TheIndosphere

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Surat

Surat is a port city on the Tapti in southern Gujarat that was the chief port of the Mughal empire and its gateway for the pilgrimage to Mecca, the site of the English East India Company's first main factory in India, and twice sacked by Shivaji.

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The Mughal port

Surat rose as a port under the Gujarat sultans in the early sixteenth century, as silting reduced the older harbours of the Gulf of Khambhat. A fort was built on the river in 1540 to defend it against the Portuguese. Akbar took Surat in 1573 during his conquest of Gujarat, and under the Mughals it grew into the empire's busiest port, trading cotton cloth, indigo and other goods to the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and Southeast Asia. It was also the main port of embarkation for Muslim pilgrims to Mecca, and was called the gate of Mecca.

Its merchants were among the richest in the world. Virji Vora, a Jain merchant of the seventeenth century, lent money to the European companies and dealt in bulk in pepper, coral and bullion. Abdul Ghafur, a Bohra shipowner of the early eighteenth century, owned a large fleet trading to the Red Sea.

The Europeans

The English East India Company's ships reached Surat in 1608. In 1612 an English fleet under Thomas Best defeated a Portuguese squadron off Swally, the anchorage near the river mouth, and the following year the Mughal authorities allowed the English to open a factory. Sir Thomas Roe, ambassador from James I to Jahangir from 1615 to 1619, negotiated further privileges. Surat became the Company's main base in India, the seat of its President and Council. The Dutch opened a factory in 1616 and the French in 1668.

Shivaji's raids

In January 1664 Shivaji attacked Surat and plundered it for several days. The Mughal governor shut himself in the fort, while the English and Dutch defended their own factories. Shivaji returned in 1670 and sacked the city again. The raids damaged Surat's confidence as a safe market. In 1687 the English moved their headquarters to Bombay, which they held as a possession of their own and which offered better protection.

Decline

In the eighteenth century the decline of Mughal authority, the loss of the Safavid and Mughal markets, conflicts among local officials, and the rise of Bombay reduced Surat's trade. The British took control of the castle in 1759 and of the whole administration in 1800. A great fire and flood in 1837 destroyed much of the old city.

In 1907 the Indian National Congress split at its session in Surat between its moderate and extremist wings. In the twentieth century the city revived as a centre of textile weaving and of diamond cutting and polishing, which now handles most of the world's diamonds by number. An outbreak of plague in 1994 drew national attention to its sanitation and led to a large clean-up of the city.

Further reading

  • Richards, John F. The Mughal Empire. Cambridge University Press, 1993
  • Keay, John. India: A History. HarperCollins, 2000
  • Dalrymple, William. The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company. Bloomsbury, 2019

See also

  • East India Company — The East India Company (EIC) was an English joint-stock trading corporation, chartered in 1600, that expanded from a monopoly on Asian trade into the paramount political and military power on the Indian subcontinent before its dissolution in 1858.
  • Dutch India — Dutch India was the network of Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie factories on the Indian coasts, held from 1605 until they were traded to Britain in 1824.
  • Shivaji — Shivaji Bhonsle (1630–1680) was the founder of the Maratha Empire, crowned Chhatrapati in 1674 after building an independent state in the Deccan through decades of warfare against the Bijapur Sultanate and the Mughal Empire.
  • Gujarat Sultanate — The Gujarat Sultanate ruled the western seaboard from 1407 to 1573, founded Ahmedabad, and developed a stone architecture that fused Jain and Hindu craft traditions with Islamic form.
  • Mughal Empire — The Mughal Empire was a Persianate Muslim dynasty of Timurid and Chagatai descent that ruled most of the Indian subcontinent from Babur's victory at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526 until the deposition of Bahadur Shah II following the 1857 rebellion, reaching its territorial and cultural peak under Akbar, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb.
  • Surat Split (1907) — The Surat Split was the December 1907 breakup of the Indian National Congress into rival Moderate and Extremist factions at its annual session in Surat.

This entry was last revised on 12 November 2026.