India

British agents of empire saw their actions in India through the texts of their classical educations. They looked for Alexander, cast themselves as Aeneas and hoped to emulate Augustus.

Robert Clive’s death has long been attributed to suicide. What is the evidence?

Britain’s dearth of Afghan informants provided an opportunity for a disinherited Indian prince and his son to present themselves as an authentic conduit to the Muslim world. Soon they were advising the nation on subjects from geopolitics to the powers of the occult.

The nabobs of the East India Company were considered violent, greedy and – worst of all in a time of Enlightenment – uneducated. Could their reputation as philistines be laundered?

In March 1824 the East India Company declared war on Burma, the opening salvo in a series of conflicts that would see one empire fall, another expand and leave divisive wounds still felt today.

Arriving in the West in the 19th century, the Buddha of legend was stripped of supernatural myth and recast as a historical figure. What do we really know about him?

On 17 January 1872, 49 Namdhari Sikhs – dubbed ‘Kukas’ by the British – were executed by cannon, supposedly for spreading insurrection.

Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on 30 January 1948. As India has changed, so has his place in its history.

Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century by Joya Chatterji is a gently revisionist account of an enduring, if ever-tottering, democracy.

Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire by Nandini Das details the uncertainty, contingency and precarity of England’s imperial ambitions.