Over the centuries, the subcontinent of India consisted of hundreds of kingdoms, with from time to time empires rising and falling.
Beginning in the late-eighteenth century, the British East India Company annexed large areas of the country. After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British Crown took control over India, in many cases indirectly through what were known as ‘princely states’; former kingdoms, ruled by local royal families. After gaining independence in 1947, these (565) princely states acceded to one of the new states, India and Pakistan.
The number of equestrian statues in India is quite substantial. I was able to track down 115 of them, but there must be many more. One can find equestrian statues in almost every city of some importance. No doubt this large number has to do with the combination of British influence for more than a century, and the self-confidence of an independent, proud and powerful nation.
India has many attractive equestrian statues it can be proud of, both from the past and from recent times. The accessibility of this national heritage to the general public could, however, be improved. Unfortunately, for example, for security reasons the Indian Parliament building in New Delhi can only be visited with written permission, which needs to be obtained via the embassy. Even if one manages to obtain this permission, it is forbidden to take pictures. This means that at least the five equestrian statues of national heroes, located in the grounds, are all but inaccessible to the general public. These statues should be moved to the avenues of New Delhi, so that everybody can admire them. The same applies to the remaining statues from the Raj period. New Delhi and Kolkata offer enough settings for these testimonies to the past. This is important for the collective national memory, even if that past is not always convenient.
Another general remark concerns the sculptors of the equestrian statues in India. In many countries it is possible to determine the name of the sculptor and the date of the statue’s unveiling, often by searching on the Internet, but not so in India. One of the Indian sculptors, B. R. Khedkar – the creator of over 400 statues – rightly raised the issue of the lack of mention of the sculptor’s name on or at some place around the statue. Very often the political leaders who inaugurate the statues are mentioned, but not so the artist.
Khedkar stated: ‘Forget about giving artists their due credit, many a time the sculptor is not even invited for the inauguration of the statue’, and ‘I was told that there is no need to mention the sculptor’s name on the plaque as the civic body pays for the work’. Add to this a typical Indian bureaucratic reaction from a municipal secretary: ‘The issue of giving credit to the sculptors must go through a prescribed procedure. It needs to be addressed during an all-party meeting followed by the final approval from the General Body.’
The British Raj statues
The British rulers (the Raj) imported the tradition of erecting statues of themselves and their royalty. These are the oldest equestrian statues in India. The statues were created in the UK, often including the pedestal, and shipped to India
One can say that the layout of the inner cities of Kolkata, with its Maidan (open squares), and New Delhi, with its broad avenues, are pre-eminently suited to be adorned with equestrian statues. New Delhi has quite a number of statues, but no equestrian examples.
After independence in 1947, most of the statues of the British Raj in Kolkata and Delhi were removed, but not destroyed. There was no such thing as an iconoclasm, as there was in many other countries on becoming independent. Some statues were repatriated to the UK and some to other parts of the Commonwealth, such as Canada and Australia. Thirteen of the equestrian statues from the pre-independence period remained in India.
Unfortunately not all of them are in public places. Five, once adorning the city of Kolkata, are located in the garden of Flagstaff House, the weekend retreat for the Governor of West Bengal in Barrackpore, and one in the garden of the Police Training Centre in the same town.
My attempts over more than two months to obtain permission to take pictures of these statues were met only with bureaucracy and were in vain. Visiting the place and being confronted with a well-guarded entrance gate, I found a hole in the fence at the rear of the garden. This was too tempting for me, resulting in only two pictures that I could save, as I had to delete the other ones after being caught by the guards. There is one picture of the garden of Flagstaff House and a snapshot of one of the statues.
It is sad that the public cannot see this testimony to an important part of the history of India.