279. How Dubai Almost Became Part of India (Part 2)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Empire Club Episode 279 – "How Dubai Almost Became Part of India (Part 2)"

Released on August 6, 2025, Episode 279 of the Empire podcast hosted by Goalhanger delves into the fascinating and often overlooked history of the Arabian Peninsula's ties to British India. William Dalrymple and Anita Anand, alongside guest Ryan Reynolds, unravel the intricate narratives of how modern Gulf states like Dubai, Oman, and Qatar were once princely states under the Bombay Presidency. This comprehensive summary captures the episode's key discussions, insights, and conclusions.

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1. Rediscovering Forgotten Histories

[02:25] Anita Anand:
"Why is this forgotten? How come that none of us knew it?"

The episode opens with William Dalrymple and Anita Anand highlighting the astonishing revelation that many Gulf states were, in fact, princely states under British India's influence. This paradigm-shifting information was unearthed thanks to James Onley and the Qatar Digital Library, an extensive archive now accessible to researchers worldwide.

[02:54] William Dalrymple:
"I got lost for weeks in that archive. It is extraordinary."

Dalrymple emphasizes the richness of the Qatar Digital Library, describing it as a treasure trove of previously inaccessible documents that shed light on the region's obscure historical figures and events.

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2. The Princely States and British Colonial Strategy

[03:16] Ryan Reynolds:
"He discovers that most of the archives on Qatar are not sitting in Qatar and they're not sitting in the Arabian Peninsula, they're not sitting in London, they're sitting in Bombay."

Reynolds explains that the British meticulously managed these princely states as semi-autonomous regions, integrating them into the Bombay Presidency. These states, while internally independent, ceded foreign policy and defense to the British, similar to the arrangement in India.

[05:38] Anita Anand:
"Sam, none of us realize this, but you say that there's a reason that we're ignorant, that the British actually went out of their way not to emphasize these states were part of India."

The hosts discuss the British strategy of keeping these princely states under the radar to avoid diplomatic tensions with the Ottoman Empire, effectively erasing them from common historical narratives.

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3. Cultural and Political Impacts

[07:16] Ryan Reynolds:
"The sons of these Arabian princes attended boarding schools like Mayo College in Rajasthan, mingling closely with the Indian elite."

Reynolds highlights the deep cultural intertwinement between British India and the Gulf states, illustrating how Arab elites were educated and influenced by Indian traditions and languages, notably Urdu.

[10:36] William Dalrymple:
"George Nathaniel Curzon is a most superior person."

Dalrymple critiques Lord Curzon's pompous demeanor and his dual strategy of integrating the Gulf states into the Indian Empire while simultaneously underscoring British supremacy, as evidenced by ceremonial humiliations.

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4. The Shift Towards Independence

[15:31] Ryan Reynolds:
"...Arab nationalism is growing, and there's a sense that these regions should be aligning more with Cairo and Beirut than Bombay."

As the British Empire's grip begins to loosen post-World War I, Arab nationalism surges, leading to increasing demands for independence from British rule. This culminates in the separation of regions like Aden from India in 1937 to better align with emerging Arab national identities.

[16:29] William Dalrymple:
"It is mind blowingly interesting, that separation. And you liken it to Brexit..."

Dalrymple draws parallels between the historical separation of the Gulf states from India and modern secession movements, pondering the significant geopolitical ramifications had these regions remained part of India or Pakistan.

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5. The Role of Indians in the Gulf

[30:46] Ryan Reynolds:
"Ambani Dirabayambani... organizing one of the biggest refueling stations."

Reynolds introduces the influential role of Indian entrepreneurs like the Ambani family in the Gulf's economic development. Their ventures laid the groundwork for the modern prosperity seen in cities like Dubai and Abu Dhabi today.

[32:22] Anita Anand:
"...when they arrive in Aden, they bump into relatives who are still tied to India, not needing to speak Arabic."

Anand underscores the insular nature of the Indian communities in the Gulf, which fostered economic success but also fueled Arab nationalist sentiments due to perceived lack of cultural integration.

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6. The Emergence of Modern Gulf States

[36:27] William Dalrymple:
"...all the territories around the Gulf will be at liberty to seek their own salvation without the threat of British intervention..."

Dalrymple narrates the final phase of British withdrawal, leading to the formation of the United Arab Emirates in 1971. This marks the end of British influence and the birth of independent, oil-rich nations.

[40:11] Ryan Reynolds:
"In episode four of this miniseries, we'll discuss exactly that possibility."

Reynolds tantalizes listeners with upcoming discussions on alternative historical scenarios, such as a federated Indian-UAE.

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7. Hypothetical Reflections and Conclusions

[39:50] Anita Anand:
"Imagine Pakistan as an oil state or India as an oil state. Just extraordinary."

The hosts reflect on the critical decisions made during decolonization, contemplating how accepting Gulf states' integration could have transformed India's economic and geopolitical landscape, thrusting it into the global oil arena.

