Published in 2002.
This book is a must read! It is about late 18th and early 19th century India. Dalrymple describes the earlier colonial encounter between the British and the Indians. The two people mingled – surprisingly enough – on equal footing and with mutual respect. Numerous Britons adopted Muslim and Hindu culture to a huge degree. They kept many Indian concubines and many even had loving and longlasting marriages with Indian women. We do not hear or read much about this early colonial encounter because our opinion of colonization is entirely coloured by post-1857 encounters when the British were firmly masters of India and when they had stopped viewing Indian civilization with wonder and respect rather than disgust and disdain. To me, this 18th century trend seems like the reverse of contemporary South Asian migration to the West, where the immigrants inevitably assimilate into Western culture.
And do not fear, it is not written like a history textbook. It is actually structured around the love story of James Achilles Kirkpatrick and a Hyderabadi noblewoman Khair un Nissa. Their love story happens when the older attitudes towards India are giving way to the modern colonial approach, which is partly responsible for the story's tragic end. It is, once again, a must read. Borrow it from Lamont! I am going to try and get my hands on Dalrymple's other book: The Last Mughal, I think it is called.
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