Inglorious Empire

This book was originally published in India under the title: An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India. The author, a former Indian cabinet minister and a member of parliament for the India National Congress Party, throws light on some of the true administrative horrors committed by the British Empire in the Sub-Continent, thereby starting a long repressed discussion. Shashi Tharoor does not tell a story but rather makes an argument. In fact, he wishes from the British a gesture as impressive as Willy Brand’s Kniefall (kneeling down) in Warsaw. It is perhaps rather late for atonement after the British theft of Indian diamonds, to say the least (pp. 12–16). With hypocritical paternalism due to his belief in the racial superiority of the Caucasians and his postcolonial melancholia, Cecil Rhodes openly declared that imperialism was essential as a solution to the poverty of the British unemployed. Following this strategy, kingdom after kingdom was simply annexed by offering its rulers a choice between either outright annihilation or comfortable life in subjugation to Britain (p. 25)....