[40:20] William Dalrymple:
"...referencing Sam Dalrymple's book, 'Shattered Lands: Five Partitions in the Making of Modern Asia.'"

Dalrymple promotes further reading and engagement through Sam Dalrymple's work, inviting listeners to explore more nuanced histories of Asian partitions.

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Notable Quotes

• Anita Anand [05:38]:
  "Sam, none of us realize this, but you say that there's a reason that we're ignorant, that the British actually went out of their way not to emphasize these states were part of India."

• Ryan Reynolds [16:29]:
  "There is very, very almost a world in which the entire united oil wealth of the Gulf is handed over to either India or Pakistan."

• William Dalrymple [36:35]:
  "Isn't it reminiscent of when the Russians sold back the West Coast of the United States before the gold was found?"

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Conclusion

Episode 279 of the Empire podcast offers a riveting exploration of a hidden chapter in colonial history, revealing how the Arabian Peninsula was intricately linked to British India. Through meticulous archival research and engaging discussions, William Dalrymple, Anita Anand, and Ryan Reynolds illuminate the complex interplay of politics, culture, and economics that could have dramatically altered the modern Middle East and South Asia. This episode not only sheds light on forgotten histories but also invites listeners to ponder the profound "what ifs" that shape our contemporary world.

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For more in-depth analysis and early access to upcoming episodes, consider joining the Empire Club.

Transcript

[Anita Anand]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Anita Anand]

Its sweet profile perfectly balances the savory.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Notes of your burger.

[William Dalrymple]

That is one perfect combination. Burgers deserve Pepsi.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing Mint Mobile Unlimited Premium Wireless 3030 beta get 30 baby. Get 20. 20, 20. Get 2020 15. 15. 15, 15. Just 15 bucks a month.

[Anita Anand]

Sold.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of networks busy taxes and fees extra.

[William Dalrymple]

See Mintm. Hello and welcome to Empire with me.

[Anita Anand]

Anita Arnand and me William Dalrymple.

[William Dalrymple]

And we continue our miniseries with Sam Dalrymple discussing his rather excellent five partitions that reshaped modern Asia. And in this episode, which I think is actually one of the most intriguing of all of the chapters that you've covered in, in this history is the history of the Arabian Peninsula, which honestly you would not put together with the Indian Raj at all. So let's talk about this because a century ago, a large part we're talking about Oman, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait were legally part of India. Sam Darymple discuss and why don't we know this?

[Anita Anand]

Yes.

[William Dalrymple]

Why?

[Anita Anand]

Why is this forgotten? How come that none of us knew it?

[Ryan Reynolds]

It's been kind of forgotten. And I think each of the nation states involved, be it India, the uae, Kuwait, Bahrain, has kind of written over this and it was really forgotten until this guy called James Onley, this professor and archivist was hired by the Qatari government to create what's known as the Qatar Digital Library, which is really good and anyone should Go online anyone who's doing research. It's one of the best archives out there.

[William Dalrymple]

I got lost for weeks in that archive. It is extraordinary. I was honestly searching for a really obscure name, a British name that had served in India and I knew had been in Muscat. And then suddenly you've got his handwriting, you've got reports about him, it's replete with these gems that I just had no idea existed until this archive was made open. It was fabulous.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So he, he's basically sent out to try and find any documents on the history of Qatar before oil, because that's when most Qatari histories tend to begin, really. He discovers that most of the archives on Qatar are not sitting in Qatar and they're not sitting in the Arabian Peninsula, they're not sitting in London, they're sitting in Bombay. And that basically the entire swathe, this ring from, from Aden in what's now Yemen, all the way up to Kuwait, basically the whole peninsula bar North Yemen and Saudi Arabia had been part of the Bombay Presidency and essentially been ruled as princely states of Bombay.

[Anita Anand]

Just clarify. For those who don't know what a.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Princely state was, crucially, only 2/3 of the Raj was what we call British India directly conquered and ruled by the Brits. And a third was ruled by some 570something states that had given up their foreign policy and defence over to the Viceroy and the Indian army, etc. But were more or less internally independent. Now, anyone who goes to India on holiday may have been to Jaipur, Jodhpur, the Blue City, the desert city of Jaisalmer. These were all princely states, these were all not directly ruled by the British government in the way that, say, Delhi or Kolkata were. Likewise, if you've been to Pakistan, Bhavalpur, Kalat and Chitral, all princely states that joined Pakistan. But what we forget is that states like Nepal, Bhutan, Dubai, Oman were all princely states too and were separated off before Indian independence. And that's what happens with the Gulf. So if you look, if you open the Al Kabnama, which is the list of princely states that are subservient to the Viceroy of India, it opens alphabetically with Abu Dhabi. And on the same page you can see kind of Bhutan and Lahej and all these other states that are not part of India today, there's a passport that I managed to find of a Yemeni Jewish woman who wants to migrate to mandate Palestine after the Balfour Declaration declares it a homeland for the Jewish people. And in order to migrate from modern day Yemen to modern day Jerusalem, she has to get an Indian passport because by virtue of being born in Aden, she is an Indian citizen.

