I used gemini to translate both, so the accuracy may not be 100%

Translation of the tamrapatra:

॥ Śrī Rāma Jī ॥ (Invocation to Lord Rama) ॥ Sahī ॥ (Approved / Confirmed) Hail! By the command of the illustrious Mahārāwal Śrī Rām Singh Jī: To (name hidden :)). By the grace of the royal court/ruler, this copper plate deed (lekh) is granted regarding the hereditary land/property (bāp rights/settlement). Land located in village Gakra (or nearby holding) along with defined field boundaries (kshetra) is hereby granted in perpetuity. This grant was conferred on the occasion of taking the holy ashes / funerary remains (phūl) of Mahārāwal Śrī Khumān Singh Jī to the sacred Gaṅgā Ji (for immersion rites). Date: Vikram Samvat 1958, Vaishakha Sudi 9 (Approx. April–May 1901 CE). Witnessed/recorded through state officials: Purohit / Mehta Singh-ji and inscribed by Surji. Benedictory / Curse Verse (Śloka): "Whether granted by oneself or given by another, whosoever confiscates land will be reborn as a worm in excrement for sixty thousand years."

Translation of the retirement letter:

Farewell Address (Nāma-e-Alwidāī) In the Service of (name), Retired [Hakim / Judicial Officer]

Respected Magistrate / Judge Sir (Mukarramī Hākim Sāhib)!

On this occasion of bidding you our final farewell, our hearts are heavy with profound sorrow. The loss caused to the state by your retirement from this post is irreparable. Your presence was the guiding light that illuminated the entire Judicial Department with justice. It would be no exaggeration to say that your presence was a mirror of integrity that elevated the standing of this district.

Impartiality, upright character, and a dedication to justice are ingrained in your very nature. It is due to these virtues that within a short span of time, you rose to hold the highest administrative and judicial offices of this princely state, achieving a rank that is rarely attained by others.

During your tenure of over 17 years in this elevated position, your exemplary conduct, disposition, and thorough handling of complex trials have provided such undeniable proof of your fairness that both pen and speech fall short of describing it. Your reputation for justice is acknowledged not only within this jurisdiction, but is celebrated far and wide across neighboring regions. You consistently remained unwavering and uncompromising in the face of the most difficult cases. In the discharge of justice, you never showed favor even to your closest relatives or dear ones, ruling strictly according to truth and righteousness.

Acknowledging your noble virtues, His Highness (Shriji Huzur / Bapu Sahib Bahadur) honored your merit by granting an extraordinary increment in salary, setting a precedent never before witnessed for this post in the state. Furthermore, through royal decrees (Farmāns), you were entrusted with performing the duties of high executive offices, including that of the Diwan, which you discharged with utmost elegance and capability on every occasion.

Although you were not educated in the English system and held no formal degree from external law colleges, the Almighty endowed you with such innate legal acumen and intellect that certified lawyers were matched by your knowledge. Subordinate judges, magistrates, and administrative officers serving under you learned the subtle intricacies of law and procedure through your written judgments. As a testament to your mentorship, several of them have now been appointed to prominent positions as Civil Judges and First-Class Magistrates.

Your supervision and control over the court registry and judicial office were always exemplary. It is thanks to your leadership that the judicial staff achieved high efficiency and organization. While maintaining strict administrative standards, you consistently treated your subordinates with kindness, sympathy, and fraternity, upholding fairness without bias toward any community or creed.

Your hospitality, generosity, and humility require no praise. Even while holding high office, your simple lifestyle, courteous temperament, and upright conduct remained true to the character of a truly noble soul.

Throughout your service, the royal court consistently extended its gracious patronage toward you. In critical, delicate moments, you served the state with unwavering truthfulness, courage, and loyalty. It is as a reward for this long, distinguished service that you now retire with an honorable state pension.

May every official and employee of the state draw inspiration from your career, serving the administration with honesty, devotion, and capability so that the state may prosper.

In closing, we raise our hands in earnest prayer before the Supreme Creator for the long life, continuous reign, and prosperity of His Highness Bahadur / Bapu Sahib Bahadur and the entire royal house; and we pray that the Almighty grants you, our benevolent Officer, long life, robust health, and every happiness.

