Cowasjee Articles

'The Pakistan Sea'

24th December 1993

IT ALL happened twenty years ago, in October of 1973, when I met our great prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and suggested to him that it was high time that we named the sea around us Pakistan Sea. "Good, good, very good! " said he, aspiring leader of the Third World, his eyes lighting up, "An excellent suggestion". We must delvedeeper. I'll have the proposition examined. Write to me".

I did:

"We talked about it On October 15.

"My research shows that invariably oceans, seas, bays, inlets, isthmuses are named by discoverers, explorers, navigators, cartographers, or users. They either bear their name or that of the land or country upon whose shores they lap.

"I send herewith a list of oceans and seas which bear the names of countries, places or of men.

'It is time the sea around us was known as the Pakistan Sea. Why should our coast be on the Arabian Sea?

"The simplest way would be to District our naval cartographers to print Pakistan Sea in the admiralty charts they compile—PN charts PAK 4,5,6,11,15,16,18. Later on others charting the same sea will follow suit. Usage would then take over".

This resulted in a call from the principal "delver", Agha Shahi then our foreign secretary. He opened up by expressing the opinion that such men as I have nothing better to do than raise such harebrained schemes that make work for men such as he. He complained that he had to write a note to the prime minister on the subject and asked me to see him and explain exactly what I was aiming at.

Soon thereafter, I received another call from a soldier whom I had never met, Major-General Fazal Muqeem Khan who, having just finished writing his third book, Crisis of Leadership, had been elevated to the post of Defence Secretary. He too had been forwarded a copy of my letter and said he would like to discuss it with me.

When next in Rawalpindi, I contacted both gentlemen and met them. One thing both wanted to know was how our sea had come to be called the Arabian Sea. I disclosed to them information I had received in reply to my enquiries.

From the Director of the International Hydrographic Bureau at Monte Carlo:

"After examining copies of very old charts in our library I find the name Mare Arabicum el Indicum applied to the area on a world map by Petrus Plancius published in Amsterdam in 1592. After that date it so appears on several maps published in the Netherlands during the subsequent 50-year period. On 16th century Portuguese charts dating from 1502 the same area is not usually named, but in fact in at least two instances is labelled Mare Indicum".

From the Chief of the Reference Department, Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress:

"The Arabian Sea is the ancient Mare Erythrae um. The Ptolemaic maps reflecting the geography of the second century BC show it as Mare Erythrae um. It appears as Mare Arabicum el Indicum on the map of the Indian Ocean, engraved by Hendrik van Langeren in Linschoten's Itinerario (Amsterdam 1596). This is the earliest map which we have found with that term. The term does not appear on the Ortelius maps of the area, circa 1575. It is very possible that the term may have been used for the northern portion of the Indian Ocean some time before it appeared on maps". And from the Keeper of the Map Rom at the Royal (geographical Society:

"The north-west area of the Indian Ocean has been known as the Arabian Sea for many centuries. Seas frequently have many names, according to their users.

'It seems probable that the term Arabian Sea developed from the important sea-borne, but coastal, trade from Arabia and East Africa along the south-east coast of Arabia. The Islamic geographer, Sharif al-Idrisi, who lived about 1100-1166 AD, notes that the sea area along the northwest coast of India was known as the Bahr-al Larwi; it was called Larwi after the ancient name for Gujrat, Lar."

Agha Shahi I had known since he joined the ICS and we had always been equally contemptuous of each other's views. He asked whether we wanted a war with India. Why should we upset India? My response was to ask why on earth India would be upset: they had the third largest ocean of the world (65,526,700 sq km) named after them. He then asked, why upset the Saudis? Again, why should they be upset? I asked. Not a wave of Arabian Sea laps against an inch of the Saudi coast. I explained that it was the users, the Arabs and the Indians, who had named the sea centuries before Pakistan was but a glint in Jinnah's eye. As an example, I took the English Channel known to the French as La Manche another example, the Gulf Iranian. It was known as the Persian Gulf until an astute user. An English merchant, writing to Abu Musa in Bandar Abbas, addressed a letter to him placing him on the Iranian Gulf. Another merchant wrote to Sa'ad bin Musa in Dubai, putting him on the Arabian Gulf. Thus, atlases will soon bear the names used by the users. Some maps, playing it safe, now refer to this particular expanse of water, as just The Gulf.

Fazal Muqeem just chuckled, treating me and my idea as a joke. He later wrote to me, at the end of 1973:

"The issue has been examined in detail and it is felt that if we unilaterally rename a major portion of the Arabian sea as the Pakistan Sea, we are bound to create alarm and bring about adverse political repercussions in the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. By merely printing the words 'Pakistan Sea' our admiralty charts it will have a impact, and if we announce it pulicly it is unlikely to succeed I view of past experience. The present tussle between the Iranian, and the Arabs to call the Gulf the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Gulf continues and in spite of the Persian Gulf or the Arab sensitivities the world refers to it by its old name of 'Persian Gulf'. Likewise some time back, President Soekarno of Indonesia decided to, name the sea surrounding his islands as 'Indonesian Sea', but his efforts bore no fruit".

Muqeem was on the wrong track. As to Soekarno's bid, his efforts to rename the Malacca Straits were linked with his confrontation policy towards Malaya and the Philippines. He even launched a mini-invasion on neighbouring territory. Freedom of passage through the straits was involved, as was drilling rights. Our case was not compatible.

That was the end of the matter then.

After more than 15,000 flood tides and an equal number of ebb tides, I now raise the matter again. Why not call the sea around us the Pakistan Sea? At the Law of the Sea Convention of 1982 an area of 240,000 square kilometers of sea was demarcated as Pakistan's Exclusive Economic Zone, over which we exercise full economic rights. Nobody can object to this portion of the sea being named the Pakistan Sea.

Our naval might being what it is, neglected as it has been and with more flag officers than ships to our name, no one in their right mind would credit us with aggressive designs. All that is needed is imaginative man, or woman to instruct our naval cartographers and the Surveyor-General of Pakistan to map in the words 'Pakistan Sea' in the appropriate location within the demarcated 240,000 sq km of our EEZ. I do not propose that the name Arabian Sea be eliminated. It can be written in, next to the Arabian Peninsula, below the 20th parallel.

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