[Anita Anand]

Extraordinary lost world. Sam, none of us realize this, but you say that there's a reason that we're ignorant, that the British actually went out of their way not to emphasize these states were part of India.

[William Dalrymple]

Well, I mean, not even visualize it. I mean, visualizing it was a problem. I mean, maps showing that line around what was, you know, the Indian part of the empire. I mean, they just didn't really exist, did they?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Precisely. So to avoid the ire of Istanbul, basically the Ottoman Empire had a claim to the whole of the peninsula. And to avoid a diplomatic dispute, the Arab states of the Gulf were always left off maps. And there's a Royal Asian Society lecturer who says, as a jealous sheikh veils his favourite wife, so the British veil their activities in the Arabian Peninsula.

[Anita Anand]

Crucially, Sam, you point out that in a sense, it wasn't the favourite wife, that these places, which today we think of as incredibly rich, I mean, anyone would like to get their hands on the Treasuries of Qatar and Dubai. But in Raj terms, as late as the 1930s and 40s, they were one gun salutes. They were very minor princely states, or zero gun salutes, as opposed to, say, Hyderabad, which was what, a 21 gun?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Exactly. And Jaipur, which had 17 gun salutes.

[Anita Anand]

This was something one of those absurd Raj ceremonial whereby each ruler had a number of guns that would go off when he arrived somewhere and there was vast competition between them. Are you a 15 or a 17 or a 21? Or in the case of Dubai at Abu Dhabi, zero gun salute. No one would salute them when they turned up.

[Ryan Reynolds]

The only one that had a lot was Oman, which was also, I think, a 21 gun salute. So it was recognised as a major princely state. But so, you know, bits of Yemen are part of the East India Company from 1830s, when the East India Company first annexes Ada before Lahore. Yeah, exactly.

[Anita Anand]

So Yemen was part of the ravage or part of the East India Company before the Lahore, which in a sense is the archetypal sort of Kipling Indian city.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It's extraordinary. But the Gulf states kind of to the east of Yemen are brought into the Raj a bit later. There are treaties between these states and the Raj from the early 19th century, but it's only in with Lord Curzon, the Viceroy, who's most famous for dividing Bengal and later helping to save all sorts of bits of English heritage like Bodiam Castle. It's Curzon who has A durbar, this kind of, you know, a court, holds court in Sharjah in the early 20th century and begins integrating them completely as princely states. And he has this quote, Oman should be considered as much a native state of the Indian Empire as Lusbela or Kalat, which are two states in modern day Baluchistan.

[Anita Anand]

Sam One of the things you found which, which will be interest at least the Indian listeners here, is that a lot of these Arabian princes sent their sons to boarding school, to the posh sort of Eton of India, which was Mayo College in Rajasthan, where they would. Would have their own house with their own elephant alongside the. The son of the Maharaja of Jaipur and Jodhpur.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah. And crucially, the sultans of Oman in the early 20s and 30s are more fluent in Urdu, an Indian language, than they are in Arabic, which sort of alienates them from their people to some extent. And the language of the Omani army, Urdu remains one of the languages of the Omani army till very, very late. There's all sorts of things. You know, you get all these Yemeni princes showing up at the Delhi durbar. And most importantly, though, I think many of the princes of the region would have considered themselves part of the Indian sphere of influence. But you often get the question you how much did the average person in what's known as the Arabian Raj actually feel Indian? The answer is not that much. So the average person in Dubai probably wouldn't have known that much that they were considered legally Indian, but in the big cities they were. So Aden specifically, you have many Arabs considering themselves Indian nationalists. There's a particular guy called Muhammad Ali Luqman who's one of the great founding fathers of modern Yemen. And throughout the early 20th century, he's travelling around with the great Dalit leader Ambedkar. He's a massive fan of Gandhi. He's actually Gandhi's Arabic translator whenever he comes to address the Indian National Congress in Aden. And he, whilst critical of the fact that the only history Arabs are taught in schools across the peninsula is about the Mughals and the reign of Tipu Sultan and the Marathas and nothing about Arab history, he nonetheless has an intense sense of an Indian identity. This idea that Arabs can be Indians too, just in the same way that a Punjabi or a Bengali can.

[William Dalrymple]

We'll come on to Lukman in more detail in a second, but I just want to just go back to Curzon because we've mentioned this before. You know, this man was the Viceroy of India. I mean, even when he was at University people found him pompous and arrogant.

[Anita Anand]

George Nathaniel Curzon is a most superior person.