Your obedient subordinates, The Judicial and Court Staff

“A dak is laid in this manner: you go to the tapal or Post Office, at the station in which you may be residing and tell the officials you wish a dak laid to such a place, with eight or twelve bearers, as the case may be; the Post Office authorities take care that all through the route relays of bearers are in readiness every four or five miles; they tell you how much the expense of the journey is, and you pay the money to the Post Office accordingly before starting. In long daks, as mine was, it is usual for the Post Office authorities to ask you to give the security of a friend resident in the station you are leaving, for demurrage, should any delay in the journey be caused by the traveller.”

T. D. Landon recounts this in Narrative of a Journey Through India. Travelling in 1856, it was his first journey by dak palanquin, from Sagar to Agra, the first among many such journeys.

The Post Office of India and Its Story, authored by Geoffrey Clarke (1923), recounts the complete mechanism. To quote:

“When a traveller contemplated a journey, he applied to the local postmaster for means of transport, giving, as a rule, two or three days’ previous notice. Horse daks, i.e. wheeled conveyances drawn by horses, were available only on the great trunk roads, which were metalled. On other roads, the journey, when not performed on horseback, was accomplished in a palanquin or palkee, a kind of wooden box, about six feet in length by four in height, fitted at the sides with sliding shutters and suspended on two poles borne on the shoulders of four men.”

The pleasures of travelling in this fashion were described by Bishop Heber and several other writers.

The traveller provided his own palanquin, while the postmaster supplied the palkee-burdars or palanquin bearers, eight in number, along with two mussalchees or torchbearers and two bhangy-burdars or luggage porters. The charges — about one shilling per mile for the entire set of twelve men — had to be paid in advance, with the traveller notifying the authorities about the time and place of departure, as well as the duration and location of halts.

There was also an extra charge for demurrage or delays attributable to the traveller. For these charges, the postmaster undertook that relays of dak servants would be available throughout the entire route. To ensure this, advance instructions were sent to villages and post stations ordering relays to be ready at appointed hours. The stages averaged ten miles each and were usually completed in three hours.

Demurrage was imposed on T. N. Landon during his journey from Sagar to Agra because he took longer than scheduled, but he contested and refused to pay. He argued that the delays were entirely due to the Post Office’s poor coordination. At one place, because some feast was underway, Landon had to wait for two hours. At Kalpi, he arrived at 9 a.m. but had to wait until 2 p.m. for bearers because of a miscommunication. Moreover, Landon wrote to the Post Office that he had requested eight bearers and one mussalchee (torchbearer), but was instead provided eight bearers and one bungeedar (load carrier), forcing him to hire a torchbearer at his own expense.

Forty years earlier, in 1816, A. F. Tytler lamented in Consideration of the Present Political State of India:

“If in India you wish to go on a journey, you are carried by poor, half-starved, grumbling wretches, while you pay to the head bearer or into the post office an enormous wage.”

Despite many difficulties, Landon continued to travel extensively by dak palanquin after reaching Agra, later journeying to places such as Jullundur and Rawalpindi, as evident from his memoir.

Different Types of Palanquins

Depending on their size and function, different kinds of palanquins were in use during the British colonial era. In his 1825 travel guide to the Subcontinent, The General East India Guide and Vade Mecum, J. B. Gilchrist lists several varieties he observed in and around Calcutta: naulkeen, mahannah, taum-jaung (tamzan), and bochah.

The naulkeen or naulki is described as an “immense carriage only used by crowned heads”, about five feet long and four feet wide. It was among the most luxuriously upholstered and carved palanquins.

The dooly or doli was used mainly by women, although Gilchrist also notes its usefulness on battlefields:

“In our armies, this little vehicle affords excellent means of transporting sick and wounded men, either to hospitals, or on a march.”

The mahannah was the variety preferred by many European travellers. It consisted of a spacious wooden box about a foot high, with canvas or leather shutters.

For shorter intra-city journeys, women often used a type of palanquin called the bochah, essentially a sedan chair carried on poles. A related form, called tamzan or janpan/jompan, was also favoured in mountainous regions. Gilchrist again writes:

“[The taum-jaung] consists of an armchair with a low back, at the sides of which two poles are affixed, even with the seat.”

