South Gujarat Littoral · Western Coastal Strip
This coast keeps a different clock from inland Gujarat, because the sea rather than the land set its dates. Its ancient period is the classical tract called Lata, a maritime margin governed from somewhere else. Its medieval period is the long Sultanate century in which the estuary ports were the outlet of a state whose capital stood three hundred kilometres north. And its modern period begins in 1573, when Akbar annexed Gujarat and Surat became the Mughal empire's chief western port and the embarkation point for the Hajj. Almost everything the littoral is known for — the factories of four European companies, and after them the diamond and man-made-textile trades — descends from that administrative fact rather than from 1757 or 1857. Two enclaves inside the region kept their own calendars entirely. Daman was Portuguese from the middle of the sixteenth century onward, and the five Dang chiefships on the forest slope were never annexed at all, only leased from.
Periodisation is regional, not national — the medieval period does not begin in the same century here as it does elsewhere in India.
The classical name for this shelf is Lata, and the classical problem of it is that a coast of short, steep rivers has no deep natural harbour, so its ports had to sit inside estuaries and be reached on the tide. That is why the working port of the tract moved — Rander on the Tapi first, Surat on the opposite bank much later — while the trade itself stayed put. No dynasty of the period had its seat here. The Traikutakas, the Gurjaras of Nandipuri and the Chalukya line known as the Chalukyas of Lata all governed the coast as a revenue and customs margin of something larger. What arrived from the sea stayed longer than what arrived from inland, which is the pattern the region has repeated ever since.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1st–2nd century CE | The coast lies in the trading hinterland of Barygaza at the Narmada mouth, immediately north, the principal Indian Ocean port named in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. |
| 5th–8th centuries | Lata is held successively by the Traikutakas, the Gurjaras of Nandipuri and the Chalukyas of Lata. |
| 8th–10th centuries | By tradition, Zoroastrian refugees from Khorasan land at Sanjan. The account is the Qissa-i Sanjan, composed in 1599, and its dating is disputed — readings put the landing anywhere between the early eighth century and 936. |
| 8th–13th centuries | Excavation at Sanjan in 2002–04 uncovers a settlement roughly two kilometres by one, with a dokhma, giving archaeological confirmation of early Zoroastrian presence on this coast. |
| 10th–13th centuries | Rander, on the north bank of the Tapi, is the estuary's principal port and trades with the Persian Gulf. Surat does not yet exist as a town. |
Two things happen to the coast in these three centuries, and neither of them is local. Gujarat passes to Delhi in 1299 and then becomes an independent sultanate in 1407, which turns these estuaries into the outlet of a rich inland state and gives them a customs administration worth capturing. Then, after 1498, the Indian Ocean acquires an armed European fleet, and a shoreline that had never needed defending becomes contested water. Rander and Surat were burned twice inside twenty years, Daman passed permanently out of Gujarati hands, and the Zoroastrian community moved its consecrated fire inland to the Bahrot caves and then to Navsari — a sequence of moves that is the best-dated thing on this coast in the period, because the community kept the count itself.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1299 | Alauddin Khalji's campaign brings Gujarat under the Delhi Sultanate, and Lata's ports pass with it. |
| c. 1297 | The Iranshah fire is carried from Sanjan into the Bahrot caves in the hills behind the coast, and afterwards to Vansda. |
| 1407 | Muzaffar Shah I founds the Gujarat Sultanate, and the south Gujarat estuaries become its principal outlet to the sea. |
| 1419 | The fire is installed at Navsari, where it remains for three centuries and where the Parsi priestly establishment settles. |
| c. 1500 | Tradition credits the merchant Gopi with laying out Surat on the south bank of the Tapi. The older name Suryapur predates him. |
| 1512 and 1530 | Portuguese fleets burn Surat. |
| 1530s–1550s | Daman passes into Portuguese hands, sources dating the sack to 1531, the cession to 1539 and settled occupation to 1559. It stays Portuguese thereafter, which is why the Valsad coast carries a fort-and-church layer the Gujarati shore on either side of it does not. |
