In (originally published in India as An Era of Darkness ), Shashi Tharoor provides a scathing reassessment of the British Raj. Expanding on his viral 2015 Oxford Union debate speech , Tharoor argues that British rule was not a benevolent project of "enlightened despotism" but a systematic plunder that transformed a prosperous global economic power into an impoverished, divided nation. Core Arguments and Evidence
Tharoor focuses on the intentional extraction of wealth, describing the British Indian state as a "rapacious imperialist machine". Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India