Must Lutyens Fall So That Bharat Can Rise? A Nuanced Reflection on Decolonisation and True Freedom
In the ongoing project of reimagining India’s national identity, few acts are as symbolically charged as the renaming of spaces and the removal of colonial statues. The recent decision to remove the bust of Edwin Lutyens, the architect of New Delhi, from Rashtrapati Bhavan and replace it with one of C. Rajagopalachari has been hailed by some as a long-overdue act of “decolonisation,” a final break from the “mentality of slavery.” The message is clear: to make way for a proud, self-confident “Bharat,” the physical remnants of a humiliating colonial past must be erased. But a provocative and deeply researched reflection by scholar Rahul Sagar challenges us to consider a more complex truth. Is the removal of a statue the most meaningful form of freedom? Or does true liberation lie not in erasing the past, but in outshining it?
The idea behind decolonisation, as popularly understood, is that British rule was so totalising that it “denationalised” Indians, leaving them unaware or even ashamed of their own heritage and turning them into “mimic men” who slavishly imitated their colonial masters. In this narrative, figures like Macaulay, who infamously declared that “a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia,” are the ultimate villains, and any Indian who embraced Western education was a dupe or a collaborator. This is a powerful and emotionally resonant story. But like all simplifications, it obscures as much as it reveals.
Consider the context of Macaulay himself. The man who penned that infamous line was also the author of what he considered the “best speech” of his career, delivered in the British Parliament. In it, he warned his fellow countrymen against the very arrogance that decolonisers now attribute to him. “We are free, we are civilised, to little purpose,” he argued, “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?” Macaulay, for all his cultural chauvinism, understood a fundamental truth: that the spread of knowledge, even knowledge wrapped in the English language, was a revolutionary act that would inevitably awaken the ambition for freedom. The coloniser’s tool could become the colonised’s weapon.
The history of modern education in India bears this out, but not in the simplistic way the decolonisation narrative suggests. Long before Macaulay ever set foot in India, Indian rulers were already grasping for this weapon. In 1784, half a century before Macaulay’s arrival, the first English-medium school opened in Thanjavur. It was established because the local rajas, Tuljaji and Serfoji—renowned scholars of Hindu classics in their own right—wanted to understand what was allowing the British “to terminate every event in their favour.” Were these rajas deracinated fools, ashamed of their heritage? Or were they far-sighted statesmen, correctly surmising that “modern learning” was locked away in English-language books and that to compete with the British, they had to master the British tools? The evidence points overwhelmingly to the latter.
This tradition of strategic embrace continued. In 1839, over 70,000 “native inhabitants” of Madras signed a “monster petition” urging the British to establish “collegiate institutions” for their “mental improvement.” This led to the founding of Presidency College in 1840. The man who secretly drafted that petition, George Norton, was berated by Christian missionaries as an “infidel” precisely because he wanted to provide Indians with secular, not religious, education. Half a century later, one of the students who passed through the halls of that college was C. Rajagopalachari, the very man whose bust now replaces Lutyens’s. Did Rajaji’s training in British common law make him a “slave” to colonial ideals, or did it equip him with the intellectual tools to help craft the Constitution of independent India? The answer is obvious.
The first batch of graduates from Presidency College were known as “Powell’s boys,” after the founding principal, Eyre Burton Powell. A Cambridge wrangler who considered educating Indians his “sacred duty,” Powell would take students to the roof of his house to use his expensive equipment to study the stars. He paid out of his own pocket for books and newspapers to broaden their minds. These “Powell’s boys” went on to fan out across the Native States, becoming dewans and principals in places like Travancore and Mysore. Armed with a modern education that married Eastern wisdom with Western science, they transformed these states. By 1900, the Native States they helmed were outperforming British India itself in terms of human development. Who, in this transaction, had taken advantage of whom? The student had not just learned from the master; he had surpassed him.
One of these extraordinary figures was T. Madhava Rao, the dewan of Baroda, whose administrative reforms were so impressive that The Times of London urged that he be made the finance minister of British India. Rao condensed his learnings—a true marriage of East and West—into a series of lectures for his prince, Sayaji Rao Gaekwad. These lectures became a legendary text on statecraft. More than a century later, a boy born in the Gaekwad’s erstwhile dominion of Mehsana would, by word of mouth, become aware of these lectures. That boy was Narendra Modi, who, as Prime Minister, would go on to write a foreword for a new edition of Rao’s lectures, urging the “political class to spare a little thought and time” for the “teachings of the great administrator.” The line from “Powell’s boys” to modern India is not a straight line of colonial mimicry; it is a winding path of strategic adaptation and ultimate triumph.
