How did a corporation of merchants bring down and pauperise the subcontinent, a territory of immense wealth? “The more it recedes into memory, the weirder it becomes,” admitted William Dalrymple. “Looking at it now, it’s inconceivable, but you have to make the imaginative leap.”
As engaging as ever, Dalrymple was talking about the topic (the East India Company) of his quartet of books, written over the course of 20 years, in his session on Day Two of Times Litfest 2023. This series – ‘The Anarchy’, ‘White Mughals’, ‘Return of a King’ and ‘The Last Mughal’ – focuses on the “accidents of
