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The former British hill station of Mussoorie, in the foothills of the Himalayas, affords the visitor two extraordinary views. Facing south, one takes in the seemingly endless Doon Valley, lit up at night by the city of Dehradun. That city
At the beginning of William Dalrymple’s The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire, the award-winning Scottish historian states plainly the thesis of his latest work: that the Company’s “military conquest, subjugation and plunder
Not three months after it won a second term in power—and only five since it rewrote the rules of engagement in South Asia in a balls-to-the-wall display of reckless one-upmanship—the Hindu nationalist government of Narendra Modi is showing once again
With the whole world lurching towards populism, nationalism, and, in some cases, outright authoritarianism, it can tempting to sit around drawing parallels between various deplorables. Marine Le Pen is to Matteo Salvini as Putin is to Erdoğan. Chan-o-cha is Thailand’s
Indian voters have just handed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party a landslide victory and Modi a second five-year term. How that happened is no mystery, and might be a cautionary example for other democracies around the world. Modi launched his
When this series was first published in The Daily Beast last December, I had no idea that Kashmir was about to explode—quite literally—into the headlines again. There had been numerous developments in the region between my visit and the series’
In his 2007 dispatch from the Pakistani side of Kashmir’s infamous Line of Control, Christopher Hitchens called the area “the near-certain flash point of a coming war that could well become an Asian Armageddon”. That war came closer to fruition
Friday prayers began at half-past twelve. There had already been a minor altercation. As I arrived at Nowhatta Chowk, a square on the Srinagar-Leh Highway where a fountain tinkled prettily, Indian security forces were attempting to prevent a group of