LONDON — For decades, Britain has wrapped its colonial past in gauzy nostalgia, invoking the railways, the English language, and parliamentary institutions as supposed gifts to its former colonies. Yet behind these comforting myths lies a brutal record of plunder, repression, and calculated cruelty; a history that, as Shashi Tharoor, the Indian parliamentarian and historian, has forcefully argued, left one of the world’s wealthiest civilizations in ruins. In 1700, India accounted for 27 percent of global GDP, a thriving hub of textiles, trade, and learning. By 1947, at independence, that share had collapsed to barely 3 percent. Ninety percent of … Continue reading The Dark Legacy of Empire: Britain’s Myths, India’s Ruins