Must Lutyens fall so that Bharat can rise again?

If India wants to overcome a past that shames it, the only way to do so is for it to build things that outshine those of the past

- Rahul Sagar

Edwin Lutyens has been expelled from Rashtrapati Bhavan, the iconic structure he designed. His bust has been cast into one of our substandard museums, and its place has been taken by a bust of C Rajagopalachari. The exchange, we are told, signals India’s “freedom from the mentality of slavery”. Is this “decolonisation”?

The idea behind decolonisation is that British rule was so dominating that it “denationalised” Indians, leaving them unaware or even ashamed of their heritage, and turned them into “mimic men” who slavishly imitated their colonial masters. Thus, to truly be “free”, the theory goes, Indians need to “shed the vestiges of the colonial mindset”. But even the slightest reflection shows that this idea is deeply flawed: It underestimates our forefathers and overestimates the British.

Consider our forefathers. They were told by many a Britisher, including Lutyens, that their civilisation was “backward”. They were aware that Thomas Babington Macaulay had written that “a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia”. But, unlike the vocal band of decolonisers today, they also knew that Macaulay had been sent out to India because, in what he considered the “best speech” of his career, he memorably warned Parliament: “We are free, we are civilised, to little purpose, if we grudge to any portion of the human race an equal measure of freedom and civilisation. Are we to keep the people of India ignorant in order that we may keep them submissive? Or, do we think that we can give them knowledge without awakening ambition? Or, do we mean to awaken ambition and to provide it with no legitimate vent?”