Clive Must Fall (and Rhodes, Too): A Reignited Debate on Colonial ‘Heroes’

In the 1960s, when at the height of Indo-Soviet diplomatic bonhomie top-ranking Soviet dignitaries visited New Delhi, they were reportedly surprised to see a statue of British King George V in the very center of the city. Questioned by leaders from Moscow, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi – who at that time was very close to the communists – apparently found it hard to explain the statue away, and replied that the monument had “historical” value. George’s statue was removed later, however, and all that is left of it at the original site is an empty canopy.

The 1950s and ‘60s in India saw many other statues of colonial “heroes” removed from their plinths, as described by Manimugdha S. Sharma in the Times of India in 2017. Sharma pointed out that this happened not through haphazard mob action, but peaceful and lawful means. Not all such monuments of history have been removed – in Kolkata, once the capital of British India, Queen Victoria still sits petrified in marble next to a memorial building named after her. Even the above-mentioned statue of King George V was not destroyed, but moved to a much less prominent venue – Coronation Park – where it is now being slowly devoured by decay. The park has become a storage site for many of the statues and obelisks that once symbolized the supremacy of British power. 

Having relegated these monuments of colonialism from the sunlight of glory to the shade of neglect and criticism, India is largely past its debate on colonial statues. Similar debates rage on in the United States with regard to Confederate generals and the defenders of slavery, and in Europe when it comes to their colonial “heroes.”

The unrest that  erupted in the United States after the death of George Floyd – one facet of which has included attacks on statues – may have indirectly strengthened the impetus to take down other British colonial monuments. This time, however, the focus is not on the statues remaining in India but those located in the United Kingdom itself.

I do not support the tearing down of statues through mob action. Whatever may be said of those whom the monuments immortalize, such destruction is a breach of law. Moreover, being dictated by the heat of the moment, such actions are much more liable to commit errors. In Washington, D.C., for example, protesters defaced the statue of Tadeusz Kościuszko, a Polish military leader who was known for his opposition to colonial rule and slavery, as well as for being inspired by the French Revolution. Kościuszko took part in the American Revolutionary War, and used the gratitude money he was granted by the U.S. Congress to liberate and educate some African slaves.

Peaceful initiatives to uninstall some colonial (or slavery-related) monuments have a lot of merit to them. They remind us that all great powers have based their legacies on brute force and exploitation (their other achievements notwithstanding), they point out to many the outrageous acts which the immortalized-in-stone men once committed in the colonies, and more broadly force us to rethink and debate history.

The 2015-2016 Rhodes Must Fall campaign is perhaps one of the best-known movements of this kind. It captures the essence of the trouble with colonial legacy: While the Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford University is a recognized academic tradition now, and it would be grossly unfair to label it as “colonial’” in any way in its current form, there is also no denying that Cecil Rhodes, who originally established the scholarship, meted out particularly dire exploitation on Africans. The initiative did not argue for doing away with the scholarship, but for the removal of statues commemorating the mining magnate. In 2015, the Rhodes Must Fall campaign registered its first success in South Africa, but failed to find success at Oxford University. Now, however, on the wave of the above-mentioned unrest, controversies, and reignited debates about statues it seems that the initiative is gaining a fresh impetus.

While Rhodes symbolized the African chapter of 19th century British imperialism, Robert Clive represented its earlier, South Asian form. It is the latter that has just now become the target of a new statue-removing initiative. Clive is mostly known for his daring conquest of Bengal in 1757 – the first takeover of a large province by the British in India – which was to pave the way for a whole chain of wars and annexations, eventually leading to the extension of London’s supremacy over most of South Asia. But Clive also symbolized the most repugnant traits of the East India Company’s actions of the time: military adventurism for the sake of private gains; cunning improvisation instead of waiting for approval from London; combining the use military force, finance, and backdoor negotiations to defeat his Indian rivals; and finally the utilization of his fortune amassed in India to build a political career back in the United Kingdom. 

Despite the above, Robert Clive’s statue stands in London’s Whitehall, though its presence has just now been challenged. A petition started by Ameya Tripathi, and directed to the Westminster City Council, is calling for removal of the monument. At the time of writing, it had collected 50,000 signatures in six days. The petition came in the heels of a recent Guardian article by William Dalrymple which suggested the same:

In 1947, at the end of the Raj [British rule], Indians removed all their imperial statues to suburban parks where explanatory texts gave them proper historical context. We could do the same. Alternately, by placing Clive and others of his ilk in a museum ... we can finally begin to face up to what we have done and so begin the process of apologizing for the many things we need to apologize for.

Not only did colonial rule over most of globe end decades ago, but Indians have relegated many of its monuments to the halls of history. Now, a British writer is arguing that the United Kingdom could learn a thing or two about interpreting its colonial past from India.