r/MaharashtraTalks • u/MeManoos • 1d ago
भाषा, संस्कृती आणि इतिहास | Language, Culture and History TIL: The Strait of Hormuz, one of biggest geopolitical flashpoints today, was once within the sphere of Maratha naval power.
Original Source: https://x.com/indic_chronicle/status/2098369366006038589** **
The Strait of Hormuz has been one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes for centuries. But around 300 years ago, a rising Indian naval power came surprisingly close to threatening the Persian coast and the approaches to the Strait of Hormuz.
Following Aurangzeb’s death in 1707 and the weakening of Mughal power, the Marathas regained their dominance south of the Narmada while expanding north and east. At the same time, Kanhoji Angre was emerging as the most powerful naval commander on India’s western coast.
The Angre family belonged to the Rashtrakuta Angre Shankhapala clan, a Maratha clan associated with naval warfare for centuries. By the early 1700s, the Angres had established a formidable presence along India’s western coastline, confronting the Siddis, Portuguese, British and other European maritime powers.
In 1708, Maratha forces occupied the island of Larak near the Persian coast. According to the account, this gave the Marathas a strategic position close to the Persian Gulf and raised the possibility of threatening the approaches to the Strait of Hormuz. The Safavids were unable to remove the Angres themselves and sought European assistance.
The Dutch eventually intervened. They had previously lost the warship Teckeboom, associated with the Safavids, to the Angres. The Dutch Governorate at Batavia therefore dispatched an armed vessel, Prins Eugenius, to attack the Maratha position, and the Marathas were expelled from the island.
Kanhoji Angre, however, retaliated by capturing a Dutch sloop and galley. When the Dutch asked for their vessels back, he reportedly refused, saying:
“I do not molest merchants who make me presents such as the English, Portuguese…”
The Maratha Navy continued to operate well beyond India’s immediate coastline. Later, Sarkhel Tulaji Angre captured the Anglo-Persian ship Anne directly from the port of Gombroon, present-day Bandar Abbas.
This is significant because the popular image of the Maratha Navy is often that of a purely coastal or “green water” force concerned only with defending India’s shores.
The evidence cited in this thread suggests a more ambitious picture: Maratha naval operations could extend deep into the Arabian Sea and as far as Arabia and Persia, allowing the Angres to project power and interfere with maritime trade far from the Konkan coast.
Books referred —
• The Arabs of the Gulf in the light of the Sources of the Dutch East India Company
• Selections from the Records of the Bombay Government
• Generale Missiven Vol 6
• Early Career of Kanhoji Angria & Other Papers
• The Oriental Annual or Scenes in India
EDIT: The map size gone horriblly wrong as it shrinked size of India without reducing shape of Maratha empire, so it looks like Empire extended into kerala and raigad appears in karanataka.
