Colonial era
South Asia 1757–1947.
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For Gandhiji
Indosaurus, once unconvinced of Gandhi’s importance, defends him against attacks from the liberal left, which Indosaurus argues lack context, and links a longer Substack defence of his most contested behaviour…
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Who did the Brits conquer India from?
Did the British take India from the Muslims or from the Hindus? The question cannot be answered, because it was never true. The empire they inherited had already fallen apart,…
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The Hindification of East India
Bihar, Odisha, Assam, and now Bengal: the old Bengal Presidency votes as a single saffron block. A century after the bhadralok forced Curzon to reunite Bengal, their grandchildren have completed…
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The god of small comments
A reader’s reply on the assembly elections thread, reposted in full, explains how Kerala’s Christians divided into sectarian groups from the pre-colonial period, including the Knanaya and older communities, and…
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Men of State, and the Great Mahatma
X.T.M sets four house positions: Jinnah and Nehru were men of state, judged as builders of states; Gandhi was a man of Dharma, a different category; Ambedkar is a constitutional…
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The Inward Turn: Muslim Politics in the Indian Subcontinent from the Fall of the Mughals to the Present
Omar Ali reposts, with permission, vidurascounsel’s Substack essay of 13 April 2026 on the inward turn in Muslim politics in the subcontinent. It traces the arc from Mughal decline through…
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Empire of Incorporation versus Empire of Extraction
X.T.M distinguishes empires of incorporation, such as the Chinese, Ottoman and Mughal, from commercial empires of extraction such as the French, English and Dutch, citing the contrast between Mughal-era scarcity…
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Macaulay, English, and the Myth of Colonial Liberation
X.T.M rebuts the claim that criticising Macaulay and English harms Dalit, Shudra and Adivasi mobility, arguing that adapting to a colonial system is not vindication of it and that Macaulay…
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Macaulay, Macaulayputras, and their discontents
Omar Ali pastes an X exchange on Thomas Macaulay with Sadanand Dhume and other users. He argues that schooling in Indian languages would have served India better than English-medium education,…
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Spiritual mothers of South Asia
The author traces the maternal figures in the national songs and anthems of India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka back to Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s 1882 novel Anandamath, arguing that Bharat Mata,…
