It’s unlikely that ST hasn’t read about the enlightened rule of in the princely states of India. So I assume it’s more a case of retrospective falsification. ST is definitely not an amnesiac.
In 1947 almost 60% of British India ( including Pakistan and present day Bangladesh) was under princely states.
Hearing ST excoriate the British one is lead to believe that the subcontinental rulers were a paragon of goodwill and we were in a golden age.
The recent biographies on the Nizam and the Jaipur royals by John Zubrzycki detail where the taxes were spent by these royals - one a Hindu and the other Muslim.
STs rant even after ignoring his selective quoting of events is problematic because it fuels the crude nationalism presently on display in India. It evades the inherent evils of the Indian society and its indigenous rulers and laws and presents our illiteracy and poverty as an outcome of foreign conquest.
Given his erudite credentials this is now providing fodder to the propaganda of a glorious past and the movement to return to it.
ST is a political animal - the sad part is that instead of writing about how China and Japan progressed by overthrowing and out growing old decrepit institutions, he is exerting his learning to irrelevant matters and providing fodder to those Nagpur ideologues who he pretends to oppose !!
Shashi Tharoor! Thanks for this. Still haven't finished the book he signed. Hope he comes back to HK sometime!
It’s unlikely that ST hasn’t read about the enlightened rule of in the princely states of India. So I assume it’s more a case of retrospective falsification. ST is definitely not an amnesiac.
In 1947 almost 60% of British India ( including Pakistan and present day Bangladesh) was under princely states.
Hearing ST excoriate the British one is lead to believe that the subcontinental rulers were a paragon of goodwill and we were in a golden age.
The recent biographies on the Nizam and the Jaipur royals by John Zubrzycki detail where the taxes were spent by these royals - one a Hindu and the other Muslim.
STs rant even after ignoring his selective quoting of events is problematic because it fuels the crude nationalism presently on display in India. It evades the inherent evils of the Indian society and its indigenous rulers and laws and presents our illiteracy and poverty as an outcome of foreign conquest.
Given his erudite credentials this is now providing fodder to the propaganda of a glorious past and the movement to return to it.
ST is a political animal - the sad part is that instead of writing about how China and Japan progressed by overthrowing and out growing old decrepit institutions, he is exerting his learning to irrelevant matters and providing fodder to those Nagpur ideologues who he pretends to oppose !!
What a terrible shame !