Browse Category
INDIAN HISTORY
10 Chapters
101 Articles
Read this category as an ordered editorial path. Choose a chapter, then follow the articles in sequence.
Chapter 1
10 Articles
1600 to 1720 - The Arrival
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1
The Charter of 1600: The Day a Company Was Born
On 31 December 1600 Elizabeth I chartered a company of London merchants to buy pepper. The document carried,…
4 Min Read
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2
Swally 1612: The Sea Battle That Opened Surat to the English
Two English ships beat a Portuguese fleet off Suvali in 1612 while Mughal officials watched from the shore.…
4 Min Read
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3
Sir Thomas Roe at the Court of Jahangir: An Ambassador Among Emperors
For four years Sir Thomas Roe followed Jahangir's court seeking a treaty the Mughals saw no reason to…
4 Min Read
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4
Madras 1639: A Strip of Sand That Became Fort St George
Francis Day's 1639 bargain for a strip of Coromandel beach gave the Company Fort St George, its first…
4 Min Read
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5
Bombay: The Islands That Came as a Dowry
Bombay came to England as part of a Portuguese princess's dowry and was leased to the Company for…
4 Min Read
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6
Job Charnock and the Founding of Calcutta
In August 1690 Job Charnock unpacked his goods under a tree at Sutanuti. Within a century the swamp…
4 Min Read
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7
Child’s War: When the Company Fought Aurangzeb and Begged for Pardon
In 1686 the Company declared war on Aurangzeb's empire and was crushed within four years, begging pardon with…
4 Min Read
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8
Two Companies, One Empire: The Rivalry and Merger of 1709
For a decade England had two East India Companies at war with each other in Parliament and in…
4 Min Read
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9
The Farman of 1717: The Emperor’s Gift That Poisoned Bengal
A surgeon's cure won the Company duty free trade in Bengal in 1717. The abuse of that privilege…
4 Min Read
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10
Calico, Saltpetre and Silver: What the Company Actually Traded
Pepper drew the English east, Indian cloth made them rich, saltpetre armed their state and silver paid for…
4 Min Read
Chapter 2
10 Articles
1707 to 1765 - The Empire Cracks, the Company Rises
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1
The Empire Cracks: India After Aurangzeb
Aurangzeb died in 1707 with his empire vast on the map and hollow at the core. The dissolution…
4 Min Read
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2
The Successor States: Bengal, Awadh and Hyderabad
Bengal, Awadh and Hyderabad were vigorous kingdoms built from Mughal provinces. Their open succession politics made kingmaking the…
4 Min Read
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3
Nadir Shah 1739: The Sack of Delhi and the Broken Spell
Nadir Shah's 1739 invasion shattered the Mughal army at Karnal, drowned Delhi in blood and carried off the…
4 Min Read
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4
The French Arrive: Pondicherry and the Compagnie des Indes
France's Compagnie des Indes built Pondicherry into the finest European town in India and pioneered every device of…
4 Min Read
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5
The First Carnatic War and the Revelation at the Adyar River
At the Adyar river in 1746 a thousand French led muskets broke ten thousand of the Nawab's horsemen…
4 Min Read
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6
Dupleix: The Frenchman Who Wrote the Playbook of Empire
Sepoy armies, puppet rulers, subsidiary alliances: Dupleix invented every device of European empire in India, and the British…
3 Min Read
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7
Clive at Arcot: Fifty Days That Made a Reputation
With five hundred men and three guns, a twenty six year old former clerk seized and held Chanda…
4 Min Read
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8
Siraj ud Daulah and the Fall of Calcutta
Siraj ud Daulah's grievances against Calcutta were largely just. Asserting them cost the young Nawab his capital's dignity,…
4 Min Read
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9
Plassey 1757: The Conspiracy That Won an Empire
