In historical texts, it often appears formally that the Government of India ‘offered’ the assistance to the British and that His Majesty’s Government ‘graciously accepted’ the offer to pay unfairly large amounts of money, including a lump sum payment of £100 million as a special contribution to HMG’s expenses towards a European war. This elides the fact, of course, that the ‘Government of India’ consisted of Englishmen accountable to His Majesty’s Government in Britain.
