British Rule

The best sections in the book are those that deal with the revolt of 1857 in Delhi

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said three centuries of British rule had prevented Indians from learning about their glorious traditions. "A strong awareness of the country's glorious past, its great cultural and spiritual legacy is a must for today's youth to build a strong India," he said addressing a convocation of the Swami Ram Himalayan University here. Singh said international acceptance of India's spiritual and intellectual supremacy in the past was spontaneous and cited Chinese scholars who acknowledged India's path breaking role in various realms of knowledge. Quoting one of the Chinese intellectuals he said, "India was China's teacher in quadratic equation, grammar and phonetics." Referring to a former Peking University vice chancellor who represented China subsequently at the United Nations, the defence minister said, "India has dominated China culturally for more than 2000 years without sending a single soldier." Also quoting French philosopher Voltaire,

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday paid tributes to the tribals who were massacred by the British army in 1913 in Mangarh in Rajasthan. Modi during his visit to the Mangarh Dham in Banswara district was accompanied by Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and other leaders. The dham, a memorial for around 1,500 tribals massacred by the British army in 1913, is located in the district on the Gujarat-Rajasthan border, a region with a large tribal population. During his visit, the prime minister will also address a gathering of Bhil adivasis and members of other tribes of the region. The gathering of tribals and forest dwellers in 1913 in Mangarh against the British Raj was being led by social reformer Govind Guru.

The long reign of Queen Elizabeth II saw large swaths of the world cast off London's rule, but after her death a handful of British-installed monarchies still endure in the Middle East. They have survived decades of war and turmoil and are now seen as bastions of a certain kind of authoritarian stability. When popular uprisings erupted across the region a decade ago in what was known as the Arab Spring, sweeping away regimes with anti-colonial roots, hereditary rulers were largely unscathed. The days of imperial pomp and gunships may be over, but the region's emotional and financial ties to England run deep. Emirs, sultans and kings attend the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. Gulf Arab sovereign wealth has helped reshaped London's skyline. As the son of a British mother, Jordan's King Abdullah II also has familial and cultural ties to Britain. Jordan's ruling Hashemites, who come from the Arabian Peninsula and claim descent from the Prophet Muhammad, launched the revolt agains

Ipshita Nath's book captures the hermetically sealed nature of the memsahibs' world from the country in which they lived

The people made efforts and proved that India has immense capacity to survive all odds even as "hundreds of years of slavery" had inflicted "deep wounds" on it, PM Modi added.

The book does much to underline the fact that there is more to Indian thinking than what has been discussed in the popular writings

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Meghan is currently in Canada with their infant son Archie

Even the Congress party that was formed in 1885 did not ever try to dissuade Indians from joining the British Indian Arm

While both Ray and Tagore, from whose eponymous novel the film was adapted, seem to favour Nikhilesh, Sandip's 'perfect counterfoil', one wonders if Sandip has any need to follow a moral route

How William Beveridge's Bakargunje legacy is safe in modern Britain

Before the advent of British rule, roadways in the modern sense were practically unknown; and even after its establishment there were few to be found, except within urban limits

Ferdinand Mount's Tears of the Rajas and Jon Wilson's India Conquered emphasise the egregious aspects of British rule