The Empire Becomes a Colony

By imagining a bankrupt Britain offering itself to become India’s 30th state, the story cuts through post-colonial amnesia

- By ADITYA TIWARI

In Alan Gemmell’s debut novel, 30th State, the empire strikes back. A post-Brexit, bankrupt Britain offers itself to India—not as a trading partner, but as its ‘temporary’ 30th state. The once-colonised are now rewriting the rules.

The year is 2027. Scotland has left the union. England is broke, isolated, and politically adrift. Prime Minister Mark Richardson, an embodiment of competent mediocrity, watches the pound collapse. Across the aisle, Khalid Khan, the first Asian leader of the Labour Party, smells blood. In the Treasury, Karan Puri, a British-Asian protégé with a billionaire Indian father-in-law, plots his ascent. In New Delhi, Usha Sachdev, India’s magnetic prime minister, decides how far England must bend for salvation.

On the first read, the premise may not only look funny, but also audacious. What if England joined India? What if the British Museum’s treasures went home? What if the newest Indian state wasn’t a small territory on its borders, but England itself? Gemmell turns these what-ifs into political facts. Role reversal is not played for irony but to expose Britain’s selective memory of empire. And in a shifting world order, it cuts close to the bone.