The Tears of the Rajas by Ferdinand Mount – book review: The brutality of British imperialism is skilfully laid bare

The Independent

What makes it exceptional is that Mount has brilliantly woven his family history into the wider history

For much of his life, Ferdinand Mount has avoided discussing British rule in India despite the fact that between 1771 and 1909, more than 125 years, more than 20 members of his extended family, Lows, Shakespears and Thackerays, worked there.

Then a story of a great-great grandfather of Cameron and Mount (they are related) hanging civilians during the 1857 revolt, a war crime by our standards, made him realise the source was a book written by his great-aunt Ursie. It had lain unread on his bookshelf for 40 years. Now he read it, much else beside, and the result is one of the best histories of a much neglected period when the Raj was made and very nearly unmade.

What makes it exceptional is that Mount has brilliantly woven his family history into the wider history. So while John Low, the central character, is off stage for much of the first 150 pages by then we have had a very insightful look into the crucial first decades of the 19th century with Mount highlighting British double standards. So a mutiny by Indian soldiers is dealt with brutally but that by English soldiers lightly, even omitted from Victorian history books; adventures, like Stamford Raffles, dress up personal gain as for the good of the nation, and, it turns out, the Elgin Marbles are not the only stolen antiquities in the British Museum.