The Dwarka was perhaps the most famous and long serving of the British India Steam Navigation Company’s postwar “D” class ships built between 1946 and 1950. The Dwarka like her sisters served on British India Line’s Persian Gulf service.

Remarkably this route was one of British India Line’s longest surviving services and lasted till Dwarka was retired in 1982. Other equally long lived services were their Madras to Singapore “Straits” service (which survived until 1973 when the Ranjula was retired from service), and their Bombay to Durban service (which survived until 1976 when the Karanja was retired from service).

Design and Construction (1946 – 1947):

The British India Steam Navigation Company (British India Line) was inseparably linked with British imperial history in India, in South-East Asia, and in East Africa. Its history was the history of Scottish enterprise in the East. Through its founder, Sir William Mackinnon, its expansion matched the expansion of British influence in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf, particularly through Mackinnon's company the Imperial British East Africa Company, and the B.I. agencies Mackinnon, Mackenzie and Gray Mackenzie.

No ships had been built for the Persian Gulf mail service since the B and V classes just before the First World War. All were worn out by strenuous service in two world wars, so one of the most important needs after the Second World War was a new fleet for this important service. The result was the famous, or to some infamous D class of four ships which introduced a new silhouette and standard in the Gulf, although retaining many characteristic features. There was a short forecastle with a raked soft-nosed stem, then an equally short well-deck at No.1 hatch followed by a long shelter deck running aft to the cruiser stern. This deck was open at the mainmast in the first two ships but plated in the last two. Three tiers of deckhouses rose amidships and the double-banked boats there and aft reflected the provision for deck passengers. For the First Class passengers there was a lounge and library forward and a smoke room and bar aft on the promenade deck.

The low funnel was set close abaft the bridge and raked in symmetry with the two masts, which carried double sets of derricks working the four hatches. Although the Ds were a sturdy, workmanlike design, they fully justified the mini-liner description they acquired in later years.

The lead builders of the D class were Barclay, Curle & Co. whose yard on the Clyde was responsible for three of the four ships. The first to be completed was the Dumra, delivered in December 1946. For some years she ran alongside the older vessels but after completion of the Daressa in 1950 the run settled down with each ship spending a week in Bombay, followed by calls at Karachi, Gwadur or Pasni, Muscat, Bandar Abbas, Sharjah or Dubai, Mena al Ahmadi for bunkers, Kuwait, Bushire, Khorramshahr and then two or three nights in Basra before returning to Bombay via the same ports. The Bombay to Bombay voyage duration was three weeks and the four Ds provided a weekly sailing from Bombay. The ships had a huge water consumption, exacerbated by widespread water pilferage at every way port and the consequent loss of bottom weight meant that the ships became unstable about the Bahrein to Mena stage of each voyage. This was corrected by giving permanent stone ballast to each ship.

The Dwarka however was the sole Tyneside built ship in the quartet as she was built by Swan Hunters Shipbuilders Ltd at Wallsend on Tyne. She was launched on the 25^th October 1946 by Mrs G.F. Hotblack, wife of one of the Directors of the Company. After fitting out she was delivered to her owners on the 25^th June 1947.

She was named after the city of Dwarka on the west coast of India. Dwarka is a place regarded as one of the four corners of India, in the west in the Jamnagar region, near the mouth of the Gulf of Kutch. The holiest of Hindus regard it as a source of veneration to visit these four corners.

British India Line service (1947 – 1982):

The Persian Gulf service on which Dwarka was employed survived so long because of the particular conditions of the Gulf which preserved the patterns of labour migration that were so important in the British Indian ocean empire.

The Gulf is not only one of the richest areas of the world; it is also under-populated. The growth of its principal towns and city states has been entirely dependent upon labour migrants from India and Pakistan. The Dwarka was capable of carrying nearly 1,000 such migrants in her deck spaces, and is often full, at least for the Muscat to Karachi leg of her voyage.

Since she was introduced the Dwarka continued her loyal service with great regularity as the principal carrier of modern labour migrants, due to the survival of an essentially 19th century trade.