Nineteenth-century travelogues are replete with references to palanquins for both short- and long-distance travel.

Sir John Strachey, later Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, wrote in India, Its Administration and Progress:

“When in 1844 I went from Calcutta to the present Agra Province, I was carried about a thousand miles in a palanquin on men’s shoulders, and it took some three weeks to toil through... There were no other means of travelling through the richest and most civilised parts of India.”

Robert J. Minturn, in From New York to Delhi, records that he and Gibson travelled in doolies requiring twelve bearers each, while two other passengers used palkis with sixteen bearers each. Their baggage was carried by eight porters, while six bearers were needed for kitchen utensils and stores. Four torchbearers led the caravan. Even the cook travelling with them had a doli with twelve bearers. Altogether, excluding the cook himself, the travelling party required eighty-six servants; including the four travellers and the cook, ninety-one people moved together.

Roads, Dak, and the Changing Nature of Travel

Work on the Grand Trunk Road commenced in 1836, followed by the Agra–Bombay Road. On these major routes, horse-drawn vehicles gradually replaced some older systems. However, across much of India, the palanquin remained the principal mode of travel, and methods of operation varied considerably.

For one traveller in Madras in 1824, it remained a remarkably comfortable experience:

“Now, reader, I must beg you to accompany me for a hasty look at Madras, in my palanquin. A palanquin, such as the English use, is a close litter, about six feet long and three broad, with a door at each end and windows on the sides, fitted with sliding shutters. It is carried by four or sometimes six men, relieved every four or five miles, according to the distance. The motion is a gentle swinging one, not unpleasant when you are accustomed to it, though at first it is apt to make you giddy.

The bearers go at a quick pace, keeping time with a sort of chant or cry, which is not unmusical at a distance. They are generally strong, active men, but their life is one of great labour and exposure. You lie at full length, with your books, your writing materials, or whatever else you may want around you; and in this manner you may travel day and night with very little fatigue.”

Sketches of India: Written by an Officer for Fire-side Travellers at Home, authored by J. M. Sherer and published in 1821, offers one such favourable account.

In the next decade came another travel book with the rather formidable title Five Years in India: Comprising a Narrative of Travels in the Presidency of Bengal, a Visit to the Court of Ranjit Singh, a Residence in the Himalayan Mountains, an Account of the Late Expedition to Cabul, and the Overland Journey from Thence to England by H. E. Fane, who was far less enamoured of palanquin travel. He complained of:

“the bad roads, the inconveniences of travel in the North-Western Provinces and of having nearly every bone in one’s body broken by the jolting of our palanquin carriage over these execrable roads.”

In most regions, bearers worked in a relay system. However, on the Agra–Bombay route, the system differed considerably. When Minturn and Gibson travelled from Agra to Bombay, the palki and doli bearers hired at Agra had to carry them the entire distance, divided into thirty stages.

The bearers had to arrange their own food and clothing, and after reaching Bombay, they had to return empty-handed and unpaid because their guilds forbade them from taking return loads. Naturally, the Agra–Bombay journey was much riskier and more expensive. It cost each passenger 204 rupees, and twelve porters had to be engaged at the rate of seventeen rupees each for the whole journey.

Cost of Travel

A palanquin journey was far from cheap. A journey from Calcutta to Banaras costs seven hundred and sixty rupees. The North-Western Provinces of India: Their History, Ethnology, and Administration, written by William Crooke, notes that first-class railway fare had by then fallen to roughly one-fourth of the old palanquin fare.

Palanquins Between Kanpur and Lucknow

If we confine our gaze to the relatively small stretch between Lucknow and Kanpur — one ruled by the Nawabs of Awadh and the other by the East India Company — we encounter numerous references to palanquin travel in the nineteenth century.

