India, July 1 -- It has struck half-past-2025, but only just, so let us linger a tad in June, to talk about three events that happened in three long-ago Junes. One was the Indian Emergency, declared half a century ago on June 25. The second and third are connected to two individuals, specifically to their deaths; the first, English philosopher and jurist Jeremy Bentham, passed on 6 June, 1832, aged 84, and the second, Bentham's much younger Scottish secretary, collaborator and devoted acolyte, James Mill, on 23 June, 1836.

Let's begin with James Mill, born Milne, whose magnum opus, The History of British India (1818), is arguably the most influential colonial history of the region. A staunch advocate of utilitarianism, a branch of ethica...