Siddharth Roy Kapur Acquires Rights to Dalrymple’s ‘The Anarchy’

The book traces the ascent of The East India Company against the decline and fall of the Mughal Empire.

Siddharth Roy Kapur and William Dalrymple. 

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Siddharth Roy Kapur’s production house, Roy Kapur Films, has acquired the audio-visual rights to author and historian William Dalrymple’s bestselling book on colonialism, The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company.

Set during 1599 to 1802, The Anarchy traces the ascent of The East India Company against the decline and fall of the Mughal Empire.

It provides an account of how a provincial trading start-up, run by thirty people from an office in a nondescript London building, became rulers of an entire sub-continent.

Siddharth is planning to get together an international team of writers and showrunners for a big-budget, grand-scale series adaptation of the book. In a statement Kapur said,

“I believe that stories that are compelling, relevant and authentic have the potential to resonate with audiences across all nationalities. William Dalrymple’s The Anarchy is one such story. While a debate rages today around the world about the increasing power of giant corporations and powerful individuals to wield control over minds and nations, what could be more relevant to global viewers than the true story of the takeover of an entire subcontinent by a small trading company? We are delighted to be working with William”.

Even Dalrymple shared that he is thrilled to collaborate with Siddharth. “I don’t think I have ever written a book more obviously crying out to be adapted than The Anarchy and I can’t think of anyone in India better to adapt it than Siddharth Roy Kapur. I’m very excited looking at the initial treatment note, talking about the various ways to bring this book alive and to bring the characters I’ve been living with over the last 6 years onto the screen, so that everyone else can see them in flesh and blood. It’s an incredibly exciting moment”, the author said.