evidence: Founded as a home for the Britons who ruled India in the days of the Raj, its wood panels, leather armchairs and faint smell of mulligatawny soup convey an image of ordered dominance to which many now look back with nostalgia. [...] But this image of order and control is a fiction, which belies the reality of life in British India. For 200 years, from the mid 18th Century to independence and partition in 1947, the British presided over a regime that was chaotic, violent, driven by uncontrolled passions and profoundly wracked by anxiety. [...] British rule ended amid a cycle of violence sparked by the Raj's paranoid concerns about its own security. The 20th Century's two world wars turned India into a massive self-financing barracks essential to defend Britain's position throughout Asia - but it also racked up anxiety in the face of challenge.