Empire wrapped itself in lies. Britain called its conquest of India a civilizing mission, a gift of democracy and order to a land it branded barbaric. In truth, it was conquest by loot, famine, slavery, and genocide—masked by the myths of imperial grandeur. In this searing book, Rakesh Dwivedi rips through the veil of colonial propaganda to show how India’s story of freedom was never isolated, but bound to the blood-soaked geopolitics of the world—from America and Africa to the Middle East and Asia. Drawing on secret British records, the wars that reshaped the globe, and the betrayals of Partition, he reveals how global rivalries and armed might shaped the destiny of nations. Bold, uncompromising, and unflinching, this book exposes the real face of empire and reclaims the truth of India’s long struggle for independence. BACK COVER Gathering an extraordinary wealth of documentation and scholarship, this book foregrounds the decisive role of the colonial geopolitics in the Partition of India. Dwivedi traces the complex connections between the developments in America, Africa, the Middle East, Russia, India and the Far East leading up to the Partition, and explains why this catastrophic event, engineered by the British, ought not to be seen in isolation from global events of the day and the manoeuvres of old and new super powers.