In this episode, Sumit and Vasundhara tell you the origin story of William Duane, the editor of the Bengal Journal in Calcutta. Duane was a follower of the philosophy of Thomas Paine and a Freemason, who printed an unsubstantiated rumour about the death of Governor General Cornwallis, which led to tense relations between the East India Company and the French presence in Bengal in the late 1700s.

This episode features special guest Dr. Callie Wilkinson.

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Sources:

Nigel Little: Transoceanic Radical: William Duane, Pickering and Chatto, 2014.

Wilkinson, Callie. "“Pernicious publicity”: The East India Company, the military, and the freedom of the press, 1818–1823." Journal of British Studies 61.4 (2022): 915-948.

Benedict Anderson: Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Verso: 1983.

Music

The following tracks were used in this episode and were taken from the YouTube Audio Library. They do not require attribution under the YouTube Audio Library License. However, we will credit the artists for their work.

"East West" by John Patitucci

"Stealth" by Aakash Gandhi

"Low Noon" by John Patitucci

"Alone with my thoughts" by Esther Abrami

Allegro by Emmit Fenn

Podcast Artwork: Sumit Chaturvedi

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Reality Scribes has been conceptualised, scripted, narrated and produced by Sumit Chaturvedi and Vasundhara Sirnate.