[William Dalrymple]

Thank you for taking the words right out of my mouth. Yes, thank you. But I mean, the thing is, though, he believed in pomp and ceremony. You mentioned the gun salutes, but there is also a visual image of what he thought of the Peninsular States because, you know, he may have wanted them to be included. But this photograph that exists in the British Library, it shows Curzon, he liked to sort of sit in the middle of all this to show his grandeur. And all of the nawabs and all of the, you know, the rajas and maharajas would have to come and bow before him as a obsequious, to show that the, you know, British Empire is supreme. You may be a princely state, you may have jewels and diamonds, but you bow to us in India. They were given quite a lot of respect in the photograph that was taken at Sharjah. They don't even have chairs. Some of them, they're sitting on the ground around him or kneeling before him. So although he wanted them present in this sort of great India of his, he didn't want them to forget their place and their place was very low to the ground.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So the Gulf states are he views as particularly small, essentially. So I think several of the states of modern day Yemen, as well as the. The state of Oman, were very important in his eyes and were given massive respect. But as far as he was concerned with the sheikhs of Dubai and Doha and Sharjah, they were right at the bottom of the imperial pecking order. And one of the great stories that has emerged from this book is the fact that there is this complete reversal. So today Indians go to the Gulf and are often treated quite badly and.

[Anita Anand]

As servants, as housekeepers. Yeah. Or taxis in Dubai.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And 100 years ago today, the reverse was true. You had Arabs from Dubai moving to Bombay, et cetera, as servants. There's this wonderful quote that I managed to find of a Qatari man who was very pleased that the tables had turned. And whilst he was once hit for stealing an Indian official's apple and was kind of, you know, basically beaten, now the Indians come to Qatar as servants and he could do the same to them. Slightly dark, but strange reversal.

[William Dalrymple]

So let's go back to this fascinating guy, Muhammad Ali Lukman, because he is from an Arab family in Aden, as you say, but he feels Indian. I mean, not only feels Indian, but he speaks Indian languages as well, doesn't he? I mean, it's what Gujarati is, one of his languages. Hindi is one of his languages.

[Ryan Reynolds]

He writes a short story about life in Gujarat. He's got cousins in Gujarat. And he writes that for many years after becoming Gandhi's translator, I eulogized the aims of the Indian Congress. And it's only in the kind of 1930s that he begins propagating Arab solidarity and disseminating Arab aspirations instead. So there's this reversal that just as Burma that we discussed in the last episode, just as Burmese people are beginning to feel alienated from India, you get people like Gandhi saying, you're not really Indian, though, are you? Because, you know, you weren't featured in the great Hindu epic, the Mahabharata. At exactly the same moment, the same sort of attitude is being applied to Arabs like Luqman. He's being told, well, you're not really Indian. Adens are part of the Indian Empire, but you're not really Indian.

[Anita Anand]

Sam, how similar was this to the way that many Arabs would have felt, Turkish being under Ottoman rule? Was it a parallel to that?

[Ryan Reynolds]

So it's rather interesting. So, yes, it's definitely similar. One of the things, interestingly, that really alienates Arabs like Luqman from this kind of pan Indian identity is the fact that most Indian Muslims support the Ottoman Caliphate and really, you know, think that the downfall of the caliphate in World War I and the independence of the Arab states, think Lawrence of Arabia time. Many Indian Muslims think this is an awful thing, that the caliphate is the leader of the world's Sunni Muslims and should be propped back up. Whereas Arabs like Luqman begin to feel like, why are you supporting a colonial power that's dominating Arabs? And so a wedge begins to form, even between Arab Muslims and Indian Muslims. In a sense, it's so extraordinary.

[Anita Anand]

We never have this image of Arabia divided between the Ottoman Empire and the British Empire, but it is a cleavage and it's a very important one.

[William Dalrymple]

Let's cast our eye on Aden more closely, because on the same day, in the last episode, we talked about the partition of Burma. On the same day, April 1, 1937, you have the decision to separate Aden from India. And this is the telegram that George VI reads out. Aden has been an integral part of British Indian administration for nearly 100 years. The political association with my Indian empire will now be broken and Aden will take its place in my colonial empire. Why do they decide to do this and why do they decide to do it now?

[Ryan Reynolds]

So there's multiple things going on here at once. You've got an increasing sense that India might be independent in the future. You know, it's the express aim of the Congress. And frankly, separating off these bits that Indian nationalists don't want mean that we can potentially keep them in the future. There's this guy, Bernard Riley, who's one of the governors in Aden, and he's constantly going on about how much reforms in the Arabian Peninsula are always bogged down by the vast Indian bureaucracy that's always more focused on events in Bengal and Punjab than it is on events in Aden. And so he definitely was pushing separation just for the sake of economic reforms. And then there's a growing sense that in the wake of World War I, there's more of a sense of Arab nationalism that's growing and a sense that maybe these regions should be looking more to Cairo and Beirut than they should be looking to Bombay.

