British Raj Postcards

Senior Congress leader and author Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday said the British had used what was a "classic mafiosi tactics" to expand its territory in India during the colonial era. He was speaking at an interaction held late evening at the India International Centre here on the book "British Takeover of India: Modus Operandi", recently republished after its original version had come out in 1979. Tharoor reiterated how the British came as traders to India, but realised it was "far more profitable, to trade at the end of a gun". He referred to the gradual fall of the Mughal empire, and how, at the Battle of Plassey in 1757, fought under the command of Robert Clive, the East India Company forces defeated the ruling Nawab Siraj-ud-Daula of Bengal. Soon, Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II granted the Diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa to the Company. Tharoor, author of "An Era of Darkness: The British Empire In India", told the audience that the British extracted "four times more revenue" than

An exhibition of postcards from the early 20th century reminds us what things of beauty, utility and information they were, writes Ritika Kochhar