A new book examines the final years of colonial rule in India and the violence against bureaucrats

A new book revisits the final years of British rule in Bengal, tracing the violence colonial administrators faced from young revolutionaries in the early 1930s. It centers on Robert Douglas, sent to lead the volatile Midnapore district after his predecessor, James Peddie, was shot dead while inspecting a school in April 1931. Douglas himself had deep ties to India, having spent part of his childhood in Nagpur before joining the Indian Civil Service and serving through the First World War. Scroll.in reports the unrest in Bengal continued into July 1931, when yet another senior civil servant became a target.

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