None of this is to deny that colonial rule was extractive, brutal, and profoundly inequitable. It undoubtedly was. India bears the scars of that experience. But every nation is a collection of scars. The question is not whether we have them, but what pattern we trace on them, what sense we make of our past. If the goal is to overcome a past that shames us, we can only truly do so by building something that outshines it. We should restore our temples and monuments. We should invest in classical education and revive ancient universities. We should build world-class museums and better preserve our historic records. This is the work of civilisational confidence.
But the removal of a statue is a poor substitute for this harder, more meaningful work. A slave does not become free by pretending he never had a master. He becomes free by outdoing his former master, by proving that his servitude should never have been. In Singapore, the statue of Stamford Raffles, the founder of colonial Singapore, still stands. But it now stands in the shadow of Lee Kuan Yew, the man who built a modern nation that far outstrips anything Raffles could have imagined. This is how it should be. The past is not erased; it is contextualized, and ultimately, overshadowed by a greater present.
None of “Powell’s boys” forgot where they began. At the end of his illustrious life, T. Madhava Rao returned to Presidency College to deliver a convocation address. As he spoke, his eyes misted over. He told the audience that every time he looked up at the night sky and saw the stars radiating their light, he remembered “Mr Powell” who had made him what he was. Rao had accomplished more than most men ever will. Even in the grudging estimation of the British, he had outdone his teacher (Powell was made a Companion of the Order of the British Empire; Rao was elevated to Sir and Raja). Yet, the honourable dewan did not hesitate to give credit where credit was due. Nor should we. The path to a truly confident “Bharat” lies not in the petty iconoclasm of removing statues, but in the grand ambition of building a nation so successful, so just, and so prosperous that the colonial era becomes a distant, insignificant footnote. Let Lutyens stand, if he must, but let him stand in the shadow of our achievements. That is the only decolonisation that matters.
Questions and Answers
Q1: What is the central argument of the article regarding the removal of colonial statues like that of Edwin Lutyens?
A1: The article argues that the removal of statues is a superficial act of “decolonisation.” It contends that true freedom from a colonial past is not achieved by erasing its symbols, but by outshining it—by building a nation so successful, just, and prosperous that the colonial era becomes an insignificant footnote. The focus should be on creation, not destruction.
Q2: How does the article use the example of T. Madhava Rao and “Powell’s boys” to counter the decolonisation narrative?
A2: The article uses these examples to show that Indians who embraced Western education were not “slaves” to colonial ideals. “Powell’s boys,” educated at Presidency College, went on to become dewans of Native States and, by 1900, made those states outperform British India in human development. Figures like T. Madhava Rao used their learning to surpass their teachers, demonstrating strategic adaptation, not slavish mimicry.
Q3: What is the significance of the fact that the first English-medium school opened in Thanjavur in 1784, before Macaulay’s arrival?
A3: This fact challenges the narrative that Western education was solely a colonial imposition. The local rajas, Tuljaji and Serfoji, established the school because they wanted to understand the source of British power. They were far-sighted statesmen, not deracinated fools, who correctly surmised that “modern learning” was essential to compete with the British.
Q4: How does the article reinterpret the legacy of Thomas Babington Macaulay?
A4: The article acknowledges Macaulay’s infamous dismissal of Indian literature but also presents his parliamentary speech, where he warned that denying knowledge to Indians was unjust and would inevitably awaken ambition for freedom. It argues that Macaulay understood that the spread of knowledge, even in English, was a revolutionary act that would equip Indians with the tools to eventually challenge colonial rule.
Q5: What alternative path to national pride and confidence does the article propose, using Singapore as an example?
A5: The article proposes a path of achievement, not erasure. It cites Singapore, where the statue of colonial founder Stamford Raffles still stands, but is now overshadowed by the legacy of Lee Kuan Yew, the nation’s modern builder. This symbolizes a past that is acknowledged but surpassed. For India, the goal should be to build something so magnificent that it naturally overshadows its colonial history.