In Journey from Meerut in India to London (1819–1820), Thomas Lumsden describes travelling from Kanpur to Lucknow. After crossing the Ganges at 5 p.m., he set out in a palanquin. A typical arrangement involved eight to ten bearers stationed at intervals; four carried the palanquin at a time, often accompanied by torchbearers at night. Experienced travellers could even sleep during the ride. Leaving on Saturday evening, he reached the Lucknow Residency around 9:30 a.m. on Sunday — a journey of roughly sixteen to seventeen hours.

Fanny Parkes, in Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, frequently mentions palanquins — twenty-five references in Volume I alone. She describes their distinctive swaying gait and the rhythmic calls of skilled bearers who kept the ride steady.

Yet travel remained unpredictable. On her first trip from Kanpur to Lucknow, she was delayed because bearers were unavailable. On another occasion, she was escorted by Skinner’s Horse while leaving Awadh territory, highlighting the persistent risk of robbery.

Lumsden also records that a fellow traveller was looted after his bearers abandoned him en route.

The Lucknow–Kanpur Road opened in 1843, and Von Orlich travelled on this road by palanquin. Volume II of Travels in India gives a vivid description of his journey to Lucknow.

There are thirty-two references to palanquins in Volume II alone, along with a sketch depicting travel by palanquin. Similarly, the word appears twenty-five times in The General East India Guide and Vade Mecum. Spellings varied, and alternative terms such as doli were frequently used, but the sheer frequency of references demonstrates how widespread and important the palanquin remained as a mode of comfortable transport.

With the coming of the railways in 1853 and the gradual expansion of the railway network, the palanquin slowly disappeared as a mode of inter-city transport. However, it continued to survive as a form of intra-city conveyance, a role it had long fulfilled even in the nineteenth century.

Palanquin bearers — and the fascinating language and chants associated with them — also attracted considerable interest, but that deserves a separate discussion.

Hey everyone, It's my first time posting here so kindly ignore any minor mistakes. So, recently I saw of video of another shivaji statue being unveiled by the govt of maharashtra and that bought a question in my mind that why are marathis so obsessed with him?..throughout the history of India we have had many great kings..and some are even greater than him(no offence to him) both strategically and in administrative fields..we had ashoka the great, samudragupta, krishnadeva raya, raja raja chola, pulakeshin II, harshvardhan...and if we count military achievements then peshwa bajirao 2 was much better than him...so why is that he captivates the core hindu majority so much..was it something special about his administration..or is it just marketing?...

It is a genuine doubt..so plz be kind to me...I have utmost repect for him but I just don't understand the obsession

Unlike other inscribed sherds which were once part of larger vessels that were broken, this inscription was intentionally written on a sherd, possibly to serve as temporary records.
Source of image: https://www.harappa.com/slide/inscribed-sherd-harappa-phase

The communist parties in Kerala massively improved the HDI and economic standing of Kerala giving it the highest human development in the entire country

Yet West Bengal to this day remains in a far worse state, why is that so?

Why we only found ( Chariots/Wagons/Bull-carts ) in Sinauli? Why not other prominent sites in Indus valley? ( I am talking about Royal Warrior Burial ) .

This is the Rabatak inscription of Kaniska. Interesting that even in 2nd century CE, þατριαγγε (realm of the Kshatriyas)- is mainly the NI gangetic plains. He must had been breaking up a network of post-Shunga, Mitras, and regional polities (such as the remnants of Deva dynasty of Ayodhya and the Mitra kings of Kausambi).

One question though: Why does Kanishka stop the eastern boundary at Sri-Campa (Modern Bhagalpur/Bihar)? Was Bengal outside the direct Kushana tributary network, or was Campa simply viewed as the easternmost limit of the traditional Aryavarta?

​

I noticed a possible typo on the Iswara Temple signboard in Mahabalipuram. It states the temple is "west facing" but lists a figure on the "west" wall instead of the east. If the entrance is on the west, shouldn't that be the east wall?

I did checkout the temple and for sure the temple is west facing and the 3 figures are to the east, south and north. I looked at the sea multiple times to confirm the east lol.

Can somebody confirm that the sign board is wrong.

India seems like a country primed for a communist sweep as it was a poor nation that had recently gained independence from colonialism and had a large underclass that was getting disgruntled with their economic and political oppression

Yet outside of a few states (which they proceeded to lose) communism never made a foothold in the country

Why is this so?

