He arrived in India at eighteen, almost by accident. Saddam Hussein had shut down a British archaeology dig in Iraq, so a young Scottish history student named William Dalrymple boarded a flight east instead. Four decades later, he has become one of the most consequential chroniclers of the subcontinent — an author whose work has reshaped how India and the world, understands its own past.
Speaking from his Delhi home on a rare clear-sky February afternoon — peacocks calling, parrots chattering in the trees — Dalrymple reflected on a career built between dusty archives and bestseller lists. His most recent book, The Golden Road, topped Indian charts for 35 unbroken weeks by doing something deceptively simple: giving Indians rigorous, factual reasons to feel proud of their civilisation. “Often writers are the bringers of bad news,” he said, adding, “in this case, it was possible to write a paean of praise that made everyone happy,” he added.
Not all of his subjects inspire celebration. William argues that 1857 — not the more widely cited Jallianwala Bagh — stands as the bloodiest moment in colonial history. The death toll in Delhi alone that August and September likely reached the tens of thousands, accompanied by mass assault, abduction and destruction that obliterated not just lives but an entire Indo-Islamic cultural world. “People became ashamed of that culture,” he explained, adding, “an awful lot was lost — Indian miniature painting, courtly traditions — never to return.” His Empire podcast, meanwhile, has catapulted him into a new stratosphere — nearly 90 million downloads in two years. Where a successful history book might reach 150,000 readers over half a decade, the podcast delivers his voice globally, permanently, twice a week. “It has totally transformed my life,” he admitted.
On the geopolitical stage, William sees India’s rise not as an anomaly but as a correction — a return to the pre-colonial equilibrium when India and China together generated eighty per cent of global GDP. “The freak was European military dominance,” he said, adding, “what we’re seeing now is the world rebalancing.” His next project plunges into arguably the most dangerous terrain of all: a history of the Palestinians. “I’ve got so upset about Gaza and the misinformation,” he said. It will be, he knows, the opposite of The Golden Road’s warm reception — but that, too, is the historian’s job. At sixty, still learning, still restless, Dalrymple heads back to Hampi next month — the same temple town where he slept rough on his nineteenth birthday, swimming in the Tungabhadra at dawn. Some love stories, it turns out, never really end.
Based on a conversation with Neha on The Expressions Podcast.
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