Manu Pillai, "False Allies: India’s Maharajahs in the Age of Ravi Varma" (Juggernaut, 2021)

Asian Review of Books · Apr 7, 2022 · 45m

It can be easy to think of the recent history of India—especially for those who aren’t from there—as a straight line, from the Mughal Empire, through the British Empire, to independent India.

That, of course, is hugely simplistic, missing the mess of competing polities, interests, and people that made up Indian history over the last few centuries.

Manu Pillai’s False Allies: India’s Maharajahs in the Age of Ravi Varma (Juggernaut, 2021), looks at a few of these political actors: the Maharajas of India, who led the “princely states”. Not quite sovereign entities, not quite directly-ruled…