Author William Dalrymple makes a case for India’s ingenuity in his latest book 'The Golden Road'

For nearly 1,500 years, India’s influence has extended far beyond its borders, shaping art, religion, music, technology, astronomy, dance, literature, mathematics, and mythology across a vast cultural sphere known as the “Indosphere”. This zone of influence stretched from the Red Sea in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east, touching over half of the world’s population. Yet despite its reach, this cultural network has not received the recognition it deserves, especially when compared to the Silk Route—a well-known trade route linking China and Europe. 

In his latest book, The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World, historian William Dalrymple brings this overlooked network to light. He explores what he calls the ‘Golden Road’—an extensive network of maritime and overland routes through which ancient India projected its cultural, intellectual, and economic influence. Unlike the Silk Route, Dalrymple explains, this route showcases India’s central role in fostering cultural connections and exchanges across diverse regions.

Dalrymple’s fascination with India runs deep, shaped by a personal journey that began by chance. Born in Scotland, he recalls, “I just landed here by accident when I was 18, and I never left.” Originally drawn to archaeology, Dalrymple had planned to join a dig in Iraq, but his plans changed when “Saddam Hussein (the then Iraqi president) shut down the British School of Archaeology, claiming it was a nest of British spies.” With his original plans foiled, he instead joined a friend who was going to teach in Dehradun. “That was in 1984, and here I am still in 2024,” he laughs.

Given the extensive books he’s written on Indian history, one might assume he has thoroughly read and studied the country. However, he says, “Not at all!” He almost knew nothing about it, and in fact he had no idea that his own family had connections to India. “In many ex-colonial families, particularly Scottish ones, you’ll find remnants of India—pictures of Srirangapatna (a town in Karnataka), elephant legs used as umbrella stands, or a sola topi hanging on a peg. But we had none of that,” he remarks.

His great-grandfather was born in Calcutta, and he even had distant French-Bengali roots in Chandannagar (a town in West Bengal) and Mughal ancestry in Hyderabad. Yet, he says, “I had no knowledge of any of it, and to be honest, no interest.” He never aspired to visit India, but once he arrived, he was captivated.“I think part of it was because I grew up quite sheltered, mainly in Scotland and Yorkshire, and had hardly travelled. I’d only been to Rome or Paris once as a child. 

So India dazzled me all the more.” Talking more about his process, Dalrymple admits that he dislikes the act of writing. “I like everything else about the whole process. I like research. I love travelling. I quite enjoy editing and refining. But starting a new book...those first three or four months, are utter hell.” This time, the writing proved even harder because his previous book, White Mughals, had been a huge success. “When you’ve done well before, you’re painfully aware of how bad the initial drafts are. It’s disheartening to read your own terrible, unfinished, and uninspired prose.”

While writing his latest book, Dalrymple, who also has a popular podcast Empire, faced an unexpected challenge: a severe case of Covid-19. He recalls,“About two weeks into writing, just as I had wrapped up the introduction and was gaining momentum, I was struck by Covid. The sections I wrote during that time turned out so poorly that I kept shifting them around until the final proof stage, trying to find a place for them. But in the end, none of it made it into the final version.”

Discussing The Golden Road, the Scottish writer admits that writing about the period from the 5th century BCE to the 13th century was particularly challenging. In his previous works that focused on the 18th and 19th centuries, he had an abundance of rich material, often worrying about missing out on crucial sources. However, for this book, he had to rely heavily on archaeology, art history, and epigraphy, with few straightforward manuscript sources available. “Often, I was dealing with biographies of saints or figures like Xuanzang, which can be quite dry,” he says. “I’m used to vibrant stories of concubines, dancing girls, battles, and grand durbars from the Mughal and East India Company periods. 

But with this, you’re talking about pottery fragments with Tamil inscriptions or complex monastic rules and higher forms of Buddhist philosophy—Vajrayana, tantric Buddhism.” He admits that The Golden Road is the “most challenging book” he has written in the last two decades.

The author reflects on facing criticism from right-wing groups for his previous books, admitting he was “very worried” that his latest work might “fall between two stools”. He explains, “The right might think, ‘What’s this leftist doing writing about our period of history?’ while the left could accuse me of selling out by focusing on ancient India.” However, the response has been unexpectedly positive.

Commenting on India’s political climate, Dalrymple notes, “There’s this strange perception that if you write about the Mughals, you’re labelled a Marxist, and if you
focus on ancient India, you’re associated with the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh). I’m a centrist—I’m neither a Marxist nor a member of the RSS. I’m fascinated by both periods, and I find this labelling quite odd.”

Outlining his aspirations for the book, he states, “One of the projects this book tries to do is to look at this very interesting period not through nationalistic glasses, not in a chest-beating wave of patriotism, but calmly and factually.” He emphasises the importance of scholarship, noting, “More than a quarter of the book is footnotes,” which supports his intention to present a narrative grounded in research. He believes this approach will allow him to share “one of the most fascinating periods of history in a calm and factual manner,” and concludes by saying that, “I think it’s an extraordinary story.” 

Lead image credit: Bloomsbury India 

This article first appeared in Bazaar India's October-November 2024 issue.

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