While writing Murder at the Maharaja’s Courts, I found myself stepping deeper into the rich tapestry of India in the late 1920s. It’s a world of color, ritual, elegance, and beneath that beauty, a land humming with political tension. Ginger, of course, would notice everything. The whisper behind a curtain, the edge in a maharaja’s voice, the way an English official stiffens ever so slightly when the conversation drifts toward “reform.” India in 1929 was not simply exotic landscapes and royal courts. It was a nation quietly preparing for a storm.
A Country on the Cusp of Change
By 1929, Indian society had grown restless under British rule. The Indian National Congress gathered momentum, its leaders calling not for polite concessions but for full independence. Imagine the conversations Ginger might overhear in Delhi or Bombay: voices low, brows furrowed, the unmistakable air of people who are no longer willing to wait.
This rising political charge forms the backdrop of Murder at the Maharaja’s Courts. While Ginger is unraveling clues in palace corridors, real history presses in from every side. The British Empire held the reins tightly, but the people of India were already reaching for them.
The Salt Act: A Small Grain with Enormous Weight
If there is one law that captures the injustice of the era, it is the British Salt Act. Passed in 1882, it forbade Indians from producing or collecting their own salt—even from the vast coastline at their feet. They were required to buy it, taxed heavily, from the government.
Salt! The most basic of necessities, not just for flavor but for food preservation. Ginger, with her sharp sense of fairness, would be appalled.
Yet for Britain, the salt tax was tidy, profitable, and symbolic of absolute control. For millions of Indians, it was a daily reminder that their own land was not truly their own.
Why 1929 Mattered
By the time Ginger reaches the heart of the princely courts in Murder at the Maharaja’s Courts, the country itself is approaching a turning point.
Several forces are building:
• Students and laborers refusing to remain silent.
• Women stepping into public activism with remarkable courage.
• Political leaders pushing beyond half-measures.
• Mahatma Gandhi himself searching for the perfect issue—simple, universal, morally undeniable—to unite the nation.
Salt became that issue. Not because it was dramatic, but because it was ordinary. Every household needed it. Every person, rich or poor, relied upon it. When Gandhi eventually chose salt as the focal point of his civil disobedience campaign, he was relying on a year of growing discontent, and the charged atmosphere of 1929.
The Road to the Salt March
Though the famous Salt March would not begin until March 1930, the groundwork was already being laid while Ginger was navigating palace intrigue and uncovering deadly secrets in the fictional world of my novel. Everywhere she looked—newspapers, overheard conversations, strained interactions between British officers and local officials—the signs were there.
India was ready to rise. Ordinary men and women were ready to act. The British simply did not see it coming.
Where Fiction Meets History
One of my favorite things about writing historical mysteries is the dance between the imagined and the real. In Murder at the Maharaja’s Courts, Ginger Gold must solve a crime set against this backdrop of a nation on the brink of change. The luxury of the royal courts sits in contrast to the growing unrest simmering outside their walls.
Ginger observes it all with her trademark mix of curiosity, compassion, and keen detective’s insight. And readers get a glimpse into a moment in time when the smallest of substances, salt, would soon shake an empire.
As I researched 1929 India, I gained an even deeper appreciation for the courage and clarity of those preparing for a movement that would change history.
And as Ginger would say, “Sometimes the quietest revolutions are the ones you never see coming.”
