maritime activities economy and social customs of the muslims of ...

Choudy alleges that the English East India Company itself seldom made use of the
Muslim merchants. The English considered some of the Muslim merchants as their enemies
due to the their common religion with the Mughal rulers2". Mujib opins that the British had
been the cause of the economic ruin of the Indian Muslims, and the British administration
had taken flerce revenge on the Muslims for their participation in the upheaval of 1857-
58z'6. The marltlme trade of the Muslims of Coromandel suffered further after the mutiny.
Though the religious anemosity of the English towards Muslims may not be comparable to
that of the Portuguese and the Dutch; but still the English discriminated them because of
their political and economic compulsions.
At end of the period of our study, the whole of India was under the British Empire.
The British administrators were not very serious about the maritime trade activities of the
natlves. The Musllm traders had to share the fate along with other native traders. Very few
Marakkayar maritime traders and ship owners alone survived the economic storm. In the
scattered pockets of Thanjavur, Ramanathapuram and Thirunelveli there were few wealthy
Marakkayar traders engaged in trade with Ceylon and in coastal trade. The trading activities
of many of the families dominating in the Coromandel Coast was engulphed by the British
economic power and supreme shipping technology, by 1900, and the glorious history of
the Coromandel Muslims' maritime activities faded away in silence. Thus the occupation of
the Coromandel region by various European powers and their commercial and political
activities, right from the sixteenth century to the dawn of hventyth, has played a major role
in the economic downfall of the Muslims .