President Droupadi Murmu unveiled a bust of Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, the first and only Indian Governor General of independent India, at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Monday, replacing a monument to British architect Edwin Lutyens in a symbolic break from its colonial past.
Reacting to the development, Lutyens’ great-grandson, British biologist Matt Ridley, said he was “sad to read that the bust of Lutyens (my great grandfather) is to be removed from the presidential palace he designed in Delhi”.
Lutyens was the chief architect of New Delhi, the area that houses India’s power centre, and is still often referred to as Lutyens’ Delhi.
Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, known as Rajaji, was a towering statesman, jurist and writer who served as Governor General from 1948 to 1950, bridging the transition from British rule to the modern Indian republic.
President Droupadi Murmu, in a statement, said, “This initiative is part of series of steps being taken towards shedding the vestiges of colonial mindset and embracing, with pride, the richness of India’s culture.”
Who was Edwin Lutyens?
Edwin Landseer Lutyens was one of the most prominent and influential British architects of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Lutyens studied briefly at the Royal College of Art (then the South Kensington School of Art) but left early to establish his own practice around 1889. His early career focused on charming English country houses in Surrey and elsewhere, often collaborating with the renowned garden designer Gertrude Jekyll.
Edwin Lutyens, in collaboration with Herbert Baker, designed several monumental buildings in New Delhi, including Rashtrapati Bhavan, North Block, South Block, and India Gate, AFP reported.
In Indian Summer: Lutyens, Baker and the Making of Imperial Delhi (1981)historian Robert Grant Irving highlights Lutyens’ firm resistance to incorporating significant Indian architectural elements into his designs. Lutyens criticized the Indo-Saracenic style, i.e., a blend of Indo-Islamic and European influences popular in late 19th- and early 20th-century British India.
Here’s what PM Modi said
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Sunday during his monthly radio address, ‘Mann Ki Baat’, that, unfortunately, even after independence, statues of British administrators remained in the Rashtrapati Bhavan, while those of India’s great leaders were not honored with a place there.
Modi mentioned that during the ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav,’ he had discussed the ‘Panch-Pran’ from the Red Fort, highlighting the importance of freeing oneself from the mentality of slavery.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has consistently aimed to remove vestiges of India’s colonial legacy by transforming British-era landmarks through large-scale redevelopment projects.
In 2023, he unveiled a new Parliament building, replacing the colonial-era structure originally designed by Lutyens in collaboration with his British counterpart, Herbert Baker.
Modi said the move to replace Lutyens’ bust was part of initiatives to achieve “freedom from the mindset of slavery”.
“Statues of British administrators were allowed to remain… but those of the nation’s greatest sons were denied space,” he said in a radio broadcast, Mann ki Baat. “Today, the country is leaving that colonial mindset behind.”
In 2022, Modi’s government installed a statue of independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose, revered for his armed resistance against colonial rule.
The statue was placed beneath a canopy near the India Gate war memorial in New Delhi, occupying a pedestal that had long stood empty after once displaying a statue of British monarch King George V.
The canopy itself was originally designed by Lutyens.
Additionally, an exhibition on Rajagopalachari will take place during the Rajaji Utsav, running from February 24 to March 1. “Do pay a visit there, to have a look, whenever possible,” Modi said.
(With inputs from agencies)
