The Broken Script Delhi Under the East India Company and the Fall of the Mughal Dynasty, 1803-1857

DeScriPtionAt the start of the nineteenth century, there was a Mughal emperor on thethrone in Delhi, but the Mughal empire, in decline for almost a century, waspractically gone. A new power had emerged-the British East India Company, which captured the Mughal capital in September 1803, becoming its de factoruler. Swapna Liddle's book is an unprecedented study of the 'hybrid halfcentury' that followed-when the two regimes overlapped and Delhi was atthe cusp of modernity, changing in profound ways.With a ground-level view of the workings of early British rule in India, TheBroken Script describes in rich detail the complex tussle between the last twoMughal emperors and the East India Company, one wielding considerablesymbolic authority, and the other a fast-growing military and political power.It is, above all, the story of the people of Delhi in this period, some alreadywell known, such as the poet Ghalib, and others, like the mathematician RamChander, who are largely forgotten: the cultural and intellectual elite, businessmagnates, the old landed nobility and the exotic new ruling class-theBritish. Through them, it looks at the economic, social and cultural climatethat evolved over six decades. It examines the great flowering of poetry inUrdu, even as attempts to use the language for scientific education faltered;the fascinating history of the Delhi College, and how it represented a radicallynew model for higher education in India; the rise of modern journalism inUrdu, and various printing presses and publications, exemplified by papers