Long before the skyscrapers and global finance buzz of today’s Dubai, Abu Dhabi and other Gulf emirates, these regions were closely connected to British India — not as formal colonies, but through deep administrative, economic and legal links that many don’t learn in school.

In the early 20th century, the area now known as the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Yemen was grouped as the Trucial States, a set of British protectorates. Rather than reporting to London, British political officers in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and elsewhere answered to the Viceroy in Delhi, making British India the administrative hub for the Gulf.

Surprising facts from this era include Indian passports being valid in Gulf ports and the Indian rupee serving as legal currency across markets, cementing commercial ties as Indian merchants led trade and pearl commerce. Indian troops — often from British Indian regiments — helped guard ports and maintained law and order under instructions from India’s political service.

This arrangement began to unravel in the late 1930s, starting with the administrative separation of Aden in 1937, and culminated on April 1, 1947, just months before Indian independence, when Gulf territories were formally detached from British Indian governance.

Today’s prosperous cities in the Gulf carry hidden echoes of this shared past — where Indian administration, trade and currency shaped daily life long before oil transformed the region.