Nia Delina’s The Ocean Remembers: Indians and the Tides of Empire traces how the term ‘Keling’ became a descriptor of the powerful merchants who connected the Indian Ocean and the Indo-Malay Archipelago to a modern-day slur, that sadly is still weaponised to this day.

For centuries before European colonialism, the Kelings were indispensable nodes in the Muslim economic world system, with networks of trade and culture that made Southeast Asia such a crucial hub of the global economy.

The Ocean Remembers how the term transformed from a neutral, even respected, identifier into a lower-case racial slur, with their legacy systematically narrowed and obscured by later colonial narratives.

Malayland is available to purchase from Gerakbudaya.

The Ocean Remembers: Indians and the Tides of Empire

Nia Delina
2026
SIRD