There's quite a lot of interest in this subject also because of the BBC series Taboo, which paints the East India Company in a pretty bad light that is quite believable given what is known about them. If anybody wants a somewhat long but illuminating read on them, I'd very much suggest the historian William Dalrymple's piece in the Graun https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/04/east-india-company-original-corporate-raiders from a couple of years ago.
Personally, I do think that if possible we should look at the possibility of bringing this collection onto Wikimedia projects, but I don't think it would be an appropriate project for trying to work with the Indian Wikimedia chapter or with the Indian diaspora here. I do think we should look at how we could do that in future with subject matter which is less contentious though.
John Lubbock
On 8 February 2017 at 10:22, Lucy Crompton-Reid < lucy.crompton-reid@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
Ah OK, so it may be politically tricky/insensitive. Thanks Gordo. It's not an aspect of history I'm very familiar with but I suspect the answer to your question was yes, it was! Certainly looks that way from the Wikipedia page...
On 8 February 2017 at 08:57, Gordon Joly gordon.joly@pobox.com wrote:
On 06/02/17 13:36, Lucy Crompton-Reid wrote:
Some of you may be aware that 2017 is the UK - India Year of Culture. I guess this resource may relate to that, or it could be a coincidence. Either way, it would be great to see what the potential is in terms of the Wikimedia projects :)
I am not so sure. Wasn't the East India Company in reality a body that acted as if they were country of occupation in India?
Gordon
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