India

Billiard Balls

What were Indian nationalists thinking?

The Ramayana is one of the two great ancient Sanskrit epics from India (the other being the Mahabharata) and is one of Hinduism’s foundational texts. Thought, in its earliest sections, to date from between the seventh and fourth centuries bc, it forms part of the cultural consciousness across the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. The Ramayana covers the journey of prince Rama and his wife Sita, and is full of poignant stories and captivating characters through which the importance of virtue and duty e

The Nandi Bull

Two Hindu gods discover an abandoned child while following the wind’s path.

Zoroastrian Zeligs

Questioning the powerful Tata dynasty’s claims for a ‘different kind of capitalism’.

The death of Captain Alexander Skene and his wife, Margaret Skene, at Jhansi, during the Sepoy Revolt, English coloured engraving, 19th century © Bridgeman Images.

The Year of the Sepoy Revolt

How events in British India were leveraged in the debate over slavery.

Statue of Ahilyabai Holkar, Maharashtra, India. Alamy.

Death of a Philosopher Queen

Ahilyabai Holkar, queen of the Malwa kingdom, died on 13 August 1795.

Keeping India Cool

Sweltering British imperialists relied on an army of fan bearers, whose stories are as invisible as the air they circulated.

The Bengal Famine of 1943

Starvation and disease killed millions in British India during the Second World War. Why?

Amritsar: Reviewing a Massacre

Was the massacre of April 1919 a symptom of British oppression, or an exceptional event?

A Passage to India

India’s First World War experience as seen through personal archives.

India Breaks Free?

India’s decision to decriminalise homosexuality is presented as the country shaking off the last vestiges of colonialism. The reality is not so simple.