Plassey was a transaction with gunfire attached: a conspiracy of generals and bankers, a rain soaked cannonade, and…
4 Min Read
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10
From Mir Jafar to Buxar: The Battle That Truly Decided India
Buxar in 1764 broke a Nawab, a Wazir and the Mughal emperor together, and the Diwani of 1765…
4 Min Read
Chapter 3
10 Articles
1765 to 1818 - Conquest
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1
The Diwani Years: How the Company Bled Bengal
After 1765 the Company bought Bengal's goods with Bengal's own taxes while private fortunes sailed home. The province…
4 Min Read
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2
The Great Bengal Famine of 1770
The rains failed in 1769 and Bengal died by the million while the revenue was violently kept up.…
4 Min Read
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3
The Regulating Act of 1773 and the Age of Warren Hastings
Bankruptcy brought the state into India in 1773, and Warren Hastings built the skeleton of British administration amid…
4 Min Read
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4
Pitt’s India Act 1784: The Empire Gets Two Masters
Pitt's India Act of 1784 gave the empire two masters, a Board of Control above the Company, and…
4 Min Read
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5
The Trial of Warren Hastings: An Empire in the Dock
For seven years Burke arraigned Warren Hastings before the Lords in the name of the people of India.…
4 Min Read
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6
Haidar Ali: The Soldier Who Made the Company Tremble
Haidar Ali built Mysore into a military state that dictated peace at the gates of Madras and destroyed…
4 Min Read
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7
Tipu Sultan and the Fall of Srirangapatna
Modernizer, hard master and unyielding enemy of the Company, Tipu Sultan chose the breach at Srirangapatna in 1799…
4 Min Read
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8
Wellesley and the Subsidiary Alliance: Empire by Contract
Wellesley's subsidiary alliance made Indian states pay for the armies that subjected them, an empire acquired by contract,…
4 Min Read
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9
The Anglo Maratha Wars: The Fall of the Last Indian Rivals
Three wars over forty three years decided whether Marathas or the Company would inherit the Mughal world. Assaye…
4 Min Read
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10
1818: The Year the Company Became India’s Master
With the Peshwa's surrender in 1818 the Company stood without rival from the Sutlej to the sea. The…
4 Min Read
Chapter 4
10 Articles
1818 to 1856 - Consolidation and Reform
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1
How the British Taxed the Land: Zamindari, Ryotwari and Mahalwari
Zamindari, ryotwari and mahalwari were three philosophies of rule imposed on the Indian village, and their consequences outlived…
4 Min Read
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2
Ram Mohan Roy and the Bengal Renaissance
Scholar of Persian, Sanskrit and English, enemy of sati and censorship, founder of the Brahmo Samaj, Ram Mohan…
4 Min Read
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3
Bentinck, Sati and the Age of Reform
The abolition of sati in 1829 was a deliverance first demanded by Indians themselves, and the founding act…
4 Min Read
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4
Macaulay’s Minute: English Education and Its Long Shadow
Written to settle a budget quarrel, Macaulay's Minute of 1835 fixed the linguistic destiny of modern India and…
4 Min Read
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5
Thuggee, Sleeman and the Machinery of Colonial Policing
The campaign against thuggee made Sleeman famous and the roads safer, and built a machinery of surveillance and…
4 Min Read
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6
The First Anglo Afghan War: Disaster Beyond the Khyber
Sixteen thousand marched from Kabul and one rider reached Jalalabad. The First Afghan War restored the king it…
4 Min Read
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7
The Anglo Sikh Wars and the Annexation of Punjab
The Khalsa was the one army the Company truly feared. Court treachery, two savage wars and a sold…
4 Min Read
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8
Dalhousie: The Great Annexer Who Built Modern India’s Machinery
Railways, telegraph, post and canals with one hand, Satara, Jhansi, Nagpur and Awadh with the other. Dalhousie built…
4 Min Read
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9
