In the early 20th Century, picture postcards served as a kind of Instagram, giving Europeans a glimpse of the life their family and friends led in British colonial India, a recent exhibition at London's SOAS university showcased more than 300 such postcards that were sent from India to Europe between 1900 and the 1930s. 

Picture postcards pieced together stories about life in British Indian cities
Picture postcards pieced together stories about life in British Indian cities

"We don't want the postcards to be a vehicle of colonial nostalgia. It is the opposite of that," Stephen Putnam Hughes, a co-curator of the exhibition told the BBC. "We wanted to provide enough evidence from the colonial past and allow people to look at the images critically."

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This postcard from Bangalore shows Hindu devotees pulling idols in a wooden chariot as part of an annual procession.
This postcard from Bangalore shows Hindu devotees pulling idols in a wooden chariot as part of an annual procession. - It was produced from a real photograph and then printed directly onto the back of a blank postcard. The message on the postcard, dated November 1916, reads, "This is another view of a juggernaut car, under which natives used to throw themselves." Here, juggernaut refers to the Hindu god Jagannath.