The concept of Mandala It can be traced back to Tamil inscriptions describing the settlement and commercial system of a South Indian community complex prior to the Chola invasion in 1025. Records mention a commercial system in Lobu Tua in southern Aceh dating back to 1088 (McKinnon 1994). Despite political turmoil due to domestic and international issues, trade exchanges between the two regions continued. Many scholars believe that the Indian Ocean mandala was the most substantial factor in manipulating these international relations. Mandala is a Sanskrit word meaning a circle of space and time connected by a cycle of existence, according to Bose (2006). Through the shared Muslim culture across the Indian Ocean (Pradines and Topan, 2023), the international norms of the mandala governed not only the networks, ports, commodities, and institutions that characterized the systemic order of sovereignty, competition, and alliances with great powers, but also the fluid political ecology of the ocean. It guided mobility, interaction, and a sense of belonging among South Indians, Arabs, Chinese, Jews, and Europeans who were becoming indigenous.
Fernand Braudel emphasized a similar concept: Mandala As revealed in his book, in French, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Time of Philip II (1972). He coined the concept of “longue durée” to describe the spatial and temporal linkages entangled in the cycles of economic and political processes, which shaped pluralism and inclusiveness across civilizations. Echoing Braudel’s writing, Acharya’s reflections on the origins of world economy and international politics (2019) show the circulation of circulating patterns across various empires. It contributed to “civilizational states” whose “embedded norms and cultures manipulated pluralism and unipolarity”, which shaped the world order across the Indian Ocean. As Manjeed S Pardesi (2022) concludes, such multiplicity had to be attributed to the “open” nature of peripheral sovereignties. He shows that the “open” nature contributed to the formation of “decentralized hegemony” of the central world order system, referring to the case of the 15th-century Malacca international politics with world powers.
South Indian merchants emerged from the Coromandel ports such as Porto Novo, Nagore, Kayalpattinam, Nagapattinam, Kailacalal, Chennai and Pulicat into circular commercial networks to places such as Aceh, Malacca, Kedah, Perak, Penang, Singapore, Thailand, Myanmar and Sri Lanka and then returned from the Coromandel ports (Nordin, 2005). These merchants were important figures with knowledge of the economic and political maritime flows across the ports and networks. Not only were they capable of managing institutions and maintaining goods on long-distance voyages, they were also multilingual, educated and wealthy merchants, able to engage in non-hierarchical governmental political structures and controlled the ports and networks with largely autonomous leadership, as revealed through their interactions with South Indians such as the Nainars, Kulias, Lapais, Marikans and Kelings. They were the principal port ministers (Shabandar), Captain (Captain), provincial rajah, economic and political advisor to the sultan (Nordin, 2005).
In addition to increasing appointments, ShabandarSouth Indian merchants who advised the sultans and provincial rajas and handled their trade affairs were also trusted as competent lobbyists, and their work expanded as diplomats, interpreters, letter writers, and couriers. They could act in these capacities, at least in the context of a polycentric sovereignty in which autonomous rulers formed alliances.
Around 1767–8, an incident occurred involving a ship that was believed to have been carrying a large cargo of goods belonging to the British merchant company Gowan Harrop and Bailey, in addition to the Aceh Sultan’s commercial goods. A conflict arose with the owners of the large cargo, and the case was referred to the court of Pondicherry in French colonial India for arbitration. To resolve the dispute, the Sultan commissioned Abu Bakar Levy (Bayly, 1989) to consult with the Nawab Ulanjir of the Carnatic, or Nawab Muhammad Ali Khan Walaja (1717–1795), who was influential enough to “calm the mood” with the French authorities (Lee, 2006).
