Matt Elton: Your new book covers what you describe as “the South Asian 20th century”. What do you mean by that term?
Joya Chatterji: I focus on the area ruled by the former British Raj, formally or informally. I think of there being a kind of united south Asia in which glimmers of the British empire (and the social structures that predated it) could still be made out throughout the latter half of the 20th century – long after the British themselves had left.
I’m also keen to push back against the idea that the history of India, Pakistan or Bangladesh can be understood independently of that of the others. They’re too intertwined. It just wasn’t the case that they were all somehow born entirely anew after partition in 1947 or 1971. In trying to understand the processes by which they were fashioned, and the effort that was put into trying to create new nations and new citizens so apparently different from each other, we can also see much about the parallels and the commonalities.
One of the landmark political moments in this history is the 1947 Partition of India. Do you think that the events and repercussions of that episode are misunderstood outside south Asia?
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Denne historien er fra August 2023-utgaven av BBC History UK.
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The King They Couldn't Kill -Want to know why Henry VII is remembered as an intensely suspicious king, wracked by paranoia? The answer, writes Nathen Amin, lies in his death-defying rise to power
Henry’s wary nature is typically attributed to his shaky claim to the throne. The first Tudor monarch was unable to escape the taunt that he was a usurper with no right to call himself king. In fact, his renowned paranoia was the inevitable consequence of a traumatic youth – a trait ingrained long before he harboured ambitions to wear a crown. If we delve deeper into Henry’s background, we can draw a fuller picture of one of our most circumspect of monarchs – one that might elicit sympathy for a long misunderstood king.
The Spy Who Hoodwinked Hitler - Dummy tanks at El Alamein. Bogus generals in Algiers. Sham armies on D-Day. All were ruses masterminded by Dudley Clarke. Robert Hutton tells the story of the British soldier who made an art form of duping the Nazis
Examining the reconnaissance photos, Behrendt was convinced that the Allies weren’t in any hurry. They were constructing some kind of pipeline towards the southern end of their line, probably to carry water, which was barely halfway completed. There were supply dumps appearing in the south as well – always a telltale clue about where an attack would come. True, a large number of trucks were parked at the northern end of the line, about 25 miles back from the front, but they hadn’t moved for weeks.
"People have achieved all kinds of crazy things at the age of 18″
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Parthian chicken
ELEANOR BARNETT recreates an ancient Roman dish that borrowed flavours from a rival neighbouring empire in the Middle East
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A Pole apart
ROGER MOORHOUSE is absorbed by a little-known but politically significant Polish princess whose life encompassed the major events of the later 18th and 19th centuries
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From Magna Carta to parliament, taxation to the law courts, the 13th and 14th centuries laid the foundations for the modern British state
EASTERN PROMISES
Lured by rich trading prospects, from the 17th to the 19th centuries Britain attempted to cultivate relations with China sometimes successfully, but often disastrously. Kerry Brown explores the troubled but ultimately vital links between two ambitious realms
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Æthelstan is one of the greatest of all Anglo-Saxon monarchs. So why, asks Michael Wood, does the first king of the English remain so fiendishly elusive?
The long road back The election was tough for the Conservatives - but the past holds clues on how parties can return from the brink
It’s election night 1997, and Jeremy Paxman is grilling Tory grandee Cecil Parkinson.
