his son Tulaji). The Angrias, as representatives of the Maratha Empire, sold passes (known as dastak) to the seagoing merchants traveling the Konkan coast. If a merchant did not carry said pass, the ship and goods were subject to seizure and the crew subject to ransom. It was rather similar to the system instituted by the Marathas on land and similar to the cartaz system instituted by the Portuguese. Kanhoji also signed an agreement with the EIC to leave their shipping alone. The war between Kanhoji and the EIC began due to a dispute over what constituted as an EIC ship. The EIC had a broad definition that any ship carrying English goods (for example, food meant for Bombay; Bombay was reliant on food imports for survival and much of this was carried by Mughal ships. The Marathas were at war with the Mughals and so these were legitimate prizes in Angria’s eyes) was protected. Angria had a narrower interpretation. The result of this dispute was a war that was often not in the favor of the EIC (see for instance, the four failed attacks carried out against Angrian coastal forts between 1717 and 1720). Angria relied on small rowed vessels known as gallivats though his fleet was supplemented by larger cannon bearing galleys known as grabs. As on the Malabar coast, the tactic was to strike out from his string of nigh impregnable coastal forts or hidden estuaries and swarm the enemy. As in the case of the Marakkars, the Angrias were at a material disadvantage compared to their European rivals (the Bombay Marine, due to distance the Royal Navy was of little help) but compensated with the aforementioned swarm tactics. In event that the battle was going poorly, the gallivats would retreat to the aforementioned coastal forts or hidden sanctuaries where the British ships could not follow.

Sources:

Sebastian R. Prange, A Trade of No Dishonor: Piracy, Commerce, and Community in the Western Indian Ocean, Twelfth to Sixteenth Century. American Historical Review. December 2011.

Derek L. Elliot. The Politics of Capture in the Eastern Arabian Sea 1700-1750. International Journal of Martime History. December 2013

Derek L. Elliot. Pirates, Polities and Companies: Global Politics on the Konkan Littoral, c. 1690-1756. Economic History Working Papers

Philip MacDougall. Naval Resistance to Britain’s Growing Power in India, 1660-1800: The Saffron Banner and the Tiger of Mysore. The Boydell Press, 2014.