King of Games: Politics, Polo, and the Raj
Indian teams besting British sides on the polo field threatened to undermine the colonial enterprise.
India
Alfred the Great’s Indian Embassy
How likely is it that Alfred the Great sent two emissaries to India in the ninth century?
The British Empire’s Brothels
British servicemen overseas bought sex, sometimes in brothels run by the British army. In the 1970s they began to talk about it.
The Maharajah’s English Tutor
The Raj’s control of India’s princely states was never absolute, as the British-appointed tutor to the last maharajah of Travancore discovered.
Zoroastrians in the Great Game
In the early 1900s the small but influential Zoroastrian community in India contemplated establishing a colony in Iran. Could the Parsis rely on British support?
What Birmingham Taught Muslim India
Industrial Birmingham was an important stop on the grand tours of various Muslim rulers, all eager to learn from the city of a thousand trades.
‘Gods, Guns and Missionaries’ by Manu S. Pillai review
Hinduism predates colonialism by thousands of years, but in Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity Manu S. Pillai explains how European ideas shaped Hindutva.
Brahmins: The Origins of India’s Priestly Caste
In the first millennium BC the Brahmin class organised as a community and assumed responsibility for learning the sacred Vedas. What are the origins of India’s priestly caste?
‘The Worlds of Victor Sassoon’ by Rosemary Wakeman review
Rosemary Wakeman’s The Worlds of Victor Sassoon: Bombay, London, Shanghai, 1918-1941 is a tale of three cities linked by globalisation and a singular global citizen.
Kashmir: Prisoner of History?
Caught between the antagonistic states of India and Pakistan, Kashmir is stuck in geopolitical limbo. Its location – and its history – threaten to keep it there.