Images of the British raj in India are everywhere of late. On television reruns, the divided rulers of Paul Scott's Jewel in the Crown sip their tea in scented hill stations and swap idle gossip in the palaces of local princes. At movie houses, we can savor all the hot intensities that blast a decorous English visitor the moment she steps ashore after A Passage to India, to be engulfed in a whirlwind of mendicants, elephants, snake charmers and crowds. In New York, British director Peter Brook's nine-hour production of an ancient Hindu epic poem, The Mahabharata, has lately been playing to packed houses and considerable critical praise. Best-selling books like Freedom at Midnight re-create the struggle of two great cultures, mighty opposites with a twinned destiny, as they set about trying to disentangle themselves and their feelings before the Partition of 1947. Across the country, strolling visitors marveled a few years ago at all the silken saris and bright turbans of the Festival of India (SMITHSONIAN, June 1985) and, even more, at the exotic world they evoke: the bejeweled splendor of the Mogul courts; dusty, teeming streets; and all the dilemmas confronting the imperial

Some topics in this essay:
William Bentinck, Governor Bombay, Afghan War, Urdu Sanskrit, Honorable Masters, Bombay Madras, Resident Delhi, Edmund Burke, SMITHSONIAN June, Mir Jafar, india company, east india, east india company, local princes, black hole, fort william, tipu sultan, mogul empire, british india, british government, ritual murder, fort william college,