India’s lost emperor Ashoka set about governing India by moral force alone!  He renounced violence including the death penalty and this was Before Christ !  Ashoka turned Buddhism from a minor sect into a world religion but  his name was cleansed from the record so effectively that he was forgotten for almost two thousand years.

I want his story to be celebrated in my second novel which is partly set in Oxford and part in India.  The  Englishmen like James Princep often labelled ‘Orientalists’ who  resurrected him are to be celebrated not snubbed.  The search for knowledge is admirable and  their skin colour, nationality or religion should be of no consequence if the standard of their work is excellent!

It is about time we regarded each other as the unique individuals we all are and not insist on labelling people!