A reckoning in a distant room: An Indian perspective on the budget debates of 1806

A reckoning in a distant room: An Indian perspective on the budget debates of 1806

New Delhi, Oct 13, 2025 In the quiet, half-empty chamber of the British House of Commons in July 1806, a series of debates unfolded concerning the “India Budget”. To the handful of parliamentarians present, it was a matter of accounts, of deficits and debts, of a colossal commercial enterprise teetering on the edge of financial distress. But viewed from the perspective of India — the vast, silent land whose fate these numbers represented — the d…