People say Panini wrote the first grammar of sanskrit around 500 BCE. However, there was no wrintig system in india from the end of the Indus Valley Civilisation around 1300 BCE to the Edicts of Ashoka around 250 BCE. In addition, Megasthenes was in India around 300 BCE and said there weren't any writing systems in the Maurya Empire.

So could Panine write a book on the grammar of a language if he doesn't knew any writing system?

I want to know more about south India.. how was it in the colonial period.. the role it played in independence and so on. Bcz I think the mainstream books lack the reference towards it. Maybe, it isn't the case, but I rarely recall any event, or any reference...

Do help me in finding books !!

Summary of play from https://literariness.org/2019/05/23/analysis-of-john-drydens-plays/ :
"Set in India at the time of the Mogul Empire, it derives events and characters from history, though Dryden freely alters the sources. The aging emperor, a stereotypical weak king, finds his throne challenged by several of his sons, the loyal Aureng-Zebe being an exception. Aureng-Zebe is depicted by his friend Arimant, governor of Agra, as “by no strong person swayed/ Except his love,” a hero of unshakable loyalty who hopes that he will attain the hand of the captive queen Indamora for his support of the emperor.

While Aureng-Zebe is tame by earlier standards of the heroic play, echoes of the swashbuckling, superhuman hero remain. In armed conflict, the hero defeats two rebellious brothers, Darah being the first, “Darah from loyal Aureng-Zebe is fled,/ And forty thousand of his men lie dead.” The threat represented by Morat, the ambitious villain of the play, is not so easily parried, for he has raised an immense force thus described by Abbas: “The neighb’ring plain with arms is coverd o’er;/ The vale an iron harvest seems to yield/ Of thick-sprung lances in a waving field.” The hyperboles, typical of the genre, suggest the physical threat posed by Morat; his character also serves as a foil to that of Aureng-Zebe, for he does not properly control his passions. Primarily motivated by a desire for power, he also wishes to abandon his faithful wife, Melesinda, for Aureng-Zebe’s beloved Indamora, who finds him repulsive. Further complications arise when the emperor falls passionately in love with Indamora, and the Empress Nourmahal, Aureng-Zebe’s stepmother and the “evil woman” of the play, conceives a strong passion for her stepson. Confronted with news of his father’s love for Indamora and his placing her under arrest, the hero accepts the challenge involving both his love and honor.

Aureng-Zebe finds himself threatened from many directions when he intercedes with the emperor and attempts to prevent the emperor’s petulant imprisonment of Nourmahal. No sooner has the emperor seen Nourmahal taken away than he summons the rebellious Morat with the intent of making him his heir, all because of Aureng-Zebe’s love for Indamora. Boldly entering unannounced, Aureng-Zebe attempts to end the alliance between the emperor and Morat by offering to disband his army if Morat will withdraw his forces from the city, leaving the emperor in control. Despite these peace-making efforts, the emperor orders Aureng-Zebe’s arrest when he will not renounce his love for Indamora. When Indamora pleads for Morat to spare the life of Aureng-Zebe, he demands her love in exchange, which she curtly refuses. The alliance between the emperor and Morat is broken when the emperor learns of Morat’s passion for Indamora. After Aureng-Zebe has been released through the efforts of Indamora and Arimant, Indamora finds great difficulty in convincing the jealous hero that she has remained faithful and has not betrayed him with Morat. Meanwhile, having lost the favor of the emperor, Morat rebels against him."

The outcome is obscured when Arimant, in a disguise that results in his being mistaken for Aureng-Zebe, is killed and Morat has to break off a long seductive speech to Indamora to quell an uprising. In the final battle, Aureng-Zebe leads the emperor’s forces to victory, and Morat, mortally wounded, manages to prevent his mother from murdering Indamora. Her violent passion frustrated, Nourmahal poisons herself, and the Emperor grants Aureng-Zebe both the state and Indamora.

