Africa, West Asia and India have connections that go deeper than boundaries, further than politics, longer than history. The 45,000-km Gondwanaland Expedition, 

Throughout most of geologic time there were only two primordial continents: Laurasia in the north and Gondwanaland in the south, separated by the Sea of Tethys. Gondwanaland consisted of Africa, peninsular India, Australia, South America, Antarctica and Eurasian regions south of the Alpine-Himalayan chain. About 265 million years ago, this continental togetherness began to split. For 200 million years, India, Arabia, and Apulia (consisting of parts of Italy, the Balkan states, Greece, and Turkey) drifted across the ocean, and finally collided with the rest of Eurasia 65 million years ago. The collision uplifted the Alpine-Himalayan mountain ranges extending from Spain (the Pyrenees) and northwest Africa (the Atlas) along the northern margin of the Mediterranean Sea (the Alps, Carpathians) into southern Asia (the Himalayas) to reach Indonesia.

In spite of the great distance created by the continental drift, people have inter-acted, traded and migrated freely between the two regions – overland and across the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.

Around 120 B.C. members of the Egyptian Coast Guard found an Indian sailor shipwrecked on the Red Sea. They took him to Ptolemy VII. The sailor spoke in a language no one Alexandria knew, so Ptolemy treated the sailor like a book needing translation: he ordered that the sailor be taught Greek. Thus educated, the sailor taught his captors something amazing: Monsoons over the Indian Ocean blow in a regular pattern – from northeast to southwest in winter and the opposite way in summer. A significant part of Alexandria’s trade took place with India and lands farther east that supplied the spices used for religious rituals, medicine, and preserving food. At the time, ships sailing from India were manned by Arabs and Indians who had mastered the monsoons. These sailors unloaded their ships at Eudaemon, Arabia (now Aden), and transferred goods to ships manned by Alexandrians sailing across the Red Sea to the coast of Egypt. The stop in Arabia greatly increased shipping costs. The only alternative – transporting goods overland across the Hindukush, Persia and Mesopotamia – was far more risky and expensive. A trip to India with the shipwrecked sailor as pilot showed that the monsoon winds could facilitate a direct journey, and Alexandrians began to bypass the Arab middlemen.

The trade with East Africa, led to a permanent Indian settlement there. It is believed that a colony of Indian merchants lived permanently in Memphis, Egypt from about 500 BC. In the nineteenth century, when European explorers like Burton first ventured into the interiors of Africa, they were guided by Indian merchants. These early migrants to East Africa belonged mainly to small trading communities like the Ismailis, Bhoras and Banyas of the Gujarat region.

Today, take a walk in any of the large cities of India or even into the remote regions of the country and you will discover the entire microcosm of Gondwanaland. Be it the native of Andaman, the Siddhi tribe in Gir forest of Gujarat, the Syrian Christian in the lagoons of Kerala, the Bene Israeli’s of the Konkan, the Irani restaurant owner in Mumbai, the Parsee cinema-hall owner in Ajmer, the Turkish wife of the Nizam, the Armenian executive in Kolkatta, the Jat soldier who fought in the desert of El Alamien in Egypt, the Bihari rail road worker in Durban and the trader - India’s export from Gujarat to almost everywhere in Africa. The list is endless. The Indian Diaspora is estimated to be about 20 million all over the world. Many of them are in West Asia and Africa.

Driving 45,000 km from the tip of India to the tip of Africa, across 18 countries over a five-month period, the Gondwanaland expedition will pass through India, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa. Mahindra and Mahindra have loaned a Scorpio and two Bolero Sports to the expedition.

A friendship mission, the expedition will promote people-to-people contact with the countries of West Asia and Africa. The team members will meet with scholars, students, friendship societies, and visit patients and children in hospitals and schools. The team will comprise of geologists, zoologists, botanists and anthropologists who will conduct exploratory studies. The accompanying film crew will produce a television series on how the people of India, West Asia and Africa have, over the centuries, contributed to the evolution of each other’s culture.

The expedition will be lead by Akhil Bakshi, Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society. Mr. Bakshi, a celebrated explorer, filmmaker and author, has earlier organized and led three major international jeep expeditions. The Central Asia Expedition (1994) drove 12,000 km on the old Silk Road across Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Chinese Turkestan and Tibet. The Azad Hind Expedition (1996) drove 10,000 km from Singapore to Delhi via Malaysia and Myanmar in the footsteps of the Indian National Army. Expedition Hands Across the Borders (1999) drove 18,000 km through the interiors of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and India to promote peace and development in South Asia.

Bakshi is undaunted by the strife and tension prevalent today in many areas the expedition will be traversing. In the true spirit of an adventurer he finds these annoyances "fully gratifying and heart-warming".

For sponsoring the Gondwanaland Expedition, please write to

editor@the-south-asian.com or abakshi@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in

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