Colonial security architecture and political economy: British India’s role in shaping the Imperial Indian Ocean Order 1880–1914

Abstract

This article investigates how British India is involved in establishing “strategic linkages” between the political economy of British colonialism and imperial security to navigate the state of India from 1880 to 1914 through the Indian Ocean zone. It challenges the view that British India was solely a place of extraction and colonial rule; it was also a prime strategic point in the Indian Ocean where British oversight and power projection required coordination of financial resources, military personnel, transport systems, and seagoing communications. The study highlights that colonial political economy and imperial security were never distinct systems, but rather co-shaping elements of British imperial rule, with British India at its core. The research falls in the nexus of Historical International Relations, Empire Studies, and Security Studies, and addresses issues related to hierarchy, imperial order, security architecture, and colonial political economy. It explores the way ports and shipping networks, troop mobilization and train commuter networks, telegraph lines, and financial systems linked British India to broader circuits of imperial governance reaching the Persian Gulf, East Africa, and other Indian Ocean world regions. Although the focus is still Britain’s presence and footprint in the Indian subcontinent, East Africa is inserted as a supporting feature to illustrate more broadly how Britain’s Indian subcontinent presence and networks were extended across the western Indian Ocean.