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wargortarg 's review for:
Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India
by Shashi Tharoor
As a kid growing up in India celebrating 50 yrs of independence and having read about the freedom fight in school history books, I have always had a neutral standpoint when it came to what British rule meant for India. Fast forward to 2021, when a lot of my fellow Indians debate the life of the royal family's progeny and eagerly watch "The Crown", "Bridgerton" etc., I have tried to keep away from paying homage to our erstwhile Queen by a simple act of refusing to follow such news/shows that glorify the family. It is quite common to hear our elders talk about the benevolence of British -- railways/industrialization; social reform like ban on Sati, rule of law, etc. and we take it at face value. So it is quite heartening to listen to Mr. Tharoor surgically expose the anatomy of our beliefs. Winners do write history and we will be hard pressed in this era to find texts like these which dare to say otherwise. This book is akin to the recent publications - "The 1619 Project" and "These Truths by Jill Lepore - that portray US history in a new light. Of course, one can't expect the author to be mincing his words on various points he highlights, when his sole intention is to fill in the gaps left by British apologists and revisionist historians. All in all, I would recommend this book to all Indians, especially youngsters, who have been fed the same rote history through the decades.