Modern History

How the Company's commercial agents became the 'steel frame' of colonial administration — Cornwallis's reforms, open competition, the long struggle for Indianisation, and the commissions that shaped recruitment.

How British land-revenue policies reshaped rural India, impoverishing peasants and provoking resistance.

How the framework of government in India evolved through British statutes — from the Regulating Act of 1773 to the Government of India Act of 1935 — a chain of Acts whose features are heavily tested.

The long, contested story of modern education in India — the Orientalist-Anglicist debate and Macaulay's Minute, Wood's Despatch and the universities, the commissions that followed, and the national response of Basic Education.

How British rule transformed India into a colonial economy — the deindustrialisation that ruined artisans, the impoverishment and commercialisation of agriculture, recurring famines, and the lopsided, late growth of modern industry.

The Janata interlude and Indira's return, Punjab and her assassination, the Rajiv Gandhi years, the Mandal-Mandir upheaval, and the Narasimha Rao government that liberalised the economy.

How the English East India Company turned from a trading body into the ruler of large parts of India between 1757 and 1857.

The three local struggles — Champaran, Ahmedabad and Kheda — through which Gandhi first tested satyagraha on Indian soil and found his feet among the masses.

The endgame of British rule — Attlee's statement, the Mountbatten Plan of 3 June 1947, the Indian Independence Act, the integration of the princely states, and why Partition came to be seen as inevitable.

Three decades from Nehru to the Emergency: nation-building politics and planned development, the wars of 1962, 1965 and 1971, the Shastri interlude, Indira Gandhi's rise and socio-economic policies, and the Emergency of 1975-77.

The first nationwide mass struggle of 1920-22 — how the Khilafat cause and Gandhi's Non-Cooperation programme merged, spread across the country, and ended abruptly after Chauri Chaura.

How the Indian peasant fought back against colonial exploitation — from the early Indigo and Deccan revolts, through the Gandhian-era kisan sabhas and satyagrahas, to the post-war Tebhaga and Telangana struggles.

The second wave of revolutionary nationalism after Non-Cooperation — the HSRA and Bhagat Singh, the daring actions in north India, and Surya Sen's Chittagong raid in Bengal.

The first wave of revolutionary activity born out of the Swadeshi Movement — its programme, the secret societies in Bengal, Maharashtra and Punjab, and the revolutionaries who worked abroad.

How the Company reshaped the Indian village through new land-revenue systems and forced commercial crops like indigo.

The 19th-century awakening that set out to reform Indian religion and society — what drove it, its social base, its guiding ideas, and its two broad streams.

Netaji's break with the Congress, his dramatic escape and search for foreign help, the Indian National Army and the Provisional Government of Azad Hind, and the INA's march to Indian soil.

Britain's last attempt to keep India united — the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946, the rival interpretations that doomed it, the Interim Government, and the communal holocaust unleashed by Direct Action Day.

Gandhi's second great mass struggle (1930-34) — the Salt March that broke the salt law, its nationwide spread, the Gandhi-Irwin Pact and Karachi Resolution, and how it differed from Non-Cooperation.

From the unstable coalitions of 1996-99 through the Vajpayee NDA and the two UPA terms to the NDA years of 2014-19.

The 1937 provincial elections, the Congress's sweeping victory and the office-acceptance debate, the record of its 28-month rule, and the resignation of the ministries in 1939.

The militant turn of 1905-1909 — why Extremism grew, the partition of Bengal and the Swadeshi Movement, the split at Surat in 1907 and the Morley-Minto Reforms of 1909.

How Indian nationalism matured during the First World War, and the Home Rule Leagues of Tilak and Annie Besant that demanded self-government and prepared the ground for mass politics.

Britain's last great constitutional scheme for India — an all-India federation that never formed, provincial autonomy that did, and the safeguards that made nationalists call it 'all brakes and no engine'.

The founding of the Congress in 1885 and its first phase under the Moderates — their aims, methods, achievements and limitations.

How the INA trials, the three upsurges of 1945-46 and the Royal Indian Navy revolt convulsed the country, and how the 1945-46 elections set the stage for the final transfer of power.

The 'Do or Die' mass uprising of 1942 — the Quit India resolution, the leaderless explosion that followed, parallel governments, severe repression, and the movement's place in the freedom struggle.

The great uprising that shook British rule to its foundations — its causes, course, suppression, why it failed, and the long debate over its true nature.

How a sense of Indian nationhood grew in the later 19th century — the forces behind it and the early political associations that paved the way for the Congress.

The three Round Table Conferences in London, the Communal Award that divided electorates further, and the Poona Pact of 1932 between Gandhi and Ambedkar over the depressed classes.

The repressive Rowlatt Act of 1919, Gandhi's first all-India satyagraha against it, and the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh that turned the nation against British rule.

The all-white Simon Commission and the boycott it provoked, India's own constitutional blueprint in the Nehru Report, the communal rift it exposed, and the road to the demand for purna swaraj.