What happened to Alexander’s loot from India …?

King Otto of Greece wearing Albanian fustanella

Alexander’s retreat from India … empty handed?

Alexander’s campaign to drum up alliances with Indian kings on the borders of his Persian empire did not yield much gold or wealth. Unlike the Persian Empire, most of the gold and wealth in India was diffused and spread. In raid after raid, Alexander came back empty handed – or almost. While he was managing the fires in Bactra and Sogdia, he had to release Scythian prisoners without a ransom. But, while stitching an alliance with Omphis (Ambi /Ambhi), instead he had to pay Ambhi about 1000 talents of gold – which provoked much envy in his camp.

The talk of an Indian invasion provoked assassination conspiracies, demand for release by soldiers and much expenditure. Many of his soldiers – Greeks units, Macedonian veterans, Thessalian cavalry had to be released, after handsome gratuities and payments. New soldiers had to be recruited again at a significant cost.

In antiquity

Unlike Alexander’s experience of poor pickings in India, the Greek image of India, in history, was different. There were wild tales about Indian ants, big as foxes and jackals, that mined gold. These were tales related by Pliny, Herodotus, Strabo, Arrian – partly, based on reports from Megasthenes. And the very same Greek sources show that with each victory, at kingdom after kingdom, Alexander gained little in terms of gold. Unlike many other subsequent raiders.

The case of missing Indian gold

So, where was the famed Indian gold?

Two possible theories suggest themselves. Alexander was singularly unsuccessful in his Indian campaign and could not, hence, obtain any gold. While this may please Indian jingoists, we will suspend opinion on this in face of overwhelming Western historical opinion – though the truth may be otherwise.

The second theory is more intricate – and also stronger. Unlike the description of Persian cities, the description of Indian cities in all the accounts, is of very simple and plain cities. Not one Indian city is extolled for its beauty, or its buildings, palaces or temples. What gives?

War elephants

Extant Indian society

Three elements of the Indian economic system were unique till the 19th century – property ownership by the commoners, widespread ownership of gold and absence of slavery (defined as capture, trade and forced labour by humans – without compensation).

The Indian social structure in pre-Alexandrian Indian had widespread gold and property ownership. With complete absence of slavery, wages could also rise above subsistence levels. This restricted the wealth of Indian rulers – and thus impressive monuments, buildings and palaces are rare or non-existent in pre-medieval India. Thus Indian cities were plain and simple. Royal treasuries were hence, meagre.

Colonial Indian rule dispossessed many Indians of their property – and concentrated wealth in the hands of the few – the Thakurs and the Zamindars. Indians were dispossessed of their gold in the Squeeze Indian Campaign of 1925-1945 – started by Churchill and Montagu Norman and continued by Neville Chamberlain.

Greek clothing

Monopoly in currency

Royal official coinage was only one of the options even in colonial India. This reduced the concentration of wealth which we see in evidence in the Persian Empire – where Darius’ treasury yielded (Greek estimates) more than 100,000 talents of gold (some exaggeration?).

Indian armies could only scaled up by voluntary services and funding. Hence, these motivated and volunteer armies could inflict so much losses on Alexander.

So, what did the Greco-Macedonians take away …

There were more interesting things that Alexander’s armies  took away from India. The odd and interesting things that Alexander carted away were cattle, elephants and the Macedonian national dress – and possibly kissing.

Persian clothing

Cattle from Punjab

At the battle against the Asvanyas (Khamboj), called by the Greeks as Aspasioi /Aspasii /Assakenoi /Aspasio /Hipasii /Assaceni/Assacani, Osii /Asii /Asoi, and Aseni in Greek records, Alexander took some 230,000 Asiatic humped zebu cattle to, says Arrian, improve cattle stock in Macedonia. Indian agriculture was well advanced by that time – and exports of spices, textiles, iron and steel were significant.

Elephants from India

War elephants were rule changers – and Indians were the only significant trainers, users, and owners of war elephants. Alexander’s successor, Seleucos Nicator, considered by Ptolemy as the possible true successor of Alexander, ceded his possessions East of Persia – to Chandraupta Maurya. As a part of the treaty, Chandragupta also gifted Seleucos 500 elephants which proved invaluable in settling the Daidochi Wars – at the Batle of Ipsus.