The Doctrine of Lapse: How Kingdoms Were Swallowed
Satara, Jhansi, Nagpur: the Doctrine of Lapse erased dynasties by refusing adopted heirs, and the bill for the…
4 Min Read
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10
Awadh 1856: The Annexation That Lit the Fuse
The Company deposed its most faithful ally without a battle in February 1856. Within fifteen months Awadh answered,…
4 Min Read
Chapter 5
1 Article
1857 to 1885 - Revolt and Crown Rule
Chapter 6
10 Articles
1885 to 1905 - Moderates and Awakening
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1
Dadabhai Naoroji and the Drain of Wealth
With the government's own figures, Dadabhai Naoroji proved the drain of wealth and gave Indian nationalism its arithmetic,…
3 Min Read
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2
The Moderates: Prayer, Petition and the Making of a Nation
Mocked as mendicants, the Moderates of 1885 to 1905 demolished the empire's economic case, built the Congress and…
4 Min Read
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3
The Indian Councils Act 1892: Election by Another Name
The 1892 Act allowed election without the word, budget speeches without votes and questions without follow up, and…
4 Min Read
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4
Gokhale: The Servant of India
Gandhi called him the Ganga and made him his guru. Gokhale turned budgets into weapons, spiritualised politics and…
4 Min Read
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5
Tilak and the Birth of Extremism
Festivals, the popular press and the defiant trial: Tilak awakened the ruled instead of petitioning the rulers, and…
4 Min Read
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6
The Age of Consent Act 1891 and the War Over Reform
A child's death forced the Age of Consent Act of 1891, and the storm it raised, Tilak against…
4 Min Read
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7
The Plague of 1896 and the Shots at Ganeshkhind
Plague searches that violated homes, a sedition trial that crowned the Lokmanya, and two brothers on the Ganeshkhind…
4 Min Read
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8
Vivekananda at Chicago and the Awakening of Indian Confidence
Five words at Chicago brought an assembly to its feet and a civilisation to its own attention. Vivekananda…
4 Min Read
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9
Curzon: The Viceroy Who Loved India and Misread Indians
He restored the Taj, rebuilt famine policy and founded the frontier province, then partitioned Bengal and called truth…
4 Min Read
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10
The North West Frontier and the Great Game
Russia's shadow, the Durand Line, the risings of 1897 and Curzon's frontier province: the Great Game consumed India's…
4 Min Read
Chapter 7
10 Articles
1905 to 1911 - Swadeshi, Revolutionaries and Reform
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1
The Partition of Bengal 1905: The Stroke That Woke a Nation
Meant to divide the province that led political India, the partition of 1905 ignited swadeshi, rakhi bandhan and…
4 Min Read
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2
Swadeshi and Boycott: India’s First Mass Movement
Boycott, national schools, swadeshi mills, volunteer samitis and songs: between 1905 and 1908 Bengal rehearsed every method the…
4 Min Read
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3
Surat 1907: The Day the Congress Broke
A flying shoe, a broken pandal and a decade's divorce: the Surat split of 1907 gave the Moderates…
4 Min Read
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4
Dacca 1906: The Founding of the Muslim League
Born at Dacca in 1906 out of the Simla deputation and partition politics, the Muslim League lived one…
4 Min Read
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5
The Morley Minto Reforms and the Fateful Gift of Separate Electorates
The 1909 reforms brought real elections, the first Indian in government, and separate Muslim electorates, opening two doors…
4 Min Read
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6
Aurobindo Ghosh: From Revolution to the Ashram
He named complete independence before the Congress dared, theorised non cooperation, heard Vasudeva in an Alipore cell, and…
4 Min Read
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7
Khudiram Bose and the Alipore Bomb Case
A bomb meant for a magistrate, a boy of eighteen on the gallows singing into legend, and the…
4 Min Read
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8
