For all the post-colonial angst Brown folks have about the period of English Occupation, you do have to admit that the times created some fascinating history. Between the Thugees, the Sepoy Mutiny, the Gurkhas, and the Battle of Sargarhi, Victorian India created tales that rivalled practically any classical saga in adventure & intrigue.

Via the blogosphere, I came across the absolutely riveting story of the American who may have been the real life inspiration for Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King — the History News Network reports on the saga of Josiah Harlan–

Josiah Harlan served as the basis of Rudyard KiplingÂ’s short story, “The Man Who Would Be King,” written in 1888 while Kipling was a journalist for the Allahabad Pioneer newspaper. The real-life Josiah Harlan was born in 1799 into a Quaker family from Pennsylvania. As an adolescent, Harland read works in botany and medicine, but above all Greek and Roman history, having taught himself Latin and Greek. He became inordinately interested in the life and adventures of Alexander the Great, after whom he would no doubt later fashion his own adventures. …In 1822 Harlan sailed for Calcutta on a merchant ship. …[In 1826] Josiah succeeded in gaining a meeting with al-Moolk [the deposed king of Afghanistan residing in Punjab], during which he offered to travel to Kabul and link up with Shah ShujahÂ’s allies in an effort to organize a rebellion against Dost Mohammed Khan, the prince who had stolen his crown. …Harlan left Ludhiana with a rag-tag army comprised of mercenaries and headed for Kabul. Along the way, he passed himself off as a religious mystic, a wealthy adventurer, and as a doctor, even treating the locals he encountered with a variety of ills. In 1828 Harlan reached Kabul and sent a message to Dost Mohammed Khan requesting a meeting, as news of a “feringhee” or foreigner having entered Kabul circulated throughout the city. Harlan wrote in his memoir that he found Dost Mohammed to be as intelligent and sophisticated as any Western ruler.

But how did he ascend the NW Indian political ladder? A drunk Punjabi raj & an interim step as the Governor of Gujrat had something to do with it. The IHT continues the story – Continue reading →

I was reading the Wikipedia entry on Indus Valley Civilization, came across this passage, and couldn’t help but think about how much we’ve regressed –

A sophisticated and technologically advanced urban culture is evident in the Indus Valley civilization. The quality of municipal town planning suggests knowledge of urban planning and efficient municipal governments which placed a high priority on hygiene. The streets of major cities such as Mohenjo-daro or Harappa were laid out in a perfect grid pattern, comparable to that of present day New York. The houses were protected from noise, odors, and thieves.

(reading the encyclopedia? I think we’ve firmly established that I’m a dork)

This lovely colonial coinage from the British Raj comes to us via Prashant Mullick. On top, King George the Fifth; on bottom, ‘India.’ Sacre bleu! How apropos.

By the way, one Anna is all anyone can really handle 😉

IÂ’m consumed with history and cars, so I was gleefully surprised when AnkG pointed me towards this pop-up-laden Sify article; itÂ’s a fascinating look at the exalted place that Rolls Royces had in Royal old India.

The article discusses a title from appropriately-named Roli Books, Rolls-Royce and the Indian Princes. Written by Murad Ali Baig, the work details the myriad ways that India’s princely class pimped their rides—and let me tell you, no hip-hop star has anything on the ruler of Travancore (my hood!);

A 1933 Rolls-Royce that belonged to Maharani Sethu Parvati Bai of Travancore had a small stool on the floor. “On it sat a dwarf who massaged the queen’s legs while he remained invisible to onlookers,” said Baig.

Show-off. Other automobiles catered to any and every other whim, from special “Purdah” models that had drapes to hide modest Maharanis, to the Phantom II that was created in the exact shade of pink (as defined by his wifeÂ’s slipper!) that the Maharaja of Jamnagar wanted, to the 24-carat gold-plated appointments and solid silver door handles of the Maharaja of BarodaÂ’s 1927 Phantom I. Continue reading →

An argument is raging in Pakistan about the reform of religious education in madrassas. Lord Macaulay’s infamous Minute on Indian Education, a treatise on imposing English-language education on India, anticipated many of the same arguments.

Macaulay’s text was openly racist…

I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia… the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanscrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgments used at preparatory schools in England… We have to educate a people who cannot at present be educated by means of their mother-tongue. We must teach them some foreign language… The languages of Western Europe civilized Russia. I cannot doubt that they will do for the Hindoo what they have done for the Tartar.

… shrewdly imperialist…

What we spend on the Arabic and Sanscrit colleges is not merely a dead loss to the cause of truth… If there should be any opposition among the natives to the change which I recommend, that opposition will be the effect of our own system. It will be headed by persons supported by our stipends and trained in our colleges. The longer we persevere in our present course, the more formidable will that opposition be.