After the Raj: The Last Stayers-On and the Legacy of British India - Tapa dura

The population of India today is 1.3 billion, of whom not more than 20 or so are Britishers who were born there under the Raj and never went home after Independence; a tea planter, a missionary, a businessman (`boxwallah'), a tiger hunter, a taxidermist, an expert on the Anglo-Indian language and a soldier, amongst others. They have grown old with the new India; some have become Indian citizens; they will not come `Home,' as they still call the UK. Nevertheless, they remember the Raj and, essentially, how their working lives passed on a British legacy which has contributed to the character of India today - its language, its Christian faith, its economy and tourism, its armed forces and its ethnic minority of Anglo-Indians. Hugh Purcell travelled round India and recorded the memories of a dying race that will evoke the memories of thousands of people who have a family connection with the Raj.

Hugh Purcell is a writer and film-maker. His books include The Spanish Civil War, a National Book Club Book of the Year, Fascism, Revolutionary War and The Last English Revolutionary (Sutton, 2004). He has worked at Pune at the Film and Television Institute of India. He has made three films in India, including one on the Indian Mutiny, and regularly leads tours to Indian Mutiny sites.