India Wasn’t Always a Package Deal

When you take a tour of Windsor Castle, you may see one of the oddest paintings hanging there. It’s by a Flemish painter depicting a scroll Catherine of Braganza hands over to Charles II. Its caption reads: ‘Princess Catherine of Portugal hands over Bombay to the British as part of her dowry’. As an Indian, your first thought is, ‘How can she do that? It’s not a box of chocolates! I live here.’

As we look back on 79 years — and one week — of freedom, as a united country, one forgets that this vast land, connected by railways and SBI, Shah Rukh Khan and Mahendra Singh Dhoni, IndiGo and Narendra Modi, a flag and anthem (and now a song), and a million other things, was once separate and tiny little regions, some under kings, some under the British, and some doing their own thing. Portugal, France, Holland and Denmark all had tiny pieces of India until independence and beyond.