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South Asia

The Indian subcontinent and its neighbours.

12 stories from this region.

The Coroner’s Report July 25, 2026 · Calcutta (Kolkata), Bengal

The Bengal Famine of 1943, Which Killed Some Three Million People in a Province That Had Food

In 1943, in British-ruled Bengal, around three million people died of starvation and famine disease while rice remained available for those who could pay. War policy — the fall of Burma, 'denial' seizures of boats and rice, prioritisation of Calcutta's war industries, and London's repeated refusal of shipping for relief — turned price shock into mass death. Amartya Sen's analysis of it reshaped how famine itself is understood.

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The Footnote July 25, 2026 · Pondicherry, India

Guillaume Le Gentil, the Astronomer Who Chased Two Transits of Venus for Eleven Years and Saw Neither

The French astronomer Guillaume Le Gentil left home in 1760 to observe the transit of Venus from India. War kept him at sea for the 1761 transit; he waited eight more years for the 1769 one — which a single cloud obscured. He returned after eleven and a half years to find himself declared dead, his wife remarried, and his estate divided.

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The Coroner’s Report July 25, 2026 · Chandni Chowk, Delhi

Nadir Shah's Sack of Delhi in 1739, Which Took the Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-Noor

After crushing the Mughal army at Karnal in February 1739, the Persian conqueror Nadir Shah occupied Delhi. A riot and false rumour of his death triggered a day-long massacre — perhaps 20,000-30,000 killed — and a plunder so vast that Persia's taxes were remitted for three years. The Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-Noor diamond left India in his baggage.

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The Coroner’s Report July 25, 2026 · Hampi (Vijayanagara), Karnataka

The Battle of Talikota in 1565 and the Abandonment of Vijayanagara, One of the World's Largest Cities

On 23 January 1565 the allied Deccan sultanates destroyed the army of Vijayanagara and beheaded its de facto ruler on the field. The capital — a metropolis European visitors ranked with Rome, perhaps half a million people — was sacked for months and never recovered. Its granite ruins at Hampi are now a World Heritage site.

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The Footnote July 25, 2026 · Daulatabad fort, Maharashtra

Muhammad bin Tughluq's Order of 1327 That Marched the Capital of India 1,100 Kilometres South

In 1327 Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq of Delhi ordered his capital — officials, scholars, and by hostile account the whole population — transferred some 1,100 km south to Daulatabad. Thousands died on the road; within a decade the court trudged back. Paired with his token-currency fiasco, it fixed his reputation as the sultan of brilliant ideas that ended in catastrophe.

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The Cabinet June 27, 2026 · Plassey, West Bengal

The Three-Hour Battle in Bengal on 23 June 1757 That Made the British East India Company the Effective Government of India

Robert Clive's force of 3,000 men defeated the Bengali Nawab Siraj ud-Daulah's army of 50,000 at Plassey on 23 June 1757. Clive had previously bribed the Bengali commander Mir Jafar to defect at the battle. The British East India Company became the effective sovereign of Bengal within weeks. The transfer of Indian tax revenue to the Company funded the early Industrial Revolution in Britain.

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The Coroner’s Report June 27, 2026 · Union Carbide plant, Bhopal

The Methyl Isocyanate Release from the Union Carbide Plant at Bhopal on the Night of 2-3 December 1984

Approximately 27 tonnes of methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a storage tank at the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant in Bhopal between approximately 23:00 on 2 December and 02:00 on 3 December 1984. The toxic cloud spread across adjacent shantytowns. The Indian government's official immediate death toll is 3,787. Independent estimates of total deaths from acute and chronic exposure reach 20,000 or more.

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The Coroner’s Report June 27, 2026 · Birla House, New Delhi

The Three Pistol Shots Fired Into Mohandas Gandhi at a Delhi Prayer Meeting on 30 January 1948 by a Hindu Nationalist Who Believed Gandhi Had Conceded Too Much to Pakistan

Mohandas Gandhi was shot dead at 5:17 p.m. on 30 January 1948 in the garden of Birla House, New Delhi, by Nathuram Godse. Godse fired three rounds at point-blank range. Gandhi died within 30 minutes. Godse was a Hindu nationalist activist who blamed Gandhi for the August 1947 Partition concessions to Muslim Pakistan.

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The Cabinet June 27, 2026 · Wagah border, Punjab

The Partition of British India on 14-15 August 1947 That Killed Up to 2 Million in the Largest Population Displacement of the Twentieth Century

British India was partitioned into the Dominion of Pakistan (14 August 1947) and the Dominion of India (15 August 1947). The communal violence that accompanied the partition killed up to 2 million Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs across northwest and northeast India. Approximately 14-18 million people were displaced — the largest forced migration of the twentieth century.

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The Footnote June 27, 2026 · Varanasi

The Sanskrit Surgical Treatise From Around 600 BCE That Describes the Forehead-Flap Nose Reconstruction Eighteenth-Century English Surgeons Then Brought Home

The *Sushruta Samhita*, a Sanskrit surgical treatise compiled around 600 BCE, describes 1,120 illnesses and 300 surgical procedures, including a forehead-flap rhinoplasty technique used to reconstruct noses cut off as judicial punishment. The 1794 *Gentleman's Magazine* of London published an account of the same procedure performed in Pune, observed by two British East India Company surgeons. Modern plastic surgery traces its lineage to that 1794 report.

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The Cabinet June 27, 2026 · Agra

The Mughal Mausoleum That Took 22 Years to Build for an Empress Who Died in Childbirth in 1631

Mumtaz Mahal, the favourite wife of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, died on 17 June 1631 giving birth to her 14th child at Burhanpur. Shah Jahan ordered the construction of the Taj Mahal mausoleum at Agra in her memory. Approximately 20,000 workers and 1,000 elephants were employed over 22 years to complete it in 1653. Shah Jahan was deposed by his son Aurangzeb in 1658 and spent the last eight years of his life imprisoned in Agra Fort with a view of the Taj.

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