A casual post by Zerodha co-founder Nithin Kamath has set social media buzzing, and unexpectedly peeled back the layers of a forgotten chapter in colonial history. What many assume to be the preserve of Britain’s global empire was, in fact, administered directly from Delhi.
“I didn’t realise that lands from Muscat and Oman, the UAE, all the way to Burma were once part of the British Indian Empire,” Kamath admitted on X, after dipping into The Shattered Lands by historian Sam Dalrymple.
Dalrymple’s research challenges the neat borders that most Indians today associate with British India. Far from being confined to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the Indian Empire extended its reach across vast swathes of the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
As recently as 1928, the map of India, at least in administrative terms, included Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and even the territories of today’s United Arab Emirates.
These were not simply protectorates in name. They were governed by the Indian Political Service, garrisoned by Indian troops, and answered to the Viceroy in Delhi. Under the Interpretation Act of 1889, they were legally deemed part of India.
“The Persian Gulf was the heart of the Indian sphere,” historian Robert Blyth wrote in Empire of the Raj. For Britain, control of the Gulf was strategic, a buffer against French and Russian advances in the 19th century.
Bombay to the Gulf
The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 made the region doubly vital. Treaties and “protection” agreements drafted in Bombay cemented Britain’s dominance, enforced on the ground by Indian officers.
Yet, intriguingly, British maps of the period often omitted these Gulf protectorates. Officials were wary of antagonising the Ottomans and preferred to keep the extent of India’s administrative empire under wraps. “As a jealous sheikh veils his favourite wife,” quipped one lecturer of the era, “so the British authorities shroud conditions in the Arab states.”
Lord Curzon, meanwhile, bluntly declared that Oman was as much a princely state as Kelat or Hyderabad.
The quiet handover
Right up until March 1947, the Gulf was still run from Delhi. But as independence loomed, Whitehall moved quickly. London stripped the Indian government of any authority over the Gulf and placed it directly under the Foreign Office.
According to Gulf Resident William Hay, it would have been “inappropriate” for newly independent India or Pakistan to deal with Gulf Arabs. In one stroke, centuries of administrative and political linkages were severed.
Erased from memory
In India, this story is rarely taught. Nationalist historians preferred to imagine India as Bharat, timeless, ancient and pure, without acknowledging the British-built, outward-looking empire that once sprawled outwards from Delhi. As Dalrymple observes, Britain’s motives were never about Indianness. It was simply trade, strategy and control.
Kamath, reflecting on these histories, drew a modern parallel. Just as the East India Company had grown from a trading firm into a leviathan of conquest, he mused on the dangers of today’s trillion-dollar corporations: “What happens if they turn evil, too?”
For now, his post has revived an overlooked legacy, a time when, at least on paper, Delhi governed Dubai.
“I didn’t realise that lands from Muscat and Oman, the UAE, all the way to Burma were once part of the British Indian Empire,” Kamath admitted on X, after dipping into The Shattered Lands by historian Sam Dalrymple.
Dalrymple’s research challenges the neat borders that most Indians today associate with British India. Far from being confined to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the Indian Empire extended its reach across vast swathes of the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
I didn't realise that lands from Muscat and Oman, the UAE, all the way to Burma were once part of the British Indian Empire. I'd always thought of India's partition as only involving India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
— Nithin Kamath (@Nithin0dha) August 24, 2025
Shattered Lands by @SamDalrymple123 is a must-read for history… pic.twitter.com/GFfXFpK8Pj
As recently as 1928, the map of India, at least in administrative terms, included Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and even the territories of today’s United Arab Emirates.
These were not simply protectorates in name. They were governed by the Indian Political Service, garrisoned by Indian troops, and answered to the Viceroy in Delhi. Under the Interpretation Act of 1889, they were legally deemed part of India.
“The Persian Gulf was the heart of the Indian sphere,” historian Robert Blyth wrote in Empire of the Raj. For Britain, control of the Gulf was strategic, a buffer against French and Russian advances in the 19th century.
Bombay to the Gulf
The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 made the region doubly vital. Treaties and “protection” agreements drafted in Bombay cemented Britain’s dominance, enforced on the ground by Indian officers.
Yet, intriguingly, British maps of the period often omitted these Gulf protectorates. Officials were wary of antagonising the Ottomans and preferred to keep the extent of India’s administrative empire under wraps. “As a jealous sheikh veils his favourite wife,” quipped one lecturer of the era, “so the British authorities shroud conditions in the Arab states.”
Lord Curzon, meanwhile, bluntly declared that Oman was as much a princely state as Kelat or Hyderabad.
The quiet handover
Right up until March 1947, the Gulf was still run from Delhi. But as independence loomed, Whitehall moved quickly. London stripped the Indian government of any authority over the Gulf and placed it directly under the Foreign Office.
According to Gulf Resident William Hay, it would have been “inappropriate” for newly independent India or Pakistan to deal with Gulf Arabs. In one stroke, centuries of administrative and political linkages were severed.
Erased from memory
In India, this story is rarely taught. Nationalist historians preferred to imagine India as Bharat, timeless, ancient and pure, without acknowledging the British-built, outward-looking empire that once sprawled outwards from Delhi. As Dalrymple observes, Britain’s motives were never about Indianness. It was simply trade, strategy and control.
Kamath, reflecting on these histories, drew a modern parallel. Just as the East India Company had grown from a trading firm into a leviathan of conquest, he mused on the dangers of today’s trillion-dollar corporations: “What happens if they turn evil, too?”
For now, his post has revived an overlooked legacy, a time when, at least on paper, Delhi governed Dubai.
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