The Making Of India: The Untold Story Of British Enterprise

Description

This exciting book moves beyond and against the current postcolonial orthodoxy. Instead of arguing that all colonization is wrong and inherently unjust, Dr. Kartar Lalvani argues that Britain made a crucial contribution in providing India with its lasting physical and institutional infrastructure which continues to underpin the world's largest democracy. The indisputable fact is that India as a nation, as it stands today, was originally put together and created by a small distant island nation. That India has endured as a democracy and a unified nation is thanks to the all important and fully functional infrastructure of an independent civil service and judiciary, a disciplined and apolitical army and a well drilled and efficient police force--all developed by an imperial power. This finally explodes the myth that all India`s problems are caused by outsiders' interference

Dr. Kartar is himself Indian and is fully aware that his book will create great controversy, but it is a meticulously argued and researched history of the people of India since the 17th century.

Promotion info

The first ever history of India to explore the benefits - institutional, political and civil - of British Colonial Rule on the subcontinent

Reviews

Extremely well judged, factually accurate and an interesting account of what was deemed to be, in Victorian terms, progress. This book adds to our knowledge and not to the increasing pile of books which either come to praise or bury Caesar Anil Seal, Trinity College, University of Cambridge - Founder of the Cambridge School of Indian History Absolutely excellent: informative, well argued and passionate. Contains the seeds of Anglo Indian cooperation Former Prime Minister Tony Blair Dr Lalvani is a mover and a shaker. This remarkably scholarly book will turn old ways of thinking upside down. Joanna Lumley This is a courageous and meticulously researched book. It challenges the fashionably negative view of the impact of the Raj on India. Dr Lalvani makes the positive case with conviction and scholarship. Sir Vince Cable Dr Lalvani has laid a new foundation for our understanding of how the wide ranging infrastructure provided by the British helped prepare India for its transformation into a twenty-first-century power. Professor David Heymann, Chatham House I fully concur with Dr Lalvani that Indians should be grateful for some of the permanent blessings of colonial rule, which only the unique attributes of the British could have conferred on us. Professor Ram Jethmalani, MP Former Cabinet Minister of Law and Chairman of the Bar Council of India Dr Lalvani shows his love of both countries in a generous, heart-warming contribution to our history. This book will be a bright star to which we can turn for the authoritative alternative version of how the British helped India. Baroness Harris

Author description

Dr Kartar Lalvani OBE, FRPharmS, DSc, is founder and chairman of Vitabiotics, Britain's leading vitamin company. Born in Karachi in 1931, Kartar moved to Mumbai in 1947 and to London in 1956 to study pharmacy, before undertaking his doctorate at Bonn University. An honorary Professor at University of Franche Comte, Besancon, France, Kartar is also a philanthropist, private scholar and historian.