Daily Archives: August 23, 2015

Of Britishers who worked for India

“This is not a book about the British colonialism, but a narrative of those who lived here and worked for India. It is about their contribution to our country”

This was how an academic and CEO of the GMR Varalakshmi Foundation, V. Raghunathan and an IT professional, who gave up her job yielding to her passion of writing, Veena Prasad, described ‘Beyond the Call of Duty’, a 224-page book published by HarperCollins Publishers India that was released here on Friday.

It speaks of a dozen people who came to India, lived here and did their bit to a nation that was colonised.

Director-Research at the LV Prasad Eye Research Institute, D. Balasubramanian spoke about the characters in the book – W.H. Sleeman who chased thugs in his spare time, fighting the ‘Thugee system’ and Ronald Ross who hunted the Anopheles mosquito and demystified malaria. The book chronicles the work of others, including Mount Stuart Elphinstone, the educationist Governor of Bombay who is considered the founding father of modern Indian education, Arthur Thomas Cotton the man who ‘dammed’ India, William Jones’s tribute to Indology and who laid the foundation of the Asiatic Society and the occasional botanist Dr. Archibald Campbell on ‘Bringing tea to Darjeeling’.

There were chapters on the multi-faceted genius James Prinsep and his ‘Extending Indian History’, R.M. Stephenson and John Chapman – the men who shrunk India by getting it on track, Alexander Cunningham and brothers who proved the point with a family enterprise of excellence and the Indian Briton Mark Tully, a journalist par excellence. The authors took questions as to what had made them choose the subjects they did. Among the more interesting, the curious among the audience was Amani Gudipati, a student of Class VII of Oakridge International School. She walked up to Ms. Veena Prasad and thanked her profusely for the education of the evening.

When asked, little Amani said, “We were taught in school that the Britishers ruled India. Now I have become more open-minded and learning a different facet, being told about Britishers who lived here and actually worked for the progress of the country!”

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Hyderabad / by Suresh Krishnamoorthy / Hyderabad – August 23rd, 2015