Bestselling author William Dalrymple is among over 180 historians who have issued an open letter to the UK Home Office calling for a review of the history segment of the citizenship and settlement test for being "fundamentally misleading" on issues related to slavery and the British Empire.
The "Life in the UK Test" is a compulsory requirement for any applicant for citizenship or "indefinite leave to remain" residency rights in the UK and the official Home Office handbook issued for its preparation covers different sections of British life, including its history.
Dalrymple, the author of 'The White Mughals' and 'The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company', and other historians including Indian-origin academics from leading British universities, believe that people from Commonwealth countries like India and other former British colonies are not given a fair representation in the handbook.
"We are historians of Britain and the British Empire and writing in protest at the on-going misrepresentation of slavery and Empire in the 'Life in the UK Test'," notes the open letter issued in the official journal of the Historical Association on Tuesday.