Abu Bakar Lebby was chosen because of his linguistic skills and political knowledge of the Aceh-Carnatic and Coromandel-French areas. In the geopolitical interests of the Sultan and Lebby, the Nawab was the patron of the richest Marikan commercial network, which had long-standing commercial relations in Aceh-Indonesia, Malaysia and the Strait Settlements. The Nawab employed the Marakkayarese to supply and pilot his ships at Porto Novo, using them to ferry alms and pilgrims to Mecca and Medina. Other figures worth mentioning are Shahbandar and the Sultan’s advisers Muhammad Kasim and Poh Salleh, who are mentioned in Thomas Forrest’s account of 1772. Two other merchants, Sahib Nadar Alam and Panton Abdullah, were entrusted by Sultan Jauhar al Alam Syah (1786-1823) to govern two towns in North Sumatra. The Sultan’s Nakhodas were Meera Labbai, Muhammad Musa, Mohammad Sultan, and Kasim. Lubbai Muhammad and Gullah Meidin are the names of the scribes and drafters who wrote the treaties between Aceh and the great powers such as France and the United States (Reid, 2008).
Obert Voll (1994) has argued that Islam is historically a world system capable of manipulating order within the complexity of social and political hierarchies. Islam regulates the open nature of power behavior encompassing “intercivilizational political entities”, leading to sovereignty establishing “imperial unity.” This is because he finds that “no single cultural, economic or imperial system has achieved hegemony,” which provides a hypothesis for the universal value of peace and maritime interaction between Indonesia and the South Indies. Mabar And the Coromandel Harbour.
This argument supports the idea that Islamic culture was the norm that helped establish the maritime world order. The norm witnessed the inferior existence of a hierarchical international system based on skin color superiority and religious exclusivity, which was revealed in the international affairs between South Indians and Acehnese-Indonesians in the eighteenth century, especially in the presence of non-Islamic settlements and various political residents. For example, Purvan, a Hindu, worked with British merchants to trade with Aceh. Nathaniel Sabat, an Orthodox Catholic from Syria, was the Sultan’s interpreter and advisor. It was not uncommon for non-Islamic British and French merchants to act as advisors (Lee, 2006). All these Europeans fled colonial India and headed to the Indonesian islands. There were non-Islamic settlements in Aceh and Java at various times, such as Chinese, Indians, and Europeans, who were given legitimacy for their self-determination order. For South Indian Hindus, there were chetis settlements in Malacca, Pasay and Sulawesi (Subrahmanian, 1995).
The Indian Ocean Mandala, multi-technical institutions and norms have been important factors in the longevity of international engagement between Indonesia and South India. The Indian Ocean has linked maritime sovereignty and institutions primarily linked to Islamic entities. Shared culture and identity have shaped international norms in the absence of an ethno-religious centered international system.
references
Acharya, A. (2019). Shaping Global International Relations: The Origins and Evolution of IR, 100 YearsUnited Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Boss, S. (2006), Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of World EmpiresLondon: Harvard University Press.
Bayly, S. (2003). Adults, Goddesses, Kings: Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society, 1700-1900. Cambridge University Press.
Hing, LK (2006). Aceh at the time of the Treaty of 1824. Reid Anthony (editor), Veranda of Violence: Background of the Aceh Problem (pp. 72-95). Singapore: Singapore University Press.
Pardesi. MS (2022), Decentralization and Open Order: 15th Century Melaka in the World of Order, Global Study QuarterlyVol. 2, No. 4. Doi.org/10.1093/isagsq/ksac072
H. Nordin. (December 2005). Malay merchant networks and the rise of Penang as a regional trading centre. Southeast Asian Studies43(3), 216-237.
V. Obert (1994). Islam is a special world system. World History JournalVol. 5, No. 2. pp. 213-226.
Pradines. S, Typhoon. F (2023)Muslim Cultures of the Indian Ocean: Diversity and Pluralism Past and PresentUK: Edinburgh University Press.
Reid, A. (2008). The Merchant Prince and the Magical Arbitrator. Indonesia and Malay World, 36(105), 253-267.
Additional Resources on E-International Relations