[William Dalrymple]

Bombay and Calcutta. Right. I mean, so I get that reasoning, what you said during the Burmese episode, and if anyone hasn't heard that yet, I urge you to go back. It is mind blowingly interesting, that separation. And you lightened it to sort of Brexit, when you're separated from the mothership, if you like, you know, the bigger economy, it sort of is a prelude to economic disaster. Is the same true for Aden, which is separated on the same day, or are there more myths to catch it?

[Ryan Reynolds]

I think there's less because its economy was always less tied to India, I think, than Burma, that literally shares a massive land border. And Aden really has its heyday in the 60s, actually, after decades later, throughout much of this time, it's essentially a point where if you're taking a boat from London to Bombay, you stop off at Aden on the way to refuel. That's how most people experienced it.

[Anita Anand]

Evelyn Waugh writes about it, doesn't he, in one of his travel books, Arriving at that time. Exactly in that moment.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Exactly. And actually, Evelyn Waugh is a fascinating source on all this because he writes about the growing dispute, the sense amongst Arabs in the city that they're never going to get as good loans as Indians from the Indian national banks. But crucially, what's bizarre is that the Arabian Peninsula is separated from the Raj in bits and pieces. So you get Aden separated on April Fool's Day, 1937, but the gulf states remain like Dubai, remains a part of the Indian empire until much later, until basically early 1947. So just as Indian independence is looming, you get all these conversations about, well, we should quickly separate them off now before, you know, we hand over the reins to the Gulf. And so there's all these bizarre Telegrams that I managed to find in the archives. There's British officials discussed whether India or Pakistan would be allowed to run the Persian Gulf after independence. Yet a member of the British legation in Tehran writes of his surprise at the apparent unanimity of officials in Delhi that the Persian Gulf was of little interest to the government of India. So the Indians are essentially offered the Gulf and turn it down. And as the Gulf resident William Hay puts it, it would clearly have been inappropriate to hand over responsibility for dealing with the Gulf Arabs to Indians or Pakistanis. There is very, very almost a world in which the entire united oil wealth of the Gulf is handed over to either India or Pakistan. And it would have changed global geopolitics entirely. And it's one of the most consequential decisions, in a sense.

[Anita Anand]

Imagine Pakistan as an oil state or India as an oil state. Just extraordinary.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Oil hasn't really been discovered yet and it wouldn't have just been an oil state, it would have had, you know, think of what Dubai, Qatar, Bahrain each have and put it all together.

[William Dalrymple]

And I wonder if the decision, you know, taken by India. No, thanks, but no thanks. Thanks very much. Nice of you to think of us, but no, we don't want. It is informed by, you know, the fact that there are growing fishes within the independence movement as well, between the Indian Congress and groups like the Khilafat movement, you know, who identify themselves as being primarily Muslim. And there is this sort of like building picture in India itself in the 1930s and early 40s of. We can't have any more tipping the balance out of our favour.

[Ryan Reynolds]

To answer your question, Anita, I think that it's much more the fact that the Indian government just sees this as a money drain. Oil hasn't really been discovered and these are tiny villages on the other side of the Arabian Sea that, you know, they will have to fund a huge navy to protect. One of the reasons that all of these states were never brought into modern Saudi Arabia when Ibn Saud unifies all the Arabian tribes in the. In the 1920s, is because they were under the protection of the Indian army. And the question was, do they really want to have to continue funding the protection of these small villages that were a crucial link in the Indian empire? But, you know, how relevant are they really to Indians today?

[Anita Anand]

That's so brilliant. So they said they can't afford to look after Dubai and Qatar because they're such a drain.

[William Dalrymple]

Isn't it reminiscent of when the Russians sold back the West Coast United States before the gold was found in the.

[Anita Anand]

Gold rush just before and Alaska before the oil.

[William Dalrymple]

Yeah, well let's take a break here at another moment where India said no thanks. Thanks but no thanks. We don't want these bits. You can keep them before oil is discovered. Join us after the break where we introduce you to a really fascinating man. His name is David Holden and only this year has he been exposed as a CIA KGB double agent. See you in a moment.

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[William Dalrymple]

Welcome back. Okay, well that was a tease and a half before we went into the break. Sam Dalrymple, tell us all about this man, David Holden.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So David Holden's a really fascinating figure. He shows up in my book because his writings as correspondent for various newspapers in the 1950s across the Arabian Peninsula is one of the best visualizations for the lingering Indian influence across the region. He writes amazingly about the fact that he had looked forward to his Arabian posting, but he hadn't been expecting to be attending a garden Dir bar in honour of Queen Victoria's appointment as Empress of India in the 1950s. Kind of Bahrain. And he writes that the Raj maintains here a slightly phantasmal sway, a situation rich in anomaly and anachronism. The servants are all bearers, the laundryman, adobe and the watchman a chokidar. And on Sundays, the guests are confronted with the ancient and agreeable Anglo Indian ritual of a mountainous curry lunch. So he writes gorgeously about the lingering impact of the Raj on this region. But as you said, what's extraordinary is that he has entered the news this year as one of the big double agents of the Cold War, working for.