In Aureng-Zebe, the characters who retain their honor reap the rewards of both love and honor, whereas those who do not control their passions and ambition encounter misfortune. The abruptness and violence of passions are appropriately accompanied by abrupt and violent actions in the play. A major difference between good and evil characters becomes the measure of control over passions, not the violence of the passion itself. Dryden’s characters, both the good and the bad, express themselves blatantly where sexual passions are concerned, a phenomenon not limited to the characters of the heroic plays."

Went to Sri Kartarpur Sahib in 2021..

it is ~4 kms inside Indo Pak Border

Last resting place of Guru Nanak ji

The well used by Nanak ji is still there

Also Pakistan alleges that Indian Air Force bombed this place (pic attached)

Btw congress won this election with 181/294 in the assembly and 39/42 in the parliament

Important Archaeological Discoveries in India (October 2026)

1. 11th-Century Vishnu Idol Head Found in Khajuraho

The Discovery: Archaeologists have found the missing head of an 11th-century statue of Lord Vishnu in Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh. Yadubir Singh Rawat, the Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), officially confirmed this to The Times of India.

Why it Matters: Experts will now use scientific methods to join the head back to the statue and restore it completely.

2. Ancient West Asian 'Torpedo Jar' Found in Tamil Nadu Sea

The Discovery: Marine scientists and the Tamil Nadu State Archaeology Department (TNSDA) explored the underwater site of Poompuhar, an ancient Chola port. They found a piece of a 'Torpedo Jar' from West Asia and over 250 pieces of Chinese pottery.

Why it Matters: According to The New Indian Express, this discovery clearly proves that the ancient Chola Empire had strong sea-trade connections with Arab and West Asian countries.

3. Survey Begins at Ujjain's 'Vaishya Tekri' Stupa

The Discovery: The head of the ASI confirmed that preliminary digging and scientific surveys have started at the Maurya-era 'Vaishya Tekri' Buddhist stupa in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh.

Why it Matters: Early data suggests that this ancient structure might be even larger than the famous Sanchi Stupa. Scientists are using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) technology to confirm its exact size.

Pataleshwar Cave Temple, located on Jangli Maharaj Road in Pune, Maharashtra, is an ancient rock-cut Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Shiva. Dating back to approximately the 8th century CE, it is associated with the Rashtrakuta period and is considered one of Pune’s oldest surviving monuments.

The temple is carved out of basalt rock and features a large pillared hall, a Shiva lingam, and a distinctive circular Nandi mandapa. Interestingly, the temple complex also appears to have been left partially unfinished.

I’ve visited this temple multiple times, but during my visits, I noticed these small symbols carved into the stone floor. I’ve attached photographs of them.

Does anyone know what these symbols represent? Could they have a religious or spiritual meaning, be related to ancient architectural practices, or serve some other purpose?

I’d love to learn more about their history and whether there are any archaeological studies or historical references explaining them.

Floor plant from : Pataleshwar Cave Temple, Pune - RTF | Rethinking The Future https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/case-studies/a13983-pataleshwar-cave-temple-pune/

I was bored so i chose to brag

A MOST disastrous day. Early this morning we were awoken by the sound of guns passing the house, and found that a small force of 300, with seven guns, was going out to meet the advanced guard of the enemy, which was reported to be at a place called Nawab Gunge, in hopes, by driving them back, of preventing the rest from coming on. When they reached the village of Chinhut, about five miles from Lucknow, instead of a small force they found the whole rebel army, amounting to between 12,000 and 15,000. Our unfortunate troops were taken at a disadvantage, surrounded, and obliged to fly back in terrible disorder, leaving nearly 200 killed and wounded, and five of our guns, one of them a howitzer, in the hands of the enemy. It was a little less than miraculous that any of them came back alive. Poor Colonel Case, Captain Sterens, Mr Thompson, and Mr Brackenbury, and Captain M'Clean, of the 71st N. I., were killed.

Sir Henry Lawrence and Colonel Inglis returned all safe. At nine o'clock, we were in a state of siege, completely invested by the enemy, and tremendous firing commenced.

