I wouldn’t find hard-line anti-Western rhetoric in the village, the Sheikh assured me. “They are very simple people,” he said. “They praise British rule more than Indian rule, because all they care about is who makes their lives better.” Urban elites might have the luxury of thinking big thoughts about colonialism and the struggle for independence, but for Jamdahanis, what mattered was the fact that the railway track that took them to Jaunpur was British, just like the BBC they listened to on their battery-operated radios.
