India built the ships that made Rome run out of gold — and then the British deliberately destroyed the industry that had thrived for 5,000 years.
Commander S. K. Mishra traces India’s maritime history from the Harappan dockyard at Lothal through Vedic texts, the Maurya and Gupta empires’ sea trade networks, the Chola dynasty’s cultural expansion into Southeast Asia, and Shivaji’s fighting navy that held off the Portuguese and British. The British finally killed Indian shipbuilding not through military defeat but through discriminatory trade laws requiring all cargo to England to travel on British-owned vessels.
The talk pivots powerfully to the present: India is now one of only six nations in the world that builds its own submarines and aircraft carriers. The INS Vikrant, launched with 30,000 tonnes of indigenously developed DMR steel, represents both technological achievement and strategic sovereignty. The future challenge, Mishra argues, is developing lighter, stronger, corrosion-resistant metals for the hypersonic missile era — the nation that masters materials science will win the next century.

About the Speaker:
Cdr. S. K. Mishra is an Indian Navy Veteran who was a part of the 1971 war with Pakistan as well.