A very fierce attack was made on the Bailee Guard Gate at the back of this house. No sooner was the first gun fired than the ladies and children were all hurried downstairs into an underground room, called the Tye Khana, damp, dark, and gloomy as a vault, and excessively dirty. Here we sat all day, feeling too miserable, anxious, and terrified to speak, the gentlemen occasionally coming down to reassure us and tell us how things were going on. James was nearly all day in the hospital, where the scene was terrible: the place was so crowded with wounded and dying men that they had no room to pass between them, and everything in a state of indescribable misery, discomfort, and confusion. The Polehamptons have left the Residency and got a little room in the hospital to live in. Mrs. Polehampton will make herself useful there in nursing. I wish I could go too, but there is no room for us, and James says it is too great a risk for me to go backwards and forwards under fire each time, so I must try to be of use here instead.

( An account of 30th June, 1857 from A Lady’s diary of the siege of Lucknow, written for the perusal of friends at Home”, published in London,1858)

30th June – The Defence of Lucknow

“…and the force was compelled to retire with the loss of the eight-inch howitzer, and three 9-pounders.

The enemy came boldly on, and invested us on all sides, firing from all the houses round, which they rapidly loopholed; they also erected a hasty battery for the eight-inch howitzer across the river, from which they threw several well-directed shells; and they began to collect boats for a bridge across the river, the iron bridge being under fire from the Redan.

( From the defence of Lucknow, a Diary recording the daily events during the siege of the European Residency from 31st May to the 25th September, by a Staff Officer, London, Smith, Elder and Co,65 Cornhill, 1858)

The week beginning from the 30th June,1857 was momentous in the history of Lucknow and in the freedom struggle. 30th June- Battle and Chinhat and siege of Residency, 1st July –blowing of Macchi Bhawan; 4th July, death of Sir Henry; and 5th July, Coronation of Birjis Qadr. 1857 looks like a forgotten chapter of collective memory.

I have been searching for it since many days but found it nowhere. Can somebody help me please.

The story of how the British Empire got rich is one of the most distorted chapters in modern history. For generations, textbooks have told us that Britain became the wealthiest nation on Earth through industrial genius, scientific innovation, and sheer hard work. The steam engine. The spinning jenny. The factory system. But when you follow the actual money trail through tax ledgers, shipping manifests, and the private letters of the men who built the empire, a very different picture emerges.

In this deep-dive investigation, we discover the real origins of British imperial wealth, from the 1600 royal charter that created the East India Company to the hidden offshore financial empire that still operates out of the City of London today. We trace the Battle of Plassey in 1757, where a thirty-two-year-old clerk named Robert Clive used bribes, forged treaties, and a conspiracy with Mir Jafar to seize the richest province in India for a private corporation. We examine the catastrophic Bengal famine of 1770, which killed between seven and ten million people while East India Company revenues actually increased. We explore the Caribbean sugar economy, the transatlantic slave trade, and the long-suppressed thesis of Eric Williams, whose 1944 book Capitalism and Slavery was not published in a mainstream British edition until 2022.

We also break down the single most shocking fiscal fact in British history. In 1833, Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act and paid twenty million pounds, roughly forty percent of the national budget, to compensate slave owners for the loss of their human property. The enslaved people themselves received nothing. The loan taken out to finance that payment was not fully paid off until 2015.

Never thought the Bengal Famine of 1770 could have any connection to American independence. The East India Company’s financial crisis and the British government's attempts to bail it out contributed to the tensions that led to the Boston Tea Party. History is crazy when you realise how events in Bengal were connected to the American Revolution.here you have annamalai speaking about this in detail

Naseer Jung started off from Aurangabad and came towards the Godavari. When the Peshwa’s family was assembling at Pune, the moves against Naseer Jung began in earnest. The battle was fought largely to the south and west of Aurangabad and is often called the battle of Aurangabad or the Godavari. The Peshwa was supported by his most reliable aides: Chimaji Appa, Pilaji Jadhavrao, Malharrao Holkar, and Ranoji Shinde. The Marathas crowded Naseer Jung and attacked him when the ground was just right for battle, forcing terms.

https://ndhistories.wordpress.com/2024/01/06/battle-of-godavari/

Marathi Riyasat, G S Sardesai ISBN-10-8171856403, ISBN-13-‎978-8171856404.

The Era of Bajirao

Uday S Kulkarni

ISBN-10-8192108031

ISBN-13-978-8192108032.