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Published 16 Feb 2026Greece: A Brief History, c.700 BC – 500 AD
In 490 BC the Persian fleet advances island by island across the Aegean. Eretria is besieged, betrayed, and deported. We examine Persian punitive strategy, internal Greek division, and the calculated destruction of Eretria as an example to others.
Athens now faces invasion. Pheidippides runs to Sparta. The Spartans refuse immediate aid due to religious obligation. Only Plataea stands with Athens.
This is the moment before Marathon.
August 2, 2026
The Ancient Greeks 03 – Enter the Persians 6 – Eretria Falls, Athens Stands Alone
QotD: Churchill’s views on India
Much of Mukerjee’s case against Churchill rests not on his actions but on his various racist comments about Indians, and Bengalis in particular. Most of these have been taken out of context. Churchill was certainly no friend to Indian nationalist leaders, most of whom he regarded as moralising humbugs. He was an unashamed imperialist, like many of his generation, and committed to maintaining India’s unity within the British Empire. He had a strongly-held conviction that too sudden and rapid a move to democracy and independence would tear the subcontinent apart on sectarian lines, a fear that events would justify.
On the other hand, Churchill repeatedly voiced his admiration for the gallantry of Indian troops, noting in his war memoirs: “The unsurpassed bravery of Indian soldiers and officers, both Moslem and Hindu, shine for ever in the annals of war. Upwards of two and a half million Indians volunteered to serve in the forces … The response of the Indian peoples, no less than the conduct of their soldiers, makes a glorious final page in the story of our Indian Empire.”
Despite his fears about Indian independence, Churchill’s views noticeably mellowed over the years. On 5 February 1942, Churchill proposed in cabinet to visit India to make its Congress leaders an offer of postwar independence, in return for their supporting the war effort. But instead the war cabinet sent its senior Labour minister, Sir Stafford Cripps, known for his friendship with Congress leaders. When the Cripps mission failed to meet their demand for immediate independence, Congress launched the Quit India movement of civil disobedience against the Raj and resolved to offer only passive resistance to the Japanese invasion.
On being informed of this in September 1942, an apoplectic Churchill exclaimed to Amery: “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.” He was referring to Hinduism, rather than Islam, given loyal support for the war effort from the Muslim League. Churchill saw Gandhi’s decision to launch the Quit India movement in the middle of the war as a stab in the back when Britain most needed and deserved loyal support.
He also (like many Indian liberals and socialists) saw Gandhi’s political fasts as a form of emotional blackmail. And he was appalled, as were many Congressmen, by extreme nationalists such as the Bengali leader Subhas Chandra Bose joining hands with Hitler and the Japanese, a fact not calculated to endear Bengalis in general to Churchill.
Churchill’s abusive comments about Gandhi, Indians and Bengalis need to be seen in that context. They also need to be seen in the context of his penchant for making outrageous comments that he didn’t really mean in order to shock or tease.
Zareer Masani, “Churchill and the genocide myth”, The Critic, 2020-12-06.
