Need more of maritime in public culture, says Indian Navy veteran

Over the last few years, Commodore Srikant Kesnur has come to be associated with several naval history projects and initiatives for popularising Indian Navy’s history and India’s maritime past in several forums.

Commodore Srikant Kesnur, an Indian Navy veteran, describes himself as a ‘maritime evangelist’. Listen to this article Need more of maritime in public culture, says Indian Navy veteran x 00:00 1x 1.5x 1.8x

Commodore Srikant Kesnur, an Indian Navy veteran, describes himself as a ‘maritime evangelist’. In his 36 years in the Indian Navy, he commanded two frontline ships, taught at three Military training institutions, and was sent on a diplomatic assignment to East Africa. He also has been the lead writer and Chief Editor of 12 Navy publications. He holds a doctorate from Mumbai University apart from five other degrees in Sciences and Social Sciences. Over the last few years, he has come to be associated with several naval history projects and initiatives for popularising Indian Navy’s history and India’s maritime past in several forums.

He speaks with indianexpress.com about the Indian Naval History Project.

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How did you get involved with the Naval history project?

Interestingly, the Indian Navy is the only service that has periodically written its history. Thus, the Indian Navy had published six volumes of its history for the periods between 1945 to 2010. In continuation of the same endeavour, in the year 2018, the Navy took the decision to form a team for the writing of naval history for the decade 2011 to 2020. The Naval History Project (NHP) was set up and, in view of my interest in and inclinations towards naval history, I was designated as the Officer-in-Charge of the project. Having helmed the project for four years, I handed it over to my shipmate Captain M Doraibabu, when I retired in June 2022. He then completed the assignment in tandem with Cdr Godbole, another colleague in the project. Thus, the seventh volume of the history book was released on Navy Day 2022, by the President of India.

How will this book help the common citizens?

The Navy comes out with many kinds of books and publications aimed at informing various target audiences, be it the naval community or scholars and academics, or the general populace. For example, one among them is the annual naval magazine, ‘Quarterdeck’ which gives naval history information in an anecdotal and informal way. Then there are domain or discipline-specific books on units, ships, submarines, and Naval Aviation or Naval Hydrography which are released on occasions such as important anniversaries or presentations of President’s Colour, etc. These are usually in the form of photo essays or illustrated volumes. On the other hand, this naval history book is more academically structured and is aimed to enable study by scholars and think tanks, both in India and abroad, engaged in maritime matters. However, it also has enough content for any person generally interested in the Indian Navy. I also believe that the way in which this book has been written is reader-friendly. It is fairly exhaustive and extensive so it is useful for the serious scholar as well as the lay reader.

Commodore Srikant Kesnur has been the lead writer and Chief Editor of 12 Navy publications.

Here, I must also bring out that the naval history project took up other naval history-related initiatives because the Navy thought it was important that maritime history should reach out to different constituencies, in different ways. Thus, for example, we worked on a three-volume series of comics by Amar Chitra Katha that tells the story of the Navy to the children. We also did a five-part YouTube series on the Navy in the 1971 war, in collaboration with Nehru Centre London with the well-known author Amish Tripathi hosting it and having those who took part in the war as special guests or panelists. We conducted other seminars and events, worked on publicity material, and contributed content to other initiatives on the Navy. Individual officers in the team worked or were co-opted into other Naval outreach efforts, be it in giving inputs for maritime museums and memorials or articles/information in academic journals or popular publications.

Thus, the overall purpose was to increase awareness of the Indian Navy in the public at large and to contribute vitally to Indian Navy’s efforts to enhance maritime consciousness in the country.

Amar Chitra Katha Comics (ACK), publisher of children’s comics, also collaborated with the Indian Navy. What was the intent behind this?

The three comics series chronicled India’s glorious maritime heritage and naval development. They showcase the transformation of the Indian Navy since independence. The intention was to reach out to children. The first volume talks about India’s maritime history from antiquity to modern times. The second book talks about the growth and development of the Indian Navy and how it has become a powerful and multi-dimensional force in the last 75 years and the third one is about personalities and icons of the Indian Navy who can be examples or role models for children. Here, I must credit certain visionary Senior and middle-level officers in the Navy who conceived this idea. I think it basically stemmed from the fact that not much of our Maritime or Naval History is taught at schools or known to the children. So, the idea was to try and reach out in a children-friendly way.

He holds a doctorate from Mumbai University apart from five other degrees in Sciences and Social Sciences.

Has serious work happened in India on her maritime history or do we need to work more on it?

I am a maritime history enthusiast and Naval history is my area of study, so my answer must be seen in that light. I think the short answer to both questions is yes. There has been enough good and serious work of course but there is always more that can be done. Apart from the seven volumes mentioned above and other books on Indian Navy, I would think that certain writings such as Radhakumud Mookerji’s “Indian Shipping: A History of Seaborne Trade and Maritime Activity of the Indians from the Earliest Times” or Rear Admiral K Sridharan’s “A Maritime History of India” are good scholarly works on India’s Maritime past. Nor can one forget the works of KM Panikkar, especially his slim but powerful book “India and the Indian Ocean”. There have been several books by Indian and Foreign scholars on many facets of Indian Ocean too. The Indian Navy’s Maritime History Society (MHS) has published many scholarly works, especially under the tutelage of the late Prof B Arunachalam.

Many books published by the Indian Navy, even if somewhat circumscribed by the Coffee Table Book format have been fairly informative about maritime subjects. These include “Through the Labyrinth of History” which is about Naval Dockyard Mumbai but also spans other historical aspects of Mumbai’s maritime past, a book on “India’s Maritime Heritage” published in 2016, one on Indian Naval Hydrographic department called “Charting the Deep”, another on the history of the Western Fleet and so forth. In recent times Sanjiv Sanyal’s book “Ocean of Churn”, Sandeep Unnithan’s co-authored “Operation X” and Pramod Kapoor’s “1946 – the Last War of Independence” are books that have combined scholarly rigour with high readability quotient. I am also super excited that Manohar Malgonkar’s book “ the Sea Hawk” on the legendary Maratha Admiral Kanhoji Angre has also been recently re-published.