Flashman and the Mountain of Light Flashman cannot tell the truth to the Queen without offending her, he reminisces about the First Sikh War, 1845 and 1846, and how he acquired Koh-i-Noor (The Mountain of Light). At the end of events in "Flashman's Lady", Flashman is sent to India when the English are anticipating conflict with the Sikh Army, the Khalsa. He is dispatched by Major George Broadfoot to the Punjab, masquerading as a solicitor attempting to settle the Soochet legacy. Flashman becomes entangled in the intrigues of the Punjabi court before being forced to flee at the outbreak of war, then becomes involved in plans
The People of India as an ethnological laboratory, where the continued practice of endogamy had ensured that, in his opinion, there were strict delineations of the various communities by caste and that consequently caste could be viewed as identical to race. Whereas others saw caste as being based on occupation, he believed that changes in occupation within a community led to another instance of endogamy "being held by a sort of unconscious fiction to be equivalent to the difference of race, which is the true basis of the system." In 1908 Risley published his book, "The People of India". By this stage in his