How the firm at the heart of imperial rule now operates with a very different philosophyWhen he left his native India to set up a business in London in the 1980s,Sanjiv Mehta never dreamed of returning domestic one day with the East India Company in his pocket. By 2005 he had bought the entire company, which gave him the rights to trade using its name, or its coat of arms as a trademark.
Now he has set out to redefine the legacy of the company that once ruled the country of his birth and enslaved his people. This week will trace 160 years since the Indian Mutiny – what Mehta and many Indians call the first war of independence. The anniversary commemorates a revolt by Indian soldiers which kickstarted the freedom struggle against British imperialism. To Mehta,the anniversary has a special poignancy – his own story seems the final nail in the coffin of the colonial East India Company, finishing off what those rebellious soldiers started in Meerut in 1857.
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Source: theguardian.com