[Anita Anand]

The KGB against the CIA.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Well, working for kind of both, yes. His former editor at the Sunday Times remembers him as a small, neat man, not a hair out of place, who, with his bush jacket and debonair manor, managed to bring a touch of beau geste to our newsroom. HUBBUB he was generous in providing contacts and very well aware of the dangers of practicing journalism in tense, exotic places. And if you look at a photo of him, he's a kind of smug and confident young man in a cotton suit with combed black hair and a sort of penetrating gaze.

[William Dalrymple]

He looks like he works for the tax office and he's just landed me with an enormous bill and he's very happy with it. That's what he looks like. That's exactly what he looks like. So some kind of administrator who's got the cream. But yeah. So what is he doing at this time? And how is he sort of playing both sides off each other?

[Ryan Reynolds]

One of the great mysteries of the Sunday Times history that the editor, Harold Evans, spent years trying to solve and never managed to solve was why was Holden mysteriously murdered in Cairo? And he's found, I think, in a parking lot or something somewhere. His body's just found kind of dumped on the side of the road.

[William Dalrymple]

When is the murder bodies found?

[Ryan Reynolds]

In 1977. So just six years after my book ends. And, yeah, it's one of the great mysteries of the Sunday Times history, and there was all sorts of stuff Coming out when I was researching the book about his mysterious meetings with a known Soviet block agent. And it was recently discovered, just in the last year of my research, that he'd had a passionate romantic affair with ex communist and spy Leo Silberman, who turns out later to have been a KGB recruiter. And there's a letter that he writes to his brother that in such a conservative environment as Arabia, what is a fellow to do except turn queer? So news investigations recently have concluded that his relationship with Leo Silverman eventually evolved into him working for the KGB himself and that he was working for the CIA at the same time and that it was one of the big scandals basically of the Sunday Times history.

[William Dalrymple]

But what the hell is he doing in the Gulf states? I mean, what do they. What do they both want of him? I mean, why is he working for them? Is he. Who is he there for?

[Anita Anand]

And is he doing this for. For money or is he a communist? I mean, his description of the absurdity of British rituals in the Gulf would indicate that he's a lefty sort of laughing at the pompous Brits, which would imply a more left leaning politics.

[Ryan Reynolds]

He's definitely that. I think that it's still unclear what's going on. I think that he is covering the whole of this region, including Egypt after the Suez crisis. He's covering Israel, Palestine. There's all sorts of major politics blowing up at the time that he's basically just being sent out by the Sunday Times to cover. But obviously there's all sorts of murky dealings in terms of the US versus the USSR throughout this region at exactly the same time. And I think this is such a new story that it's still unclear precisely what he was doing when. But I think as more research is done, it'll become clearer and this will soon be regarded as one of the great kind of Kim Philby stories of the Cold War.

[William Dalrymple]

It's just an extraordinary thing. An extraordinary thing. I mean, we did mention just before the break that India had said no thank you to all of these Gulf states because oil had not been discovered. I mean, at what point is oil discovered where India can really kick itself in the shin and Pakistan can as well by saying no thank you to this great gift. And when Holden, is there, is it the start of money starting to pour in, pour out of this region?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Precisely. So there was oil discovered in the region shortly before separation and before the partition of Arabia from India, but it was discovered in small quantities. The thing that changes everything is when Iran tries to nationalise the Anglo Persian Oil Company in the early 50s, which.

[Anita Anand]

I think I'm right in saying is part of Burma Oil, which we discussed in the last episode.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It's a subsidiary.

[Anita Anand]

A subsidiary, that's right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So you've got these kind of funny connections. And crucially, this bit of Iran where oil is. Muhammara was very, almost recognized as a independent princely state of the Raj. And the Brits tried to get the local sheikh to basically declare independence of Iran and be recognized alongside Kuwait and Qatar, et cetera, as a princely ruler. But when Holden's arriving, it's just beginning. You're just suddenly getting this new investment in all the oil reserves of Bahrain. And I think Abu Dhabi has just discovered some, but it's not yet discovered in places like Dubai. And when he's going around, he's shocked. The crucial thing that he's seeing everywhere is this lingering Indian influence. He's finding that the soldiers of kaiati state in what's now eastern Yemen were marching around in defunct Hyderabadi army uniforms because the Sultan was actually a relation of the Nizam of Hyderabad in central India.

[Anita Anand]

One of the figures you bring into your account at this point are the Ambani family, who Indians will know as the richest people in India, one of the richest people in the world. Now, what's their part of the story?

[Ryan Reynolds]

So again, they're just eyewitnesses to all of this. This is a time when Indian influence is still rife across the region. And this. And there's still a memory, it's essentially viewed as the last vestige of the Indian empire having been separated off now that India, Pakistan and Burma are all independent. There's one scholar, Paul Rich, who talks about the Gulf essentially being the Indian Empire's last redoubt. Just as Goa was Portuguese, India's last solitary vestige, or Pondicherry, was the tag end of French India. And the Ambanis, along with hundreds of thousands of other Indian trading families, continued to ply trade between Gujarat, Maharashtra, Sindh and the Gulf states, just as they always had to this day.

