Latest / The Hidden History of Bengal: Kingdoms, Empires, and Revolution — Fexingo History / Mughal Naval Power: The Bengal Fleet That Defeated the Portuguese
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Bengal through its land empires — the Palas, the Senas, the Mughals. But one thing we haven't really touched is the water. Bengal is a land of rivers — the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, the Meghna — and controlling those waterways was just as important as controlling the fields. Luna: I guess I've always thought of the Mughals as a cavalry empire. Lucas: Yeah, it's a natural view. But in Bengal, the Mughals had to adapt. And that means they built a navy. A serious one. By the 1660s, under the governor Shaista Khan, the Mughal fleet in Bengal numbered hundreds of vessels — galleys, gunboats, transport ships. And they used it to take on the Portuguese, the Arakanese, and their own rebel zamindars. Lucas: And you know, a couple of dollars a month from listeners is genuinely what keeps these episodes going. If you've gotten something out of them, buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo — it really does make a difference. Luna: Yeah, absolutely. It's a small thing that adds up. Lucas: So the context is this: after the Mughals under Akbar conquered Bengal in the late 1500s, they inherited a chaotic river world. The Portuguese had already established themselves in ports like Hooghly and Chittagong. They operated almost like independent pirates — they raided villages, captured slaves, and controlled trade routes. And then there were the Arakanese from present-day Myanmar, who allied with the Portuguese to launch raids deep into the delta. Luna: So the Mughals had to fight a two-front war on water. Lucas: Exactly. And the man tasked with fixing this was Shaista Khan. He was appointed governor of Bengal in 1664 by Emperor Aurangzeb. Shaista Khan had already served as governor of the Deccan, and he had a reputation for being ruthless and efficient. He decided that the key to Bengal's security was to eliminate the Portuguese pirate base at Sandwip — an island in the Meghna estuary. Lucas: Sandwip was controlled by a Portuguese renegade named Domingos Carvalho, who had set himself up as a sort of pirate king. He had a fleet of about 30 ships, and he terrorized the surrounding coast. The Mughals had tried to dislodge him before, but without a proper navy, they couldn't. Luna: So Shaista Khan built a fleet from scratch? Lucas: Essentially. He ordered the construction of warships at the dockyards of Dhaka and Murshidabad. He hired shipbuilders from Gujarat and even brought in some Dutch engineers. By 1665, he had assembled a fleet of over 300 vessels — some were large galleys with oars and sails, others were smaller gunboats. He put an admiral named Ibn Husain in command. Lucas: Ibn Husain was a Bengali Muslim who had served in the Mughal army. He knew the local waters intimately. In early 1666, he led the fleet down the Meghna towards Sandwip. The Portuguese were caught off guard. Ibn Husain blockaded the island, bombarded the fort, and after a few days, Domingos Carvalho surrendered. The Mughals captured his ships, his cannons, and even his wife — a woman named Juliana Dias da Costa, who had been called the pirate queen of Sandwip. Luna: Wait — a pirate queen? That's fascinating. What happened to her? Lucas: Juliana was taken to Dhaka, where she became a part of Shaista Khan's household. Some accounts say she converted to Islam and married a Mughal noble. Others say she was ransomed back to the Portuguese in Goa. But her story is a reminder that these waters were full of strong, unpredictable characters. Lucas: After Sandwip, Shaista Khan turned his attention to Chittagong. That was the main Arakanese port, and it was used as a base for raids into Mughal territory. In 1666, he launched a combined land and sea assault on Chittagong. The Mughal fleet under Ibn Husain sailed up the Karnaphuli River, while land forces marched along the coast. The Arakanese put up a fight, but the Mughal navy bombarded their forts and eventually took the city. Luna: So Chittagong became Mughal territory for the first time. Lucas: Exactly. And it stayed under Mughal control until the British took over. Shaista Khan renamed it Islamabad — though that didn't stick. The capture of Chittagong was a huge strategic victory. It severed the link between the Portuguese and the Arakanese, and it secured the eastern frontier of Bengal. Lucas: But the Mughal navy didn't just fight pirates. It also policed the rivers against local bandits and enforced trade regulations. The imperial government in Delhi saw the navy as essential for collecting revenue — because on the rivers, you could control the flow of goods like rice, salt, and textiles. So the navy became a key part of the Mughal administration in Bengal. Luna: What kind of ships did they use? Were they like European galleons? Lucas: Not really. The typical Mughal warship in Bengal was a galley — long and narrow, powered by oars, with a single mast for a sail. They called them 'ghurabs' or 'kishthis'. They were designed for shallow rivers, so they had a flat bottom and a shallow draft. Some carried cannons, but mostly they relied on boarding actions and archery. The Mughals also used larger 'bajras' — which were more like floating fortresses, with multiple decks and heavy guns. Lucas: There's a great account from the Alamgirnama — the official history of Aurangzeb's reign — that describes a naval review on the Buriganga River near Dhaka. It says the river was 'covered with boats like a bed of flowers' and that the oarsmen sang as they rowed. It paints a picture of a very organized naval force. Luna: So what happened to the Mughal navy later on? Why don't we hear more about it? Lucas: It declined gradually. After Shaista Khan's time, the Mughal grip on Bengal loosened. The Nawabs became more independent, and the British East India Company started building their own naval presence. By the 1700s, the Mughal fleet had dwindled. The British took over the rivers, and the Mughal navy became a footnote. But for a few decades in the 1600s, it was the dominant force on the Ganges delta. Lucas: And that's a part of Bengal's history that deserves more attention. It shows that the Mughals were not just horse lords — they were also shipbuilders, admirals, and river warriors. Luna: It really changes the picture I had of them.