India

The British had been trading in India since 1600. As R.W. Lightbown, it was not, however, until the late eighteenth century that British interest in Indian culture burgeoned and was carried home by the traveller.

To hundreds of thousands of Indians the British Raj was personified by its administrative arm, the Indian Civil Service, explains Ann Ewing, by which the British governed its imperial possession through a small élite spread thinly throughout the vast sub-continent.

In this article Rosalind O'Hanlon describes the effects of Hindu religious hierarchies upon the daily life of Untouchables in traditional Indian society and discusses some of the forces associated with British rule that worked to change both the social position of Untouchables and their perception of their position.

'Now the door has opened.../ ... none shall be turned away/ from the shore of this vast sea of humanity/that is India', wrote Tagore, the poet and cultural nationalist, whose poem was to be echoed in India's national anthem.

A.A. Powell on a new exhibition and publication from the British Library.

Gandhi's lasting significance lies, perhaps, not so much in what he actually did, but what he stood for.... Men like him may be done to death, but their message is not silenced in the making of this century.