Akbar's annexation made Surat the empire's chief western port, and for a century and a half the whole apparatus of long-distance trade assembled itself around the customs house — a Mughal mint, the Hajj fleet, and factories of the English, Dutch, French and Portuguese companies within walking distance of each other. The city was raided twice by Maratha forces and declined as Bombay rose, but the commercial reflex never left, and the railway and then the estuary's mills gave it new goods to apply it to. Above the plain, the forest slope was handled differently. The Dang chiefs were not annexed but leased from, in an 1842 agreement for their teak that is still marked by an annual darbar. In the twentieth century the district became the place where Gandhian technique was actually built and tested — a district-wide no-revenue campaign at Bardoli in 1928, and a march routed deliberately through these villages to the shore at Dandi in 1930.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1573 | Akbar annexes Gujarat. Surat becomes the Mughal empire's chief western port and the embarkation point for the Hajj. |
| 1612–13 | After a naval action off Swally, the English East India Company opens a factory at Surat under a Mughal firman. Dutch and French factories follow. |
| 1664 and 1670 | Shivaji's forces raid the city of Surat twice, taking treasure from the port but not the castle. |
| 1742 | The Iranshah fire, moved from Navsari to Valsad in 1740, is installed in a new Atash Behram at Udvada, where it has burned since. |
| 1800 | The British take over the administration of Surat. |
| 1837 | A fire destroys much of Surat and kills more than five hundred people. |
| 1842 | The five Dang chiefships lease their teak forests to the East India Company for an annual payment rather than being annexed. The Dang Darbar held at Ahwa at Holi dates from this agreement. |
| 1907 | The December session of the Indian National Congress at Surat ends in the split between its Moderate and Extremist wings. |
| 1930 | Gandhi's salt march, begun at Sabarmati on 12 March, ends at Dandi in Navsari district on 6 April. |
Rulers and commanders
Tradition credits him with laying out the town of Surat on the south bank of the Tapi. The claim is traditional rather than documented, and the older name Suryapur is attested before him, but the town's founding as a merchant's project rather than a ruler's is consistent with everything that followed.
Seat: Surat
Declared Gujarat independent of Delhi and founded the sultanate that governed this coast for a century and a half. Its wealth was maritime, so the estuary ports of the south were its working outlet.
Dynasty: Gujarat Sultanate. Seat: Anhilwad Patan
Under him Bassein and its dependencies passed to Portugal by treaty in 1534, the first permanent European territorial holding on this stretch of coast and the opening of the sequence that ended with Daman.
Dynasty: Gujarat Sultanate. Seat: Champaner
The Mughal port governor, who held the castle, the customs house and the mint of the empire's busiest harbour. Surat was run by this office rather than by any family, and the men who held it were posted in and out. That is why the city's continuity for two centuries is commercial rather than dynastic.
Seat: Surat Castle
Raided Surat in 1664 and again in 1670, taking treasure from the port. The raids did not take the castle or hold the city, but they demonstrated that the Mughal empire could not protect its principal customs revenue, and Surat's merchants began moving capital to safer harbours.
Dynasty: Bhonsle. Seat: Raigad
Five Bhil chiefships, not one house, held the teak forest of the forest slope. In 1842 they leased the forests to the East India Company for an annual payment instead of being annexed, which is why the Dangs entered the colonial order as a concession rather than a conquest, and why the payment is still handed over at an annual darbar at Ahwa.
Seat: Ahwa and the Sahyadri scarp villages
Daman was governed from its fort as part of the Estado da India, under an appointed captain rather than a local house. The enclave stayed outside British India entirely, which is why a stretch of the Valsad coast has a Latin street grid, parish churches and a bastioned fort, and why the anti-colonial politics of the surrounding districts stopped at its boundary.
Seat: Moti Daman
The history of South Gujarat Littoral from ancient through medieval to modern times, and the rulers, commanders and administrators who shaped it. (7)