India was celebrating 50 years of independence and on the Queen’s itinerary was a visit to Jallianwala Bagh, the site in the city of Amritsar where in 1919 a British general ordered the shooting of thousands of peaceful protesters, a massacre that was one of the bloodiest episodes of British colonial rule. in India. The hope among many was that the Queen’s visit would finally bring about a long-awaited apology for colonial atrocities. But in the end the apology never came. “It is no secret that there have been some difficult episodes in our past,” the Queen said in her speech the night before her visit. “Jallianwala Bagh, which I will visit tomorrow, is a painful example. But history cannot be rewritten, no matter how much we sometimes wish otherwise.” When Queen Elizabeth was born in 1926, her grandfather was still emperor of India, which had been under British rule for 200 years, but when she ascended the throne in 1952, India had been independent for five years. At her wedding to Philip Mountbatten in 1947, the Queen received a handkerchief from India’s best-known freedom fighter, Mahatma Gandhi, and it is said to remain one of her most prized possessions. The somewhat muted response to the queen’s death in India reflects her complicated position in a nation where the British monarchy is still seen as an enduring symbol of the colonial rule that plundered its lands for 200 years. India’s last regent before independence was the Queen’s distant cousin Lord Louis Mountbatten – also Prince Philip’s uncle – who oversaw the country’s bloody partition into the separate nations of India and Pakistan. India remains the largest country in the Commonwealth, which is largely made up of former British territories and is still officially led by the British monarch. After news of the Queen’s death broke, a day of mourning was declared and all flags flown at half-mast. The Indian national flag flies at half-mast on the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images “Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will be remembered as a saying of our times,” India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted. “She provided inspirational leadership to her nation and people. He personified dignity and propriety in public life. Her loss hurts.” However, although many Bollywood stars sent their condolences on the queen’s death on social media, there was otherwise little public outpouring of grief. Jyoti Atwal, professor of history at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, said that in India, the institution of the monarchy was still criticized as a symbol of British rule. Hours before the Queen’s death was announced, Modi oversaw the renaming of Rajpath, a central boulevard in Delhi that during colonial times had been named in honor of King George V, Queen Elizabeth’s grandfather. Modi said Rajpath was a “symbol of slavery”, which will now be deleted. However, Atwal said that on a personal level, the Queen’s visits to India, particularly her first in 1961, had won her much affection and admiration – many people can still remember watching her on the streets of Delhi in her carriage. “The queen represented the oppression of British rule and colonialism, but she was also seen as a separate person, not just a monarch, and people in India were very fascinated by her visits, by this carriage culture,” Atwal said. “My mother still remembers the Queen’s visit in 1961. she was a child who sat in the front row when the Queen traveled in the carriage. Thus it captured the public imagination, even though it was clearly a remnant of the British Raj.” But, Atwal said, as the uproar over the Queen’s visit to Jallianwala Bagh had shown, there was a lingering expectation in India that the British monarchy should apologize for the wrongs of colonialism, which some see as an essential part of the process. decolonization. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. The Jallianwala Bagh Martyrs Memorial in Amritsar. Photo: Narinder Nanu/AFP/Getty Images “There are large sections in India who still want an apology from the queen and who still believe she has no closure for the oppression of the Raj,” Atwal said. “The burden of this apology lies with the monarchy, not the Prime Minister or any other member of the British government. So now that Charles is king, the people in India will expect an apology from him.” Since the Queen’s death, there have also been calls for the return of the Koh-I-Noor diamond, one of the world’s largest cut diamonds, which sits in the Queen Mother’s crown and is on display in the Tower of London. The diamond, which was mined in India, has been the source of a decades-long dispute between India and the UK, with India saying it was taken illegally. Over the weekend, Indian MP and author Shashi Tharoor called his report in London a “powerful reminder of the injustices committed by the former imperial power”. It is believed that the crown bearing the Koh-i-Noor diamond will now be worn by King Charles’ wife, Camilla, the Queen Consort. “Until it is returned at least as a symbolic gesture of atonement, it will remain a testament to the looting, looting and embezzlement that colonialism was really about,” Tharoor said. Nevertheless, in India’s financial hub, Mumbai, a community paid a heartfelt tribute to the Queen. Years ago, the city’s famed dabbawalas, who deliver hot food from homes to workplaces in tiffin boxes, caught the attention of the royal family, and two dabbawalas were invited to the wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla in 2005, where breakfast twice with the Queen. “We share the grief of King Charles’ family,” the Mumbai Dabbawala Association said in a statement. “We are deeply saddened by the passing of Queen Elizabeth II and all Dambawalas pray that her soul rest in peace.”