The Dwarka was a rather traditional ship. The captain's accommodation and wireless room were located immediately abaft the bridge. The boat deck below carried most of the officers' accommodation, the deck officers forward, the engineering officers aft. The promenade deck had a lounge and library forward, three single, six two-berth and two three-berth cabins, and a bar and smokeroom midships. Aft there was a deck house with berth space for "special trade" passengers, together with a small portion of the deck for their "airing".

"A" deck had saloons fore and aft, for officers and cabin passengers in the former case, for warrant officers in the latter. The rest consisted of three berth cabins, the pursers' accommodation and offices, the doctor's accommodation and hospital.

The four hatch covers became in effect passenger accommodation as soon as the vessel leaves port. There are several stairways to "B" deck, where there are galleys, dining area, a bar, and more space for deck passengers, while berths are provided fore and aft on "C" deck. The whole external appearance of the deck areas of the vessel was delightfully traditional, from fo'c'sle head to poop, where deck cargo was sometimes stored.

The regularity of the Dwarka's coming and going up and down the Gulf was disturbed only when two Somali deck passengers ran amuck after a dispute over the price of food purchased between Gwadur and Karachi on 29th September 1953. Three crewmembers were killed and eleven injured before the Somalis were restrained.

This incident is described in 'B.I. Centenary' as follows: -

”She was bound from Gwadur to Karachi when, on the night of the 29th, word reached the bridge that a fight had broken out on the after deck. The Third Officer, Mr Windle, was sent to investigate, and Mr Spedding, the Chief Officer, followed him at once, to find that the Chief Engineer Officer, Mr Jamieson, and his Second, Mr Line, had also turned up to help in what was proved to be a nasty business. When they arrived on the scene, two of a small party of Aden Somalis among the passengers had run amok after some inter-racial quarrel and had already stabbed to death two Asian coal trimmers and a Hindu Vishi cook. Every light on the ship was immediately switched on, all hands mustered; and a search began.

The wild men were at length found hiding behind a winch and a free fight developed. The Chief Officer and the extra Third Officer, Mr P.G. Sutton, were stabbed; the Purser, Mr Antao, was mauled when intervening to save the Vishi manager and a general servant, both stabbed; and it became a matter of clearing the deck and holding the madmen at bay until a plan of attack was worked out. This took the form of an organised rush by the European officers, using fire extinguishers and hoses and armed with wrenches and lengths of piping, and there was another dogfight before the two Somalis were sufficiently injured to be overpowered, lashed up and carried to the bridge.

If that was not enough, a message from the engine room at 3.40am next morning reported another desperado at large in the shaft tunnel, but when another party of officers went to investigate, the worst was that the extra Second Engineer Officer, Mr H.C. Scott, was covered with the contents of a pot of red paint, his assailant presumably escaping through the escape hatch into the crew's quarters. The looting of the Cashmere by pirates 80 years before seems an almost comic episode in comparison with this night of madness, during which three members of the Asian crew were killed, two European officers and nine members of the Asian crew injured: The Chief Officer, Mr Spedding, so gravely that it was fully a year before he could resume his duties.”

As she left Muscat for Karachi on 19th June 1961, there was a minor explosion in No1 hatch and one person was injured but damage was minor and the ship soon resumed her voyage.

In 1965 the Dwarka rendezvoused at Muscat during the Indo-Pakistan War when her Indian passengers were exchanged for Pakistanis aboard British India Line’s Santhia, supervised by the Sultan of Muscat and Oman’s police and the Royal Navy frigate HMS Nubian.

By the 1970s the Dwarka became almost alone in the trade, maintaining a service she has operated consistently for over 30 years, connecting Bombay and Karachi with Muscat in Oman, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Doha in Qatar, Manama in Bahrein, and Kuwait. In the past she also served Bandarabas, Basrah, and Bushire, as well as some other ports from time to time. By then she was the sole survivor on the Persian Gulf service. What made the Dwarka so interesting at this time was her work. Westwards, she carried migrants proceeding to work, together with cargoes of tea, spices, and occasionally fruit, for which some refrigerated hold space was available. Eastwards she filled with returning migrants, and filled her holds mainly with their extensive personal possessions which they took back to India and Pakistan with them.

