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Start the Week: India past and present

02/12/2019

India past and present

BBC Radio 4 - Start the Week, India past and present

Amol Rajan with William Dalrymple, Anita Anand and Sumantra Bose.

Amol Rajan discusses India, from political revenge to corporate greed, with William Dalrymple, Anita Anand and Sumantra Bose.

Corporate rapacity and government collusion are at the centre of William Dalrymple’s history of the East India Company. He tells Amol Rajan how the company moved relentlessly from trade to conquest of India in the 18th century. But Dalrymple warns against the distortion of history both by those in Britain nostalgic for an imperial past, and Hindu nationalists in India.

2019 marked the centenary of the Amritsar massacre in which more than a thousand Indians were killed by British soldiers. Although the events leading up to the atrocity are now well documented, Anita Anand has uncovered the extraordinary story of revenge which led to the shooting in London of the man responsible for the massacre. 

In August this year the Indian government revoked Kashmir’s special status, sparking protests in the Muslim-majority valley. But why has this region - once a princely state, until the end of British rule - become such a flashpoint for violence? Professor Sumantra Bose explores the consequence of the Indian government’s latest actions.

Producer: Katy Hickman

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