An Indian Affair
From Riches to Raj

By Archie Baron
December 2001
Sidgwick & Jackson / Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 0-7522-6160-6
256 Pages, Illustrated
$33.50 hardcover

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An Indian Affair presents a new history of Britain's relationship with India, accompanying the major Channel Four series produced by Takeaway Media. It tells the story behind Britain's relationship with India. It's an affair that began with lust and matured into mutual respect, even love, until a new British drive to dominate locked the partners into an unequal and abusive marriage - the Raj. Focusing on the heyday of the East India Company, when traders looking to get rich quick found themselves ruling Bengal by accident, this lively and entertaining book is peopled with colorful characters brought to life through diaries and contemporary accounts. The 18th century India uncovered here flies in the face of almost every Raj-inspired assumption we have inherited. This work suggests that far from being an imperialist objective, the footholds on which India was established as a colony happened by accident rather than by design. The book also attempts to show that the British were actually more influenced by India and their traditions than the other way around.

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