Dear All:  Below, excerpts from a remarkable report from 1908 titled, “Why is England in India at all?“. In this report, written more than a century ago, Jabez Sutherland examines the extent to which the British Raj impoverished India.. Please read and share widely. I doubt any of our current text-books mention this aspect of “history”.
*** Excerpts from “Why is England in India at all?” by Jabez T Sutherland ***
What causes this awful and growing impoverishment of the Indian people? Said John Bright, “If a country be found possessing a most …

Dear All: It is my pleasure to publish this guest post by Amitabh Soni on “A restorative Historical Account of Victorian Holocausts“…and how these Holocausts though bigger than Hitler’s Holocaust were kept a secret by the holier than thou British establishment. Read on…
*** A restorative Historical Account of Victorian Holocausts by Amitabh Soni ***
Over the past few months I have been reading horrid accounts of British Imperialism in India.  I think, the greatest achievement of British Imperialism, was to tone down the “dislike” of the Indians towards them to such drastic …

For most Indians of my generation, Savarkar is a somewhat shadowy figure – rarely mentioned in any detail in history books; even less so at public events or occasions that commemorate India’s independence. For a small few though, he is the archetypical hero – the one who fought fearlessly against the British, the “Veer” (brave).
As some of you would know, by the time India became a republic in 1950, Savarkar was already on the path to oblivion. A few years later, he died – unsung and hardly mourned.  In the …

Did you know that the term “Secularism” – forced into the Preamble of the Constitution by Indira Gandhi during the dark days of Emergency – has not been defined in the Constitution?
The reason?
…presumably because it is a very elastic term not capable of a precise definition and perhaps best left undefined.

These are the words of Justice P Sathasivan quoted in a recent HT news-report. Lack of definition does not prevent anyone from “interpreting” what it means…and so we have Justice Sathasivan saying:
…in Indian context secularism meant “Sarva Dharma Sambhav” …

Today is the birth anniversary of one of India’s bravest women, a heroine of our struggle for Independence, Rani Lakshmi Bai. The Rani’s story is a remarkable tale of courage, determination and leadership…Her name is found in all our school text books but her story – like other historical figures – usually gets a perfunctory treatment in the classroom.
सिंहासन हिल उठे राजवंशों ने भृकुटी तानी थी
…
बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी
खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झांसी वाली रानी थी

One of the finest introductions to the story of Rani …

Courtesy Sh T.K. Rama Rao:
It was the evening of October 30, 1928. Standing on the platform at a crowded public meeting in Lahore City, a person known as the ‘Lion of Punjab, ‘said in an inspiring voice:
“Every blow on our bodies this afternoon is like a nail driven into the coffin of British imperialism.”

Terrible blows had battered the chest and the body of the great man who made that stirring speech. The humiliation inflicted by the high-handedness of the British was more painful than the wounds*.
Seventeen days after the …