The slur ledger · Part 2 · 1965–2010
In 1965 America opened its door to Indians, and by the summer of 1987 a gang in Jersey City had named itself after the dot worn on Indian foreheads. The slurs of the next 45 years, from the Dotbusters to Apu to a Senate campaign stop in Virginia, with the names of who said them and what they said afterwards.
Read the featureRead the world · Part 3 · 1978–2026
The Army's influence manual builds every campaign the same way: one plain argument, an appeal chosen for the listener, proof, repetition and a test run. The method works on a boardroom as well as a valley in Afghanistan, and it shows where persuasion turns into manipulation.
Read the featureAP liquor · Part 3 · 1992–2026
An English pub's premises licence can cost £70 a year to keep. A liquor shop in Tadipatri pays ₹71.5 lakh for the counter and ₹7.5 lakh for a permit room whose published conditions, as far as the desk can find, say nothing about a chair or a fan. How Andhra Pradesh could keep its tax, drop the rents, open the trade to anyone who builds a decent place, and let any brand that pays its duty onto the shelf.
Read the featureH-1B · Part 2 · 2015–2026
Seven in ten approved H-1B petitions are for Indians, so every charge against the programme lands on them. We took the charges one at a time: who made each, when, and what the record says. Some are true. The step from a guilty firm to a guilty nationality is where they stop being true.
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One paper for each year, set in the type of its day and built only from dated records: who held office, what the Bank Rate was, which banks failed, what was borrowed and from whom. Taller bars mean a fuller record.
Source: RBI, Banking and Monetary Statistics of India (1954). Download CSV
Source: RBI; IMF International Financial Statistics. Download CSV
Source: IMF; RBI; World Bank. Download CSV
Popular claims about Indian money, tested against the record. The paper prints the verdict whichever way it falls.
Contradicted
Claim as found: a misreading that appears in some secondary accounts
Contradicted. The December 1950 plan contemplated a release, a drawing-down, of "some £240 million from the blocked balances of the three countries", of which India's part was £211m, "up to £35 million annually for six years beginning in July 1951". It was a schedule of releases against the balances, not a cancellation of them, and Churchill's earlier counterclaim was not…
Strength of evidence: strong
Partly supported
Claim as found: Drain theory; Naoroji, Dutt, Ranade, Gokhale
The transfer is documented and large: net disbursements in England of £3.66m (1850-51) rising to about £14.7m in the late 1870s and £16-18m in the 1890s (Fowler App. II Statement 9, table in this file; Statistical Abstract 39th no. table 71). The official components show that a large part was not tribute but payment for things: interest on debt raised in London for Indian railways and irrigation;…
Strength of evidence: strong
Supported
Claim as found: Standard textbook statement
The Reserve Bank of India was constituted under the Reserve Bank of India Act 1934 and opened on 1 April 1935 with Sir Osborne Smith as Governor. Before that date the Imperial Bank of India (from 27 January 1921) performed a number of functions normally carried out by a central bank, but it was a commercial bank 80 per cent privately owned; before 1921 the three Presidency Banks performed parts of…
Strength of evidence: strong