India House: The Revolutionaries of Highgate
A Highgate hostel funded by a Sanskritist admirer of Spencer became the empire's most watched address, printing banned…
4 Min Read
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9
Madan Lal Dhingra and the Shot at the Imperial Institute
Five shots at a Kensington reception, a one day trial refused in jurisdiction, and a scaffold statement that…
4 Min Read
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10
The Delhi Durbar of 1911 and the Undoing of Partition
The grandest pageant the Raj ever staged announced its first great retreat: Bengal reunited, the capital moved to…
4 Min Read
Chapter 8
10 Articles
1913 to 1919 - Ghadar, War and Gandhi Arrives
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1
The Ghadar Movement: Revolution from the Pacific Coast
Punjabi emigrants on America's Pacific coast printed a paper called Mutiny, sailed home in wartime to raise the…
4 Min Read
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2
The Komagata Maru: A Shipload of Empire’s Broken Promises
Turned back at Vancouver by law and warship, received at Calcutta with gunfire: the Komagata Maru proved the…
4 Min Read
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3
India in the First World War: A Million Men and a Broken Bargain
Fourteen lakh men, seventy four thousand dead, a hundred million pounds, and a promise redeemed with the Rowlatt…
4 Min Read
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4
The Lucknow Pact of 1916: When Congress and League Shook Hands
Tilak and Jinnah built the freedom struggle's one real treaty of unity at Lucknow in 1916, and the…
4 Min Read
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5
The Home Rule Leagues: Tilak, Besant and the Politics of Impatience
Two sexagenarians in a hurry took self rule from the annual session to the daily lecture, and the…
4 Min Read
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6
Champaran 1917: The Indigo Fields Where Gandhi Found India
A sharecropper's stubborn summons, a defendant demanding conviction at Motihari, and eight thousand sworn statements: Champaran was satyagraha's…
4 Min Read
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7
Kheda and Ahmedabad 1918: The Method Takes Shape
A strike settled by the first fast, a revenue refusal that recruited Patel: in Ahmedabad and Kheda in…
4 Min Read
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8
The Montagu Declaration and the Reforms of 1919
The 1917 declaration conceded the destination and the 1919 Act built a deliberately slow vehicle: dyarchy, real electorates…
4 Min Read
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9
The Rowlatt Act: The Black Law That United India
No lawyer, no argument, no appeal: the Rowlatt Act repaid India's war with rule by suspicion, and the…
4 Min Read
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10
Jallianwala Bagh: The Massacre That Broke the Empire’s Claim
Ten minutes, one thousand six hundred and fifty rounds, and the moral title of an empire: Jallianwala Bagh…
4 Min Read
Chapter 9
10 Articles
1919 to 1929 - The Gandhian Storm
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1
The Khilafat Movement: Faith, Alliance and a Vanished Throne
India's Muslims rose to save a Caliphate the Turks themselves abolished, and the alliance Gandhi built upon the…
4 Min Read
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2
Non Cooperation: The Year India Refused
Titles returned, courts and colleges emptied, thirty thousand in jail and the Prince of Wales met by shuttered…
4 Min Read
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3
Nagpur 1920: The Session That Rebuilt the Congress
Four anna membership, linguistic provinces, a working committee of fifteen: Nagpur 1920 turned an annual assembly into the…
4 Min Read
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4
Chauri Chaura: The Fire That Stopped a Movement
A thana burned with its constables inside, a movement halted at the edge of victory, and the freedom…
4 Min Read
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5
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi in the Dock at Ahmedabad
A guilty plea that indicted the prosecutor, a judge who bowed to the prisoner, and six years pronounced…
4 Min Read
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6
The Moplah Rebellion of 1921: Malabar’s Season of Fire
Agrarian revolt, Khilafat rising and communal tragedy at once: the Malabar rebellion of 1921 defies every simplification, and…
4 Min Read
