Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II passed away on 8 September in the Balmoral Castle aged 96. She had reigned for 70 years. In her reign, she had visited over 100 countries and hosted leaders in UK, from all over the world.
Of all the nations, she possessed a special connection with India and had visited the country multiple times. While she, in her speeches, had expressed her fondness for Indian people, her relationship with India was a complex one, especially given the colonial past with the Royal Family having ruled India for over 200 years.
The news of her death had more of a mute response from Indians. Bollywood actors too poured in with their tributes. “What an incredible & truly celebrated life!!! She loved colours & lived every shade of it, in a single lifetime”, Actor Shilpa Shetty tweeted. Ek Villain Actor, Riteish Deshmukh too said “Today is indeed a sad day, condolences to the family and the people of UK”, in a tweet. Abhishek Bachchan too, posed a collage of the Queen’s pictures. “Rest in peace Ma’am”, he wrote.
On the other hand, Indians also trended #Kohinoor on twitter with over 53K tweets flooding the platform. The sentiment was one, to demand back the Kohinoor diamond. The Kohinoor diamond, possessed by the monarchy, has always been claimed by India. As per the UK Royal Palace, the Kohinoor diamond was mined in Central-southern India and was handed over to the British monarchy in 1849. The diamond was a part of the crown jewels of Queen Victoria. Indians demanded UK to return the Kohinoor now that the Queen is no more.
The diamond, as reported by The Independent, will be worn by the Queen Consort and King Charles’ wife Camila.
The Queen was crowned on 2 June 1953, just six years after India’s independence. India was still picking up its pieces, correcting the mess left behind by the British. Eight years later, in January 1961, she made her first state visit to India along with her husband, Prince Philip.
Reports suggest that over a million people had gathered on the route from the airport to the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the official residence of The President of India, to catch a glimpse of the Royal couple. She was hosted by Dr Rajendra Prasad, India’s first President.
In her first visit, she toured Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata and also visited the iconic Taj Mahal in Agra and paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat. She was also made the Guest of Honour for India’s Republic Day parade on 26 January that year.
Image: Archives
She had addressed a huge crowd at Ramlila Grounds in Delhi, where thousands came to listen to her address. “The warmth and hospitality of the Indian people and the richness and diversity of India itself have been an inspiration to all of us,” she said in one of her addresses.
Her second visit came in 1983, when she was hosted by President Giani Zail Singh, and put up in the refurbished visitors’ wing of Rashtrapati Bhavan.
It was during this visit, she presented Mother Teresa, with an honorary Order of Merit, a rare and an exclusive award. She also met the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was hosting the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting at the same time.
Her final visit was in October 1997, when she landed in India to mark the Golden Jubilee of India’s Independence. This went down as a controversial visit, with her speech in Madras (now Chennai) being cancelled at the last moment at the request of the Indian Government. The 18 October 1997 issue of Washington Post reports that the Government of India had informed the Queen that protocol prevented her from giving a second speech as she had already given one.
She also visited Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, the site of the massacre that took place in 1919 by the hands of the British, killing thousands of Indians. This visit too, caused an uproar, with calls for an apology made in India and being dismissed by the British. Prince Philip too, ruffled some feathers by reportedly telling his hosts that a sign at the site indicating that 2,000 Indians had been killed was wrong.
The Queen, in her final visit, made a reference to “difficult episodes” of India’s colonial history and called the Jallianwala Bagh massacre as a “distressing example”. Though, an apology was never made.
The Queen’s relation with India even goes back to her days as a Princess. The Nizam of Hyderabad, in 1947, had gifted the then Princess Elizabeth, a diamond studded platinum necklace with 300 diamonds knitted into the ornament. The necklace now forms a part of Royal Collection Trust display at Buckingham Palace.
Many of us who are of South Asian heritage (or of those countries the British Empire had no business to be in) will either hold The Queen complicit for the injustices perpetrated by the Empire, its soldiers and administrators or see her as a non-participant who could not be blamed for all the horrors, despite being a beneficiary of some of the loot.
Whatever your views, a gracious kind English lady has left the world, aged 96, making history as the longest reigning monarch, leaving behind four children, Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward, eight grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren
