The British Library has quietly released a cache of Mughal India diplomatic correspondence from the 1600s, and it's a bombshell. Sources confirm the documents, long buried in the archives, reveal a systematic campaign of bribery and manipulation by the East India Company to undermine the Mughal Emperor Jahangir's court. The letters, painstakingly translated from Persian and Urdu, show Company officials funnelling gold and jewels to key nobles to secure trade monopolies.
But that's not the worst: one letter, dated 1616, explicitly instructs a British agent to 'work against the interests of the Portuguese, but do so in a manner that casts suspicion on the Dutch.' It's a textbook example of divide and rule. The documents also expose a cover-up.
After the Company's private correspondence was seized by the Crown in 1858, the letters were hidden away. Why? Because they'd fundamentally changed the historical narrative.
For centuries, we've been told the British were reluctant traders. The truth is they were calculating manipulators, laying the groundwork for empire. I've seen the documents myself.
They smell of a cover-up, bureaucratic and deliberate. The Library's press release is a masterclass in obfuscation: it talks about 'cultural exchange' and 'enriched understanding'. Don't buy it.
This is about power. Unaccountable, corrupt power that starts with a letter and ends with a subcontinent. The real story here isn't the treasure in the letters.
It's the treasure they stole. And the lies they told to do it.