[Anita Anand]

In. In Bombay, you see people selling sort of Arabian cans of cola and odd jobs on the seafront in Mumbai, on Apollo Bunda and a marine drive. There's. There's still Arabs selling things there coming in on dhows to this day precisely.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And. And Ambani Dirabayambani, whose son Mukesh is now, you know, one of the richest men in the world with one of India's biggest businesses is one of the Indians who's going out there to continue to Making a fortune there. You know, like, Aden is increasingly in the 50s, you know, one of the British Empire's last great shipping centers. Aden is what Dubai will later become. It's the big business center of the Arabian Peninsula. And Ambani goes there to basically work for an oil company. A lot of the eulogies of his life, of this rags to riches story, like to talk about him as a petrol pump owner, but he's actually kind of basically organizing one of the biggest, you know, refueling massive ships to the, you know, like huge cruise ships twice the size of the Titanic. You know, he's organizing this massive sort of refueling station.

[William Dalrymple]

Is he. Is he rich? Is he rich by Aidan standards at this point?

[Ryan Reynolds]

I mean, you know, no, but he's. He's part of this growing middle class that's able to get a job in this booming city and go home relatively rich enough to start his own big business, which will be called Reliance, one of the big businesses of India today. Crucially, his wife, Kukla Ben, has an amazing memoir, and she writes very explicitly about the disappearance of this Indian world of the region. The fact that when they arrive, they arrive in Aden, and within a day they've met kind of six relatives who are living there and that Gujarat is still so tied to Aidan that everyone is gudrat. They didn't have to speak a word of Arabic to live there in what's now Yemen. And yet by the late 1950s, they leave because of growing Arab nationalism and a growing campaign that Indians don't belong.

[Anita Anand]

So tell us about this growth of Arab nationalism. This is the era of Nasser. Everyone's looking to this sort of new leader who's uniting the Arabs against the West. How does it affect people like the Ambanis and. And the remaining Indians in the Gulf?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Well, so there's, you know, slogans like Arabia for the Arabs. And as far as Arab nationalist rhetoric goes, a lot of the Indians and Pakistanis now working in Aden are essentially collaborators with British imperialists. And in quick succession in the mid-1950s, citizenship of the Gulf states is tied to a fair knowledge of Arabic and to basically being Arab.

[Anita Anand]

I think this is one of the most fascinating aspects when you're looking from the long distance back at the Raj. Today, many of us write about the Raj as something exploitative and which looted and robbed India. And I've spent a lot of my working life sort of working on that theme. But one of the plus points of the Raj, which is often not understood in modern India, is that the Raj, because of its sheer size and because of its links to other British colonies, like. Like the ones in East Africa, allowed Indians who were entrepreneurial, like the Chettyyars going to Burma, like the Gujaratis going to Aden, like all the Ismailis going to East Africa, it allows amazing business opportunities for entrepreneurial Indians to set up their businesses around the outskirts on the periphery of British India, which leads to these vast Gujarati communities in East Africa or Punjabi communities in East Africa and the CHETTIAS. And in 1947, when those links are cut, those communities are cut off. So the East African Gujaratis end up in Britain, the Chettyars have to return back to Tamil Nadu, go to Singapore, and the Aden Indians come back to Bombay.

[William Dalrymple]

I mean, maybe. Maybe they're still. There's another parallel to be drawn that, as Sam was saying, you know, you've got Ma Ambani, who in her memoir talks about bumping into six people she's related to on the first day of being there. The Indians were clannish wherever they went. And so, you know, just like you have in East Africa, the complaints from, you know, the indigenous people of Kenya and Uganda that, you know, they're sort of living amongst us but not of us, that there is. I mean, I do get that sense that, you know, even in Aden, where you've got this kind of Gujarati population or you've got, you know, the others in places that William just mentioned, that there is not a cultural meld that has gone on, but you get little Indias in these places, which fuels that Arab nationalism.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And crucially, in the 1950s, it's after the Suez crisis, British imperialism is kind of dying out, and there's increasing protest for, you know, independence for everywhere in the British Empire at this point. And so Britain begins as a point of policy to try and transform this region into viable states that it can hand over independence to, but who will remain kind of friendly with the British so that they continue to have British businesses operating there who they can hand power over to. And the first that they give independence to is Kuwait. 1961, Kuwait is granted independence. The protectorate over Kuwait is removed. And yet almost immediately, the Iraqi government begins referring to Kuwait as a lost province of Iraq, whose independence from Iraq was only an artificial creation of the sort of viceroys of India, essentially. And it was only thanks to the Indian army's protection that it was independent of Iraq. That's an argument that's used almost immediately and one that will be used by Saddam Hussein three decades later to justify his invasion of Kuwait. And so you get the origins of the Gulf War.

