The game of musical chairs in New Delhi has taken a turn for the literal. After decades of staring stoically at the monumental palace he built, the bronze bust of Edwin Lutyens has been evicted from the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan.
In his place stands C. Rajagopalachari (Rajaji), the first Indian governor-general and a titan of the independence movement. On paper, it’s a move of impeccable logic. Why should the architect who once referred to Indians as “very low down in the scale of humanity” keep his prime real estate when a homegrown polymath is waiting in the wings?
And I am an admirer of Rajaji, a classic liberal, anchored in Indian civilisation but without a shred of bigotry or chauvinism, an advocate of free enterprise and social justice, a vigorous foreign policy and robust national defence, along with civil liberties and freedoms of belief and expression—precisely the mixture of convictions and principles I have cherished all my life.
As the first Indian occupant of Rashtrapati Bhavan as the only Indian governor-general (1948-50), he deserved a place on the grounds anyway, so this is an overdue tribute I am happy to applaud. But what bothers me is the theatre of symbolism behind the move.
The government’s rationale is a cocktail of decolonisation and “out with the old guard”. It’s a multi-layered manoeuvre that serves several masters at once. Removing Lutyens is, first of all, a symbolic scrubbing of the imperial stain. Lutyens wasn’t just British; he was a man whose private diaries were essentially a masterclass in colonial snobbery and primitive racism. His contempt for India and Indians still reeks an odium it is impossible to ignore.
There’s also a political right hook involved in the Lutyens defenestration: it’s a tidy way to thumb one’s nose at the Lutyens elite, that comfortably anglophone circle of power that dominated the capital’s social and political orbits for decades. It reminds them that there’s a new group in charge who can’t even pronounce “Lutyens”. And as always with the BJP, there’s a small electoral nudge involved. With Tamil Nadu heading to the polls this month, what better time to elevate a legendary Tamil statesman to the heart of the capital? Rajaji himself may not be a major individual vote-catcher any longer, but honouring him is a nod to regional pride wrapped in a nationalist bow.
Lutyens’ bust is headed for a museum, which is perhaps the most British thing that could happen to him. There, he can continue to sneer at the tourists in a controlled environment, safely tucked away from the levers of power.
But one has to wonder if we are simply swapping one set of symbols for another. India’s political landscape is increasingly a theatre of renaming, replacing, and reframing. We tear down the old to assert the new, yet the underlying structures—the colonial-era bureaucracy and viceroy-level pomp—remain remarkably intact.
Will Indian politics ever outgrow the allure of empty symbolism? Probably not. Symbols are cheap and emotionally resonant. Building a world-class infrastructure takes years; moving a statue takes a crane and a press release.
The recent wave of symbolic politics in India—whether replacing statues or renaming cities, streets and the election-bound state of Kerala—reflects a contest over historical memory, but it often substitutes spectacle for substance. These gestures are presented as acts of cultural reclamation, yet they frequently function as distractions from the harder work of governance: strengthening institutions, expanding freedoms, and addressing economic and social challenges. By focusing on the erasure of architectural or toponymic legacies associated with the colonial past, political actors can claim ideological victory without undertaking the far more demanding task of improving the lived experience of citizens. The symbolism is loud, but the material transformation remains muted.
As Rajaji takes his place, one hopes his legacy of sharp intellect and principled dissent (traits that often annoyed his own contemporaries) is what we are actually celebrating, not just his utility as a counter-symbol to a racist British architect. At the end of the day, India’s self-assertion will come not through cosmetic changes but through democratic vitality, social justice and economic opportunity for all. That’s an agenda of which Rajaji would have approved.
editor@theweek.in