Overview

In his narrative-defining book, Era of India, Minhaz Merchant examines interlinked civilizational arcs across centuries and millennia. Through much of recorded history, living standards were broadly similar in the Old World: Europe, Asia and Africa. The discovery of the New World in the Americas and Australasia brought about great change: catastrophic for some, a boon for others. Differences in per capita income between Europeans and Asians were minimal in 1600. By 1900, the gap had risen multiple times. Europe emerged from plague and penury to great wealth. Was this extraordinary turn of events due to scientific discoveries, the Industrial Revolution and technological innovation? Or did centuries of exploitative, invasive colonialism, the 250-year-long transatlantic slave trade from Africa to the Americas, and colonist-settlements in the New World result in the largest transfer in history of wealth from East to West? Crucially, is it time for the West to pay reparations for three centuries of extra-territorial colonial conquest and enslavement Using empirical data and deeply researched documented evidence, Minhaz Merchant answers these questions in a riveting narrative that examines how the rise of India from an impoverished British colony in 1947 to the world’s third largest economy by 2030 will reshape the world order in the next quarter century.

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9780143478478

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Reviews

Merchant explores the decline of India and the rise of the west. Was that because of science or because of pure simple looting? Looting that came in disguise of taxes upon the traders and farmers of the colonies. So is now the time for the west to pay back the loot it the rightful owners? ""Much the same tactics were used to bleed India with punitive taxes. Taxation (and theft labeled as taxation) became a favourite British form of extraction,' explains Tharoor. India was treated as a cash cow; the revenues that flowed into London's treasury were described by the Earl of Chatham as ""the redemption of a nation...a kind of gift from heaven"". The British extracted from India approximately￡18,000,000 each year between 1765 and 1815. ""There are few kings in Europe,"" wrote the Comte de Chatelet, French ambassador to London,""richer than the directors of the English East India Company.""

Author Information

Minhaz Merchant is a pioneering media entrepreneur, editor and publisher. He is the author of biographies of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the late industrialist Aditya Vikram Birla. Era of India is his eighth book. A recipient of the Lady Jeejeebhoy scholarship for physics, Minhaz is married to the artist Kahini Arte-Merchant and lives in Mumbai.

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