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7
The Swarajists: C R Das and the War Inside the Councils
Enter the councils to wreck them: C R Das and Motilal Nehru made obstruction an art, proved dyarchy…
4 Min Read
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8
The Akali Movement: The Battle for the Gurdwaras
Four hundred dead, shrines won back by suffering alone, and a statute conceding everything: the Akali movement taught…
4 Min Read
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9
Vaikom and Mahad: Caste Enters the National Question
A barred road at Vaikom, a sip of tank water at Mahad, and the Manusmriti in the fire:…
4 Min Read
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10
Kakori 1925: The Train, the Trial and the Gallows Songs
A treasury safe on a stopped train, four men on four gallows with songs on their lips, and…
4 Min Read
Batch
20 Articles
Latest Stories
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1
The Bengal Famine of 1943: The Man-Made Tragedy of the British Raj
Discover the devastating history of the Bengal Famine of 1943. Learn how British colonial policies, World War II,…
6 Min Read
- 2 Badshah Khan and the Khudai Khidmatgars: The Nonviolent Army of the Frontier Eighty thousand Pathans in brick red, sworn to serve and never strike: Badshah Khan's Servants of God confounded… 4 Min Read
- 3 The Government of India Act 1935: The Constitution Nobody Wanted Condemned by Congress, League and princes alike, the longest statute Parliament ever passed became the chassis of the… 3 Min Read
- 4 Ambedkar and Gandhi: The Argument India Inherited The reformer who wanted Hinduism to deserve the untouchables and the emancipator who declined to wait: the quarrel… 4 Min Read
- 5 The Communal Award and the Poona Pact: The Fast and the Signature A schedule from London, a fast unto death at Yeravda, and a signature extracted against the clock: the… 3 Min Read
- 6 The Round Table Conferences: Three Winters in London Princes, minorities and one man in a shawl at St James's Palace: three winters that wrote no constitution… 4 Min Read
- 7 The Gandhi Irwin Pact: Truce of the Equals Illegal salt stirred into the Viceroy's tea, Churchill's nausea at the palace steps, and a truce whose clauses… 4 Min Read
- 8 Dharasana 1930: The Salt Raid the World Could Not Look Away From Column after column walked unresisting into the lathis while a wire reporter counted the fallen, and the empire's… 4 Min Read
- 9 Civil Disobedience 1930 to 1934: The Country in Revolt Ninety thousand in jail, foreign cloth halved, the women of India in the streets: the revolt of 1930… 4 Min Read
- 10 The Salt March: Twenty Four Days to Dandi Two hundred and forty miles at two and a half miles an hour, a fistful of mud and… 4 Min Read
- 11 Purna Swaraj: Midnight on the Ravi At midnight on the Ravi sands the tricolour rose over a new creed, complete independence, and the pledge… 4 Min Read
- 12 Bardoli 1928: The Campaign That Made the Sardar A taluka that seceded from the revenue system, a boycott no seizure could break, and the women who… 3 Min Read
- 13 The Nehru Report and Jinnah’s Fourteen Points: The Parting of the Ways India answered Birkenhead's wager with its first drafted constitution, and lost in the room what it won on… 4 Min Read
- 14 Simon Go Back: The Commission and the Death of Lala Lajpat Rai Seven white commissioners for India's future, black flags at every station, and the lathi blows at Lahore that… 4 Min Read
- 15 Chittagong 1930: Masterda’s Republic of Schoolboys A schoolteacher's teenaged army seized a district's armouries on Easter's model, fought on Jalalabad hill and in the… 4 Min Read
- 16 Chandrashekhar Azad: The Man the Police Never Took Alive Fifteen lashes at fifteen, a decade uncaught as the revolution's commander, and the last bullet kept for the… 4 Min Read
- 17 23 March 1931: The Evening at Lahore Jail Hanged at evening against the rules, burned in secret by the Sutlej, mourned by a nation at Karachi's… 4 Min Read
- 18 To Make the Deaf Hear: The Assembly Bomb and the Lahore Conspiracy Case Two harmless bombs, a shower of leaflets, a hunger strike that killed Jatin Das, and a lawless tribunal:… 4 Min Read
- 19 Bhagat Singh: The Making of a Revolutionary Jallianwala's earth at twelve, the Naujawan Bharat Sabha at nineteen, atheism argued at twenty one: the education of… 4 Min Read
- 20 From HRA to HSRA: The Republic of the Young In the ruins of Ferozeshah Kotla the revolutionaries added one word to their name, and the cult of… 3 Min Read