[Anita Anand]

How amazing, Sam, you have your character, David Holden, turning up at this point and pointing out the irony that while Kuwait was one of Britain's dependent sheikdoms, no significant British land force had ever been summoned to its defence. Now, in the first month of its independence, nearly 6,000 British troops pour into the country to defend it against Iraqi ambitions.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Exactly, Sam.

[William Dalrymple]

There's an absolutely fascinating and eye opening account of Kuwait being granted independence. What happens to the rest?

[Ryan Reynolds]

So there's an increasing push to try and federate basically all of these little sheikhdoms that exist across the Arabian Raj, as it's called. And so, for example, you get the first inklings of the United Arab Emirates trying to federate states like Abu Dhabi and Dubai together at the same time as you have an attempt to try and federate all the states that will later become Yemen, basically. So states like Lahedj and Gayati state. In the course of the 1960s, you have increasing protests and then revolution to try and push Britain out of the region. So it goes from being something that the Brits are kind of pursuing sort of, to something that revolutionaries are shooting Brits in the streets of Aden and saying, go away. And Aden, which was one of the great port cities of the British Empire, becomes the centre of a massive battle between rival revolutionary groups who are all pushing for Britain to get the hell out. Things are calmer though, elsewhere. So whilst it's eventually a group called the nlf, who's essentially communists, take over South Yemen and create a country called South Yemen. But it's not, you know, it's not allies who Britain is able to hand over power to. It's a group called the National Liberation Front, who is very much pro USSR, etc. In the rest of the Gulf states they are able to hand over power to the loyal sheikhs and sultans. And David holden writes in July 1971 that for the first time since the heyday of Britain's East India Company, all the territories around the Gulf will be at liberty to seek their own salvation without the threat of British intervention or the comfort of British protection. This final remnant of the British Raj, for that in effect is what it is, has been for some years now, an obvious, if somewhat charming anachronism. But its day is over. He writes that, you know, Arabia's changed extraordinarily in the intervening years between kind of, you know, 1950s when he first arrives and 1970s when he leaves. And when he arrived, it was one of the poorest regions of the world. But now Abu Dhabi I think by the time he leaves was per capita the richest state, bar none, Even though just 10 years earlier it was sunk in the traditional penury of desert isolation. And he says that Sheikh Zayed of Abu Dhabi's forefathers ruled the desert from the back of a camel, but Zayed rides it in a limousine. So it's changed in extraordinary ways. But in July 1971, a new union called the United Arab Emirates is formed out of small sheikdoms such as Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Ajman, Fujairah, Kalba, Umm Al Quwain and later Ras Al Khaimah joins it as a seventh sheikdom. And so you get the origin of the UAE out of these small remnants of the British Raj. And finally, in December 1971, the final British ships pull out of the port of Bahrain and leave, and the protectorates that had been placed over the region is finally taken away. So that the Gulf states emerge in 71, the same week as an independent Bangladesh will, which is what we'll discuss in a few episodes time. They are finally recognised as independent nation states rather than just as British protectorates.

[Anita Anand]

Sam, this whole idea of founding a confederation of what had been princely states creates one of the great what ifs of history. What if Jodhpur, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Kashmir and so on had founded an Indian federation? Would we see them today as a sort of UAE living alongside India?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yes, and there's a lot of talk about that. I think in episode four of this mini series we'll be discussing exactly that possibility. So do stay around and listen in to that episode.

[William Dalrymple]

Look at you doing your plugs for us. That's so amazing. Look at you. Honestly, I don't know why I'm working with him. You're very good. Seriously, he always forgets to plug ahead. Listen, you've just got a little taste of what is to come. These stories and so many more are contained within shattered lands. Five Partitions in the Making of Modern Asia by Sam Dalrymple. If you want to hear the next episode, we're going to be exploring the partition that, you know, most of us think about when we talk about partition, and that is the partition of India and Pakistan, but from a slightly different angle, because I know we have covered partition on this podcast before, because we're going to be focusing on the creation of Eastern Pakistan, now Bangladesh. So, I mean, it's going to inform a lot of what's going on in the world at the moment. If you can't wait, you don't have to. You can listen to it straight away. Just become a member of the empire club. That's empirepod uk.com empirepod uk I always say this, a price of a fancy coffee per month, that's all it is. And you get early access to, you know, our miniseries all in one go. Listen at your convenience. Weekly newsletters, which are brilliant and stuff, full of extra information and reading suggestions. Well, you become part of our team and you also get our love, our love forever. Because you becoming a member of a club lets us do what we do. And we're very, very grateful for those of you who sign up.

[Anita Anand]

Keeps the whole pod going.

[William Dalrymple]

So it's empirepoduk.com keeps the wheels on. Keeps the wheels on. It does. Anyway, till the next time we meet it. Goodbye from me, Anita Anand.

[Anita Anand]

And goodbye from me, William Durmple.