Every few months, the Union government comes up with a proposal to change the name of a city, road, building or brings out a new bill with a Hindi name, or installs a new statue. All this is done in the name of discarding colonial vestiges or Mughal histories. In this piece, I am going to stick to the assertion that this is done to cure us of our colonial hangover.
A few days ago, the statue of Edwin Lutyens was replaced with that of C. Rajagopalachari at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Edwin Lutyens was the architect of Delhi, including Rashtrapati Bhavan. C. Rajagopalachari, known as Rajaji, was a freedom fighter, the last governor-general of India, a former chief minister of the erstwhile Madras state, and someone M.K. Gandhi referred to as his “conscience keeper”. Rajaji was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1954. There can be no argument that his statue being placed within the precincts of Rashtrapati Bhavan was an important gesture. The problem is how this was positioned: as a display of hyper-nationalism, though it was claimed to be anti-colonial in spirit.
Social media was abuzz with the sound of chest-thumping, and even mild criticism was described as anti-national or colonial servitude. Lutyens’s thoughts on Indians were brought up to call him a racist when it was pointed out that he was the architect of the city and of Rashtrapati Bhavan. If we are to honour people on this basis, many of our past leaders will not pass muster given their problematic opinions on caste and gender. Do we not see past these failings to recognise their contributions in the larger scheme of things?
However, there is something more fundamental that needs to be called out: the drama of anti-colonialism. In reality, the Union government’s historical perspective, policy decisions, cultural inclinations, proposed laws and economic agenda are all from the colonial playbook, which has been adopted and furthered for their own ends.
The argument of outsider versus insider does not hold water because colonialism goes beyond who the colonisers were or where they came from. Colonialism is a cultural-economic structure that controls and discards people and strips them of their fundamental rights. Colonial-era laws, such as the Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure, were replaced with the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 and the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, respectively. But legal observers have pointed out that the changes are only superficial, while some of the new provisions are more regressive than the colonial laws. Changing the name has not been accompanied by a change in the relationship between the State and the citizens; it has only made it that much more worrisome. Take the revoking of Article 370. The manner in which it was done was colonialist. The people of Kashmir had absolutely no say in the matter.
Irrespective of the manner, the recent protest by members of the Congress Party against the prime minister during the India AI Impact Summit 2026 was, by itself, not against the interests of the nation, nor did it paint the country in a bad light. It is fearful colonialists and authoritarian governments that are afraid of aggressive protests. A number of activists arrested by this government are still in jail without bail. Let us not forget that Stan Swamy died in prison and that Umar Khalid still remains behind bars. None of this is any different from what the British did in India.
To enter another person’s land, take it over, destroy the environment, and claim it is for the good of the people and national interests is another colonial-capitalistic ploy. This is what is happening in Great Nicobar, where 166 square kilometres of land — including 130 sq kms of forest land — will be destroyed. Indigenous people who have lived there from time immemorial cannot stop it. The way this government has gone about the process is colonial. Yes, Nicobar is part of India, but the islands and its people have always been treated with care and an understanding that their life and environment need protection. For the people of Nicobar, we are outsiders — the colonisers.
The agenda of colonialists has always been about keeping the people of India apart, ensuring that Muslims and Hindus did not find ways of ironing out their differences. They wrote histories that fermented hate and were gleeful when we fought each other. The current unnuanced rewriting of history, both in our textbooks and in the public discourse, is only a continuation of this colonial habit. The hateful Hindutvavadi has replaced the White man. Since these people are local, their minions on the ground attack vulnerable Muslims. In the courts of law, significant Muslim shrines are being claimed as Hindu. The world of culture and art has not been spared. A puritanical understanding of Indian culture propagated by the colonialists has been adopted by the bigots. Notions of purity and corruption are spouted without any independent thought. One must say that the British have been successful in this game of division.
Colonialists ensured that power was centralised and remained in the hands of just a few who were of their ilk. The Government of India seems to mimic that mode of governance. Federalism has no place in such a model because it brings forth differences and contestation. British colonialists controlled or shut down any such attempt through the use of force. The present government does the same by appointing governors who are obstructionists, steadily eroding state rights and holding back Central funds to states governed by Opposition parties.
Getting rid of colonial conditioning will require us to accept the past as a complex set of streams that converge and contradict. The present cannot be in constant competition with the past. Our present has to be accepted with all its fissures and ugliness. Brushing these truths under the carpet or blaming it on the past is obfuscation. The greatest anti-colonial act is to own up to our failures as a society. The colonists denied people dignity, rights, and justice; we have to ensure that the last person standing can celebrate these values and dissent fearlessly when they are denied. Relieving ourselves of the burden requires tremendous courage because we would need to look at ourselves in the mirror with utter honesty.
When the makers of the Indian Republic came together to give us a Constitution and the various symbols that would represent us, they did not erase the past; neither did they blindly accept the British storyline. Instead, they drew from the past, reimagined their present, and dreamed of a future in which our minds and hearts did not remain colonised.
T.M. Krishna is a leading Indian musician and a prominent public intellectual