The Greek fustanella (drawing By Theofilos Chatzimichalis)

Clothes

While the above two are well known, the other two interesting that Greco-Macedonian armies took back to Europe were more cultural. First was the current Macedonain national dress – the ‘salvaria’. The entire North West Indian sub-continent, from Punjab to Afghanistan wears the salwar – which is tubular leggings.

This is a unisex garment – like the sari /dhoti also is. And popular all over India today. Unlike other parts of the world, where women were forced to conform to a male standards and prescriptions of dressing, Indian women were free and dressed like their men did (Feminists note – Indian men were forced to dress, like their women did, since you insist). Unisex clothing, saris and dhotis dominated the Indian plains, and the salwars, in the North West mountain regions of India. The Indo-Scythians used leather leggings – which were helpful in case of long marches on horse backs.

These leggings even today called the salvaria in Macedonia. The Persians at that time had the robes – and purple robes were the sign of royalty. The Greeks wore chitons – and peplos. The Greek fustanella similarly, is very much like tribal costumes worn even today by Gujarathi rabari tribals.

Kissing … and Kamasutra

Rabari tribesman in modern Gujarat

On kissing, Vaughn Bryant, an anthropologist at Texas A&M, has traced the first recorded kiss back to India, somewhere around 1500 B.C., when early Vedic scriptures start to mention people “sniffing” with their mouths, and later texts describe lovers “setting mouth to mouth.” From there, he hypothesizes, the kiss spread westward when Alexander the Great conquered the Punjab in 326 B.C.

New Empire Builders – Neo-Cons Sneaking In

This North-South global compact … would consign … despotisms to the obscurity which the old “salt empires” of the Tortuga and Turks islands, critical to … Royal Navy, were reduced once we had overcome our saline dependency. Posted by Shri Brendan Simms (Reader in the History of International Relations at the Centre of International Studies at the University of Cambridge)

Meet The Neo-Cons

The Social Affairs Unit is a what is called these days a neo-con think tank. Unfortunately, it is neither neo nor about thought – but is definitely a con.

And the blog of one of their stars is published at their site. Shri Brendan Simms, a reader in History, I am sure, knows that what he is saying is wrong.

In this post, (linked above) Simms is proposing certain actions that “would consign the Middle Eastern despotisms to the obscurity which the old “salt empires” of the Tortuga and Turks islands, critical to the eighteenth-century Royal Navy, were reduced once we had overcome our saline dependency.”

Oil Prices – Western Democracies Are Being Held To Ransom

Simms, (like most neo-cons), has various problems in life. He starts with his “western capitalist democracies find themselves held to ransom.” Mr.Simms, how many of your glorious Western democracies, have elected a single Black head of state in the last 100 years? Or a Muslim head of State? America, your epitome of a Western democracy, is struggling to nominate a woman Presidential candidate after 200 years of Republican democracy? Or am I being naive in raising these questions?

Coming to the ransom bit, is Simmie-boy getting this feeling because of the price that the Middle East is charging for oil. Simms Dearie, I know the feeling, believe me! We Indians have been through that. It is the similar feeling that we in India, (and developing countries) used to get while negotiating for food purchases (called aid) after the Bengal Famine and while rebuilding collapsed agriculture economies in post colonial India.

All that OPEC wants is a market driven price. Any problems, Simmie? Why does the West not explore and drill for oil along their huge off shore areas and kill their dependence on oil. If the Oil producers are wary of the dollar price due to depreciating dollar, who can you blame.

If the West led by ‘helicopter Ben’ wants to print more dollars, who will pay the price ? The rest of this gullible world? Does Simms think, that oil rich countries will ship out limited oil resources with the same speed that Bernanke prints money – or helicopter drop dollars?

The Saudi Wealth

Simms feels bad that the Saudis “could buy General Motors with just six days of production.” At least, in this scenario, the Saudis are buying US companies with US currency as per the valuation done by US stock markets. It is not based on slave labour, which is what the British operated in the Turks and Tortugas – in the Caribbean.

Millions of captured Black Africans toiled (and died) in the Caribbean, to create wealth and luxury for Britain – the comfort of which he now uses to “consign the Middle Eastern despotisms to the obscurity … of Tortuga and Turks islands, were reduced once we had overcome our … dependency”

What Were The Turks & Caicos Islands

These were slave islands – and part of the Caribbean group of islands which were used by the British Navy to run their slave colonies. To call these ‘despotisms’ is right – but these were British slave despotisms.

