Book Excerpt: The Broken Script -Delhi Under the East India Company and The Fall of The Mughal Dynasty by Swapna Liddle

Read an exclusive excerpt from Swapna Liddle’s The Broken Script – Delhi Under the East India Company and The Fall of the Mughal Dynasty (Published by Speaking Tiger Books, 2022)

An evaluation of the translation project came a little more than a decade after its inception, in the form of an official committee that was set up in 1854 to evaluate the books in use in schools and colleges in the North-Western Provinces. Its report, submitted in March 1855, dealt largely with the publications coming out of the Delhi College and the Vernacular Translation Society. The works listed numbered just over fifty, suggesting that not too many new works had been taken up after the thirty-seven which had been printed during the initial years. The official verdict on their quality was mostly negative. Members of the committee were unanimous that the majority of the publications were unsuitable for educational purposes, and few were considered worthy of being used in institutions even after modifications. (579)