Guns, Drugs and Revolutionary Propaganda: Indian Sailors and Smuggling in the 1920s

There is considerable evidence that during the 1920s, there was extensive transcontinental smuggling by Indian sailors of commodities including weaponry and narcotics. They also engaged in some smuggling of revolutionary propaganda. This article examines a number of smuggling incidents and asks what they tell us about the construction of narratives about mariners by both the authorities and the revolutionaries of the time. It contends that both radical and official narratives misconstrued the seamen's social world. Drawing on archival evidence and utilising the analysis of maritime culture developed by Carolyn Nordstrom, the article argues that whereas both Marxists and colonial officials tended to understand the sailors as potential revolutionaries, their own practice and self-image was much more that of traders in an illegal economy.