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Thursday, March 12, 2026
TopicBritish India

Topic: British India

India must create more Sarvepalli Radhakrishnans. And move on from Macaulay

Macaulay had total contempt for Indian literature and for Middle Eastern writing in Persian or Arabic. He was supremely confident that English schoolgirls are better informed than Indian scholars.

How do postal stamps show adivasis? The same way the British did

Birsa Munda is on many stamp covers – 1988 to 2023. There are none of Jaipal Singh Munda, member of India’s Constituent Assembly, Olympic gold medalist, and writer.

Railways weren’t Britain’s ‘gift’ to India—we paid with blood, sweat & humiliation

Lancashire cotton mill owners were eager to get access to the inland cotton-producing regions of India. Railway tracks penetrating into rural India would ensure this.

‘Tirunelveli riots’ was a high point of the Swadeshi movement. A shipping rivalry caused it

In ‘Swadeshi Steam’, AR Venkatachalapathy traces the journey of India’s first indigenous shipping company Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company and its founder VO Chidambaram Pillai.

British Indian sepoys weren’t silent spectators to colonial brutality. They led quiet rebellions

Indian sepoys who left their homes and crossed oceans to witness a world being conquered and exploited by the British, sought to understand, interpret, and even profit from it all.

In Manipur govts have manufactured dystopia for decades, not peace. It’s showing now

Learning all the wrong lessons from the British empire, independent India chose to rule the northeast through cash and coercion.

Was India’s 1st Olympic medallist Indian? Story of Norman Pritchard, athlete & Hollywood star

Pritchard was first Asia-born athlete to earn an Olympic medal, the first Olympian to act in Hollywood, and the first to score a hat-trick in football match on Indian soil in 1897.  

‘Rothschild of Calcutta’, Mutty Lall Seal spent his wealth on education, health, uplifting women

Seal set up Motilal Seal Free College in 1842, donated land for the Calcutta Medical College, and established a guesthouse in Belgharia to feed 500-1,000 poor every day.

Tailor Kinthup, disguised as monk was sent by British govt to Tibet in 1880 to map Tsangpo

In 'Bells of Shangri-La, Parimal Bhattacharya explores the stories of British espionage into Tibet to trace the Brahmaputra.

How a photograph of a decked-up Parsi woman found its way to the Pope’s palace

Dosebai Cowasjee Jessawalla was one of the first women in India to receive a British education. She recounts her travels and adventures in ‘Story of My Life’

On Camera

India’s Russian crude imports approach pre-Trump sanction levels amid Hormuz disruptions & US ‘waiver’

India has already purchased nearly 16 million barrels of Russian crude so far in March 2026, translating to roughly 1.6 million barrels per day, indicating a sharp uptick.

India-Bangladesh relations on track—After military intel chief’s visit, envoy goes to Army War College

In a first during his tenure as High Commissioner to India, Riaz Hamidullah addressed JOCAP consisting of tri-forces officers, as New Delhi & Dhaka step up normalisation efforts.

Trump brings the Age of Humiliation for friends. Modi needs stoicism abroad, humility at home

Trump has ushered in the age of humiliation. His method is to push around America’s friends rudely and publicly. He knows none of them can afford to fight back.