Pursuing sovereignty on a politically contested coast: The English East India Company at eighteenth century Bankot

Abstract

Bankot is a town located on the western coast of India, particularly on the stretch referred to as the south Konkan coast. In 1756, the English East India Company acquired control over this settlement. This article is a micro study of the Company’s pursuit of sovereignty at Bankot in the years following the acquisition. It looks at the Company’s aspirations and actions with reference to its political control, as well as the challenges it encountered in the process. The Marathas, in particular, offered a distinctive threat to the Company, and examining this relationship contributes to knowledge about Eurasian maritime encounters. This localised study of Anglo-Maratha relations consequently underscores aspects like fear, desire and anxiety as critical features of coastal politics, while marking the coast as a politically contested space. The article studies the way in which sovereignty was imagined and acquired on the coast, but it also highlights the intricate interlinkages between sovereignty and the coast. The physically, politically and socially hybrid nature of the coast had a potent influence on the Company’s political practice. Furthermore, the flux and mobility characterising coastal spaces also had an impact on the position and limitations of the Company. The particular nature of the coast gave birth to a form of Company sovereignty that was dialogical, and also distinct from other spaces. This article hence argues for looking at the coast as a critical space of study for the ways in which power and politics panned out in the eighteenth century.