Calcutta, As It Was

THOSE AMONG US who remember Calcutta (as it was then known) in the last flicker of its greatness, will doubtless recall the magnificent bronze statues of the imperial rulers that dotted the Maidan. A few of these can still be seen inside the premises of the Victoria Memorial—Lord Curzon’s enduring monument to the British Raj. In 1969, the then Left-dominated United Front government decided that imperial relics needed to be done away with. Soon, one by one, the statues of the erstwhile great and good were dismantled and consigned to a necropolis in Barrackpore where, presumably, many of them have been vandalised. The plinths stood empty for many years, but now boast the statues of other notables, ranging from Karl Marx to footballer Gostha Pal.

When the imperial monuments were being taken down, a section of Calcutta experienced profound sadness. I am sure the back copies of The Statesman will contain letters to the editor suggesting that history can’t be erased in this fashion. Yes, from the very beginning Calcutta was a British city—dominated by the Scots—and these statues were an integral part of its imperial character, as indeed was the architecture of the “white town”. Today, there is a perfunctory attempt to save and restore some of these magnificent buildings, but in the main, however, people grow accustomed to change. There are entire generations for whom pre-Independence Calcutta is a hazy memory. A bustling Kolkata is deciding its own norms and settling its own aesthetics.

Apart from a few changes in street names, New Delhi has never witnessed such a big transformation. The capital city built by Edwin Lutyens was always incomplete. The war economy ensured that many of the planned buildings—such as the state houses of the princely states around India Gate—never quite materialised. The British never quite experienced New Delhi in the same way as they absorbed Calcutta. Lord Irwin moved into the Viceroy’s House in 1931, and 16 years later the Raj was over.

This is why it has always surprised me that the imposing canopied statue of King George V looking through India Gate, down Kingsway (as Rajpath was then called) to the Viceroy’s House was left standing until as late as 1968. It can hardly be the case that this was a detail overlooked. No one could miss the prominence of the King Emperor’s statue. Nor was the post-Independence leadership necessarily enamoured of the erstwhile rulers. Jawaharlal Nehru’s personal sense of style was always partial to modernism, and even his Englishness was post-colonial.

The longevity of George V may have a simpler explanation—no one was entirely sure what should replace it. For more than five decades, the empty plinth on the rear of India Gate became a metaphor for national indecision. There were predictable suggestions at different times that the King Emperor should be replaced by the Mahatma—the so-called Father of the Nation. It would have been the default choice. Yet, strangely, it wasn’t thought appropriate. Maybe the spectacle of the man fanatically committed to non-violence would have jarred with India Gate—built as a War Memorial. A perusal of the files will convey a story.

Never one for hesitation and dithering, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has finally homed in on a statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in military attire and pose. The decision has been largely unchallenged. The BJP’s own ecosystem has been delighted. This is not so much on account of what Subhas Bose was in real life but what he has come to represent. In the India of the 21st century, the creator of the Indian National Army (INA) symbolises the alternatives to the dominant Gandhian strand of Indian nationalism. As opposed to the Mahatma’s gradualism—what has been called the pressure-compromise-pressure approach—and his steadfast devotion to non-violence, Netaji represented uncompromising opposition to British rule. Although he cut his teeth in Gandhi’s Non-Cooperation Movement, his adherence to the official Congress line was tactical and he felt absolutely no inhibition in either championing violence when necessary or even striking alliances with the enemy’s enemy. Equally, Subhas Bose was—like many Bengalis of his age—inspired by Japan, a country that combined fierce nationalism and adherence to tradition with science and technology. The contrast with the Mahatma couldn’t have been sharper. There was also a marked difference with Jawaharlal Nehru’s deification of upper-class social democracy.

These subtleties of political positioning are, of course, not all that consequential today. The seal of recognition accorded to Netaji basically indicates that India has moved into the non-Congress trajectory of political evolution. That is the message which will resonate.

British RajCalcuttaDelhiLord CurzonNetaji Subhas Chandra Bosetransformation