Today, as Britain seeks diplomatic links with India and as Churchill is championed as a hero of multiculturalism, Madhusree Mukerjee’s shocking account of the exploits of the Empire is well worth reading.
James Woudhuysen
Britain’s conduct in the Indian subcontinent has largely disappeared from memory – at least in Britain.
Soon after British prime minister David Cameron had pleased his hosts during a visit to India earlier this year by contending that some in Pakistan were ‘looking both ways’ over the question of the Taliban, it was discovered that his great-great-grandfather took part in the bloody suppression of the Indian Mutiny, which began in 1857. The Sunday Times simply reported the news with the tongue-in-cheek headline ‘By jingo, PM’s family killed for the empire’.