Toll free: +91 72900 92216 | E-mail: customercare@dcbookshop.net
Welcome Guest Blog Login Sign Up
Online Books Store India
Home / Books / FALSE ALLIES : INDIA'S MAHARAJAS IN THE AGE OF RAVI VARMA
  • Text
  • Text

FALSE ALLIES : INDIA'S MAHARAJAS IN THE AGE OF RAVI VARMA

By : MANU S. PILLAI

Book : FALSE ALLIES : INDIA'S MAHARAJAS IN THE AGE OF RAVI VARMA
Author: MANU S. PILLAI
Category : History
ISBN : 9789391165895
Binding : Normal
Publishing Date : 24-09-2021
Publisher : JUGGERNAUT
Edition : 1
Number of pages : 530
Language : English
Paper Back
Publisher: JUGGERNAUT
₹799.00 ₹899.00 11% off

Out Of Stock
Add to Wishlist Refer this to your friend

Book Summary

India’s maharajahs have traditionally been cast as petty despots, consumed by lust and luxury. Bejewelled parasites, they cared more, we are told, for elephants and palaces than for schools and public works. The British cheerfully circulated the idea that brown royalty needed ‘enlightened’ white hands to guide it, and by the twentieth century many Indians too bought into the stereotype, viewing princely India as packed with imperial stooges. Indeed, even today the princes are either remembered with frothy nostalgia or dismissed as greedy fools, with no role in the making of contemporary India. In this brilliantly researched book, Manu S. Pillai disputes this view. Tracking the travels of the iconic painter Ravi Varma through five princely states – from the 1860s to the early 1900s – he uncovers a picture far removed from the clichés in which the princes are trapped. The world we discover is not of dancing girls, but of sedition, legal battles, the defiance of imperial dictates, and resistance. We meet maharajahs obsessed with industrialization, and rulers who funded nationalists, these men anything but pushovers for the Raj to manipulate. Outward deference aside, the princes, Pillai shows, forever tested the Raj – from denying white officials the right to wear shoes in durbars to trying to surpass British administrative standards. Good governance became a spectacularly subversive act, by which maharajahs and the ‘native statesmen’ assisting them refuted claims that Indians could not rule themselves. For decades this made the princes heroes in the eyes of nationalists and anti-colonial thinkers – a facet of history we have forgotten and ignored. By refocusing attention on princely India, False Allies takes us on an unforgettable journey and reminds us that the maharajahs were serious political actors – essential to knowing modern India.
WRITE A REVIEW

Product name: FALSE ALLIES : INDIA'S MAHARAJAS IN THE AGE OF RAVI VARMA

Review title:



Your Ratings:

Your Message:




RELATED BOOKS

About DC books
DC Books started in 1974 by Dominic Chacko Kizhakemuri [popularly known as DC, doyen of publishing in India] is considered as one of the top five prestigious literary publishing houses in India.

It is the first ISO certified book industry in India. Read more ...
Shop with Confidence
Secure Shopping
Privacy Policy
Terms of use
Shipping Policy
Return Policy
Payment option

Safe & Secure Shopping
Product Enquiry
Online Purchase Enquiry
Product Complaints

Follow Us
Links
Authors
About us
Contact us
Feed back
Help/ FAQ
My Account
My Orders
My Shopping Cart
My Wish List
About us
Privacy Policy
Terms of use
Contact us

Copyright @ 2026, Current Books India Private Limited. All rights reserved
Powered by books store malayalam
0