The ‘salt colonies’ are not as well known as the ‘sugar colonies’ – Haiti, Cuba, Demerra, Trinidad and other West Indian Islands, and the millions of slaves that were imported and subsequently died. Similarly, millions of local Native American populations were wiped out. And of course, once their usefulness, was over, the European powers walked away.

Of course, some of these islands have become colonies, of the USA, Britain and the people there continue to serve the interests of these Western nations. Haiti, Cuba, Granada have been made an example of by Britain and USA, for trying to make a country of themselves. A lot of such places would be quite happy without the British attention they received – and subsequent ruin that they faced.

Privateers, slave traders and pirates were licensed to operate from these islands, by the British Government to loot – and kill.

Come To The Middle East Despots

After the WW1, the victorious allies carved up the entire Ottoman Empire – which stretched from the Middle East to Central Asia to the Eastern Europe.

Out of the Ottaman Empire, Iraq was carved up and King Faysal was put on the throne. A British amatuer Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell made the selection of the King Of Iraq. This new King did not even know his kingdom – and he was taken around by his new makers. Similarly, an amateur like TE Lawrence (never mind the propaganda) was used to determine the fate of the Middle East.

WW1 resulted in the Balfour Declaration, which promised a Jewish homeland, to be carved out of the Ottaman Empire. Saudi Arabia was similarly made up.

By 1916, Britain, France and Russia had signed the secretive Sykes-Picot Pact – a framework for the division of the Ottoman Empire after the future defeat of the Turks. While the WW1 was going on, a civil war broke out in Russia. Kerensky, a member of the moderate Labor party, Lenin, Trotsky et al of the Bolshevik Party, overthrew the Tsar and assumed power in February 1917.

Till 1923, the Russian Civil War continued, to the defeat of Kerensky and his White Army in 1923. Kerensky wished to continue war alongside Britain and France. Lenin broke ranks, and in October 1917, the Russian-Communists started negotiations for a peace treaty with Germany. In 1918 the Treaty Of Brest Litovsk followed. After the end of WW1, Britain and France did not honor Russia’s claim under the Sykes Picot Pact. Russians retaliated and were actively involved in destabilizing the Middle East for the next 50 years, by playing of one Middle East Country against another.

Thus the entire Middle East was put on shaky political ground. Exploitative commercial contracts favoring Anglo Saxon bloc of countries were signed with these puppet governments – and the rest of the story is being played out for the last 90 years. Hobbyists decided fates of million of people.

So Mr.Simms, these Middle Eastern despots, are a creation of Western Foreign Policy – of which you claim a College Readership.

Western Investments

“West invest blood and treasure to make the Middle East a better place” out of the milk of human kindness Mr.Simms? All investments that the west has made is by the loot from Canada, Australia, Africa – and of course, India. Out of magnamity, if we call old accounts quits, current Western investments have been made for reasons of commercial self interest. Sell your Western assets, Mr.Simms, if they are not profitable enough. Possibly, it is equivalent to one hours oil production for the Saudis – and they will buy you guys out.

Regarding the blood in the Middle East, it is the poor Arabs, Palestinians, Iraqis, Kurds, Afghans, Pakistanis who are spilling it. Western blood (whatever little) is being spilt for brazen extortion. The Middle East has become a quagmire after the West decided to intervene.

Saudi foreign policy – Export of extremist Islamist ideology

And what is the foreign policy of the West Mr.Simms. Instability in Africa, Middle East. Every terror hotspot is a creation of the West – and specifically, America. And amongst others, we in India, pay a price for this. When you demonise Islam, they pay a price.

Partnerships With The West?

What partnerships are you talking about, Mr.Simms?

The kind that you has with the Turks and Tortugas? The kind that you had when the West put incompetent Emirs and Shaikhs on the various thrones of the Middle East – and now want to ‘consign to obscurity.’ After they helped you to weaken your Cold War enemy. After they have given you 60 years of luxury – with cheap oil.

Why Wont You Accept Criticism

Now these are the points that I made on your blog, Mr. Simms – 2 weeks ago. Why the hesitation in publishing those comments.

Run you can, Simmie boy, but at least, don’t hide.