Statue politics: how India quietly removed colonists from their pedestals

On the river banks in Barrackpore, a sweltering town some 30km from Kolkata, the statues of 13 dead British men stand high above the ground on brick-red plinths. One is made of marble and 12 are made of metal, but they all have the identical distant gaze – instantly recognisable to every Indian as the contempt with which government service officers treat them.In 1969, 22 years after India’s independence, these statues were taken down from their pedestals at the intersections of the busiest…