scorecardresearch
Wednesday, July 23, 2025
TopicColonial India

Topic: Colonial India

Punkahs, punkahwallahs, and White sahibs in Colonial India

Punkah' is a colonial-era anglicisation of the Hindustani term pankha, which referred to handheld fans. Punkah-pullers were made to work in deliberately uncomfortable conditions.

A white woman wants to see real India in Forster’s ‘Passage’. Britain is yet to find it

If the latest cohort of writers is anything to go by, it seems like colonisation continues to have an existential hold, particularly over British-Indian authors.

New book explores the travels of ordinary Indian migrants in Colonial India

Published by HarperCollins India, ‘The Other Mohan in Britain's India Ocean Empire’ will be released on 15 November on SoftCover, ThePrint’s online platform for launching non-fiction books.

British photographers showed sites of 1857 violence, without people. They erased Indians

A DAG exhibit, on display until 12 October in Delhi, reminds people how photographing is often ‘an act of staging reality’.

Like the Prophet in Pakistan, holy cow has killed many in India. Modi isn’t the problem

Cow-vigilante killings, often linked to Hindu nationalism, highlight an ongoing fracture in Indian society shown by riots of 1893 and others that followed.

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.

British distorted India’s diverse judicial practices. Even created a North-South divide

Political historian Meenakshi Jain delved into the origins of India’s judicial systems in a recent public seminar at Delhi’s PM Museum and Library.

On Camera

Bihar mimics 19th-century American South. Citizenship is now weaponised to exclude voters

Disenfranchisement by institutional fiat is profoundly undemocratic. The effect of the ECI's new documentary process in Bihar will tilt the scales in favour of the BJP.

India-US set to ink mini trade deal soon, reach understanding on agricultural & dairy products

Mini deal will likely see no cut in 10% baseline tariff on Indian exports announced by Trump on 2 April, it is learnt, but additional 26% tariffs are set to be reduced.

Not just AK-203, India & Russia to jointly manufacture AK-19 and PPK-20 for domestic use and export 

India-Russia JV is also racing to deliver 7,000 more AK-203 assault rifles by 15 Aug. These are currently being made with 50% indigenisation and this will surge to 100% by 31 December.

Strategic partner one day, tactical nightmare the next: India’s learning Trumplomacy the hard way

Public, loud, upfront, filled with impropriety and high praise sometimes laced with insults. This is what we call Trumplomacy. But the larger objective is the same: American supremacy.