- Monday, March 10, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
While several world leaders gathered in London, UK, on Monday (19) to attend the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, who passed away on September 8, the prime minister of India was absent.
Narendra Modi, the leader of the most populous nation in the Commonwealth and was once called the jewel in the crown of the British Empire, skipped the funeral and Indian president Droupadi Murmu, the country’s ceremonial head, attended the royal event instead.
National Public Radio, US, recently ran a programme on this where reporter Lauren Frayer said that on the day the British queen died, Modi was found giving a strong anti-colonial speech and renamed a road in the Indian capital which was called ‘Kings Way’ or ‘Rajpath‘ after the queen’s grandfather — King George V. Modi’s government gave the road the new name of ‘Kartavya Path‘ (Path of Responsibility).
Modi said the road was seen as a symbol of slavery under the British colonial rule and while he condoled the queen’s death on Twitter later and his government observed national mourning on September 11, Frayer said few Indians were really grieving.
Priya Atwal, a historian of empire and monarchy at Oxford University, said the queen reminded of the colonial exploitation that the British had carried out in India which became Independent in August 1947.
“She benefited from the wealth and enslavement of colonised people and never did anything to rectify that,” NPR quoted Atwal as saying.
The queen’s third and final visit to India in 1997 had a controversial episode attached to it. It was on the occasion of 50 years of India’s Independence and the queen, who was accompanied by her husband, had gone to Amritsar where site of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 is located. Protesters during that visit demanded the monarch to apologise for the massacre where a British general had ordered his troops to open fire on thousands of Indian civilians.
But to their disappointment, the queen had not said sorry but rode elephants, posed with the carcass of a tiger shot by her husband and waved at the public from convertible vehicles, Frayer said.
Aparna Vaidik, who is a historian at India’s Ashoka University, told NPR that the queen had come from a racist colonial period.
“You know, she grew up in an era where India was a colony. So those attitudes would persist. It’s not like she’s having her prejudices questioned. Her world remained the same,” she said.
Frayer said she spoke to some people in Mumbai over the death of the queen and most of them were least bothered.
“I did not think anything, actually. I did not have a lot of respect for her. So yeah, it didn’t make any change for me, frankly speaking,” said one to her.
“We do care a bit, but also it’s like, yeah, they ruled us, but now we are independent,” said another.
A third said, “What happened in the past, it doesn’t matter. We have to look forward.”
Frayer also said that India is now the world’s fifth-largest economy and recently surpassed its former colonial master.
Atwal said the tables have certainly turned adding that since the Brexit referendum, Britain is looking to India for deals and assistance.
“There is one thing some Indians would like to make a deal with Britain for – the giant Kohinoor diamond. It was mined in India centuries ago and is now embedded in one of the British royal family’s crowns,” Frayer added.
