Subprime Churchill’s Rs 13 Debt to India

Whether Britain ever officially acknowledges its debt to India or not, this is one debt they will have trouble denying.

Whether Britain ever officially acknowledges its debt to India or not, this is one debt they will have trouble denying. The BBC reports that the Bangalore Club in India has a ledger showing that former British PM Winston Churchill still owes the club the not-so-mean sum of Rs 13. (Well, it was taken back in the 19th century: the entry is dated 1 January 1899.) At that time, Churchill was not the thundering orator-prime minister but a young officer in the British Army. The unpaid bills, club officials say, were discovered after Churchill’s death. But apart from the ledger entry and a picture of officer Churchill with his fellows, the club doesn’t have any record of the time he spent in Bangalore.

Document can, however, be found in Churchill’s own memoir, My Early Life. The city obviously doesn’t score too well with him as he calls it a ‘third rate watering place’ with ‘lots of routine work’ and ‘without society or good sport’. Churchill arrived in Bangalore in 1896 and left three years later.

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Sohini Chattopadhyay