About the Book: Imperial Footprints
Between 1857 and 1947, over 28 million Indians left the subcontinent to live,
work and study elsewhere. Today, India has the largest diaspora in the world,
with approximately 18 million Indians living overseas. Sumita Mukherjee vividly
charts this history of emigration from British India to the imperial heartland
through the eyes of its youngest participants. Pupils sent to English boarding
schools, runaway servants, sailor children, refugees of war or Partition—these
migrant children were instrumental in the development not only of Indian
national and diasporic identities, but of British identity too. Though often
absent from historical narratives, and marginalized by their political