There were refrigerators, washing machines, television sets, fans of all shapes and sizes, cool boxes, radios, and many other items. On the Westward voyage by the 1970s, Doha and Bahrain were usually missed, so passengers for those ports got the longer "cruise" via Kuwait.

The passengers themselves were always very varied. Baluchis and Pathans, in their distinctive headgear and clothing, mixed with others from Punjab and Sind. The Indians were mainly from Western India. Eastbound, she was occasionally joined by some hippies, though the difficulties for them in entering the Indian sub-continent were considerable.

Westbound, pilgrims making the hajj to Mecca often joined the migrants. In the cabins, Arabs frequently travel to holiday in India, Indian forces personnel have been known to travel from training periods in the Gulf, and some Pakistani and Indian migrants chose the greater comfort of the cabins for the return journey.

Those who prefer it could take Indian food in their cabins, while European food (together with plenty of curries) was served in the saloon. Between Karachi and Bombay the cabins tended to fill up, for although land and air communications were restored between India and Pakistan in the late 1970s, many people prefer to take the relaxed sea route.

The Dwarka remained a most traditional ship to the last. She was built in an essentially pre-war style, with much wood in evidence throughout her public rooms and cabins. The life of her 'tween decks and hatch covers would not have disgraced a novel by Joseph Conrad. The muezzin frequently called from her forward hatch covers. A travelling mullah led many of the Muslim passengers in prayer at sunrise and sunset — Muslim cabin passengers repaired to the lounge at the same times.

Many women travelled in purdah, while those travelling alone had a separate secure area. There were several galleys, one of them produced an endless succession of popadoms and chapatis. Passengers slept in the berths, and on the hatchcovers, wrapped up in bedrolls at the cooler part of the year. Some even slept in the passageways adjacent to the engines, where the noise would have wakened the dead. During the heat of the day, canvas awnings were stretched over all the deck areas to protect the passengers from the worst of the sun.

Sadly by the late 1970s many aspects of traditional British shipping were vanishing and much had already gone as ocean liner travel relinquished its crown to the airlines. Soon the time for the Dwarka to be retired drew near as in the Gulf while there still were many traditional dhows to be seen, although most had been motorised. But change was already becoming visible as giant tankers and modern container vessels ruled the crowded waters of the Gulf. The little old Dwarka began to seem like a lonely survivor of a fast vanishing era, and each time she passed through the busy shipping lanes of the Strait of Hormuz, it was almost as though she was being crowded out by the modern monsters all around her.

She passed briefly to P&O Line ownership on the 19th April 1973 but the peculiarities of her route did not mesh easily with other group activities (to say nothing of officers from P&O passenger ships not feeling quite at home on her) and she reverted to British India Line ownership on the 30th May 1975. She retained her British India colours throughout her long life and was the last ship to carry the famous funnel markings in eastern waters, other than Mackinnon, Mackenzie ships in Indian ownership. By the late 1970s she was the sole survivor of British India’s once varied shipping services and so became something of a celebrity. In 1979 she featured in a BBC television documentary in the “World About Us” series. In 1979 she was refitted at the Keppel Shipyard in Singapore, when little-used refrigerated cargo space was converted to passenger accommodation with 80 bunks. In 1981 she was used for location filming in Bombay for Richard Attenborough’s film “Gandhi”. On the 15^th May 1982 she arrived back in Bombay after her last voyage from Basra. She was then retired from service and sold for scrap to Zulfigar Metals Ltd of Pakistan and set sail for Gadani Beach were she was beached and scrapping commenced on the 13^th June 1982. Thus ended the career of the Dwarka, one of the long serving British India Line ships and last of a noble tradition of ocean travel from Bombay to the Persian Gulf.