The queue to pay last respects to the Queen has been long and impressive. But a colonial shadow appears to fall over it, for what the Queen said and did, and what she did not say and do.
That queue through the four days the coffin lay in state for public viewing has been a unique recognition of a long and steady reign, even if it has not been all glorious. These have been the years of Britain’s fall from power and glory that Britain knew before her reign began. The years of British power ended with the end of World War II in 1945 and with the loss of Empire, most emphatically by way of Indian Independence in 1947. That is the year she married Prince Philip.
It was back in 1947 that Elizabeth made an extraordinary speech in Cape Town. She wasn’t the Queen yet, but was in line to become the Queen. She made a pledge that she would devote her whole life to “the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong”. An imperial thought to have spoken of the great imperial family…colonial rulers and the ruled never were quite one family. And she said this in South Africa, a long way from liberation from colonisation and Apartheid. She built on that sentiment from the moment she became the Queen, by way principally of the Commonwealth.
The Commonwealth is a group of nations that were once a part of the British Empire. Strengthening that Commonwealth as some sort of polite hangover of empire was a pet international project of Queen Elizabeth, and one in which she was remarkably successful. From seven nations at the start, it is now 56. A membership more understandable for Britain to want, than the other nations in it. It offers no trade deal, no defence pact. And yet they are there, India among them, and the biggest among them. Much of this was Queen Elizabeth’s wanting, and her doing.
INDIA
What did Queen Elizabeth make of the colonisation of India? Not a word from her on her first visit to India in 1961 or the second in 1983. The third time in 1997 she flew into a clamour demanding an apology for the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre of 1919. She, and Prince Philip, refused to apologise. All that came was some half-hearted half-measures.
She spoke of the difficult “episodes” of colonisation, suggesting the difficulty was no more than episodes. She said the killings had been “distressing”, offered 30 seconds of silence, not even all of a minute. And that’s it, no apology, not a word condemning General Dyer who ordered the killings.
But there is a caveat or two before anyone can pass judgment on the Queen. Hers has been a ceremonial position, not a frontally political one. The limited wording of the regret would have been dictated by the government of the day. She wouldn’t have had the freedom to air her personal views. She would have only been the spokesperson for the government, although a grand one.
A second caveat. If anyone, the Indian government should have had an issue with this, and pressed home the demand for an apology. The Indian government did quite the opposite through her three visits to India. She did not at first express any misgivings over colonisation, but the Indian government did not look for any; it only feted her and fussed over her through all these visits. Hunting expeditions were arranged for her, ceremonial elephant rides, massive public meetings, trips to Agra, Varanasi, other exotic places around India. She was treated like she was the Queen of India. Who could blame her for accepting all that as graciously as she did!
It’s an uncomfortable truth to confront, but the fuss over the Queen only extended the fawning among too many over the British colonial rule. The British ruled, not primarily through the point of their bayonets. Those bayonets were borne primarily by Indian soldiers loyal to the British. They ruled with the willing compliance of the most influential of Indians for much of their time in India. Not all even joined Gandhi in his movement against the British rule, or Netaji Bose for that matter.
All who are sensitive to the history of colonisation – and all should be – will need to recall the willing subservience of too many of the ruled, before pointing fingers at the late Queen.
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