India - Empire of Spirit

Today the share of India in global world is only 2%. In history it was 20% of world trade.  If you had stood at the famous port of Muziris in Kerala 2000 years ago, you would see a ship arriving laden with gold.

Trading by ships in ancient India

Every day a ship from the Roman empire landed in a south Indian port whee it piked up fine Indian cottons, spices and luxuries. But Indians did not care for what the Romans brought, since accounts had to be settled with gold and silver. Back home Roman senators grumbled that their women used too many Indian luxuries, spices, cottons and two thirds of Rome's bullion was being lost to India.

Fifteen hundred years later, the Portuguese had the same problem complaint: their gold and silver from South America was being drained in the trade with India.

The British parliament echoed this refrain in the 17th century.

British Parliament

Indian textiles and spices changed culinary tastes and clothing habits around the world. European began to wear underwear only in the 17th century when they discovered soft and affordable Indian cloth brought by the East India Company.

In antiquity, the flowing togas of upper class Romans were made from Indian cloth.
Punjabi khatris in Multan led caravans across the Himalayas from the 16th century to 19th century, changing the lifestyle of people all  the way to Russia.

With 5000 mile coastline, India has historically  been a great trading nation. It always had a positive balance of trade with the world until the Industrial revolution in 19th  century England when mills of Lancashire made our handloom textiles technology obsolete.

After Independence, we forgot our trading past and closed our borders in the name of bogus idea called "Import substitution".  India opened up in 1991.

India's power has always been "soft" not expressed through military conquest but in the export of goods and ideas.

The Historian Micheal Wood, summed it up well : "History is full of Empires of Sword, but India alone created an Empire of the Spirit."