Chapter 4, Part 25
“As soon as I stepped out of the hotel, beggars swarmed around me,” my aunt recalled.
“You think the buses in Indonesia are full, you should see the ones in Kolkata!” my cousin added.
They were in India’s third largest city back in 2007 for my cousin’s three-country wedding receptions, thanks to her husband’s paternal family in India and the one in Germany from his mother’s side, as well as my cousin’s own in Indonesia. After returning to Jakarta, my aunt kept telling me that we should be grateful for living in Indonesia in spite of its imperfections. What they told me affirmed the image of India I had pictured in my mind.
The first time I read an article about Kolkata was more than ten years ago in a second-hand English magazine – it could have been Time, Newsweek, or Asiaweek, I can’t remember – that I bought at a flea market in Tasikmalaya – a relatively small city in West Java, Indonesia, where I spent my high school years. Kolkata was described as a Marxist-ruled city with rundown infrastructure and dilapidated buildings. Yet at that time it housed India’s third largest stock exchange – an institution associated with a liberal economy.
As my interest in travel grew, so too did my understanding of India’s long and complex history. Its modern borders are a remnant of British colonialism in the subcontinent, a hegemony achieved by first controlling trade in the region, then the politics of the plethora of sultanates, kingdoms and principalities. In the late 17th century, the East India Company (EIC) began their trade activities in what would then be called Calcutta. More than eight decades later in 1772, the British officially made the newly-declared presidency the headquarters of the EIC. However, more than 80 years later the EIC was dissolved and its power was transferred to London in 1858. Nevertheless, Calcutta’s importance remained unchanged as it became the seat of British colonial administration in the subcontinent in the years that followed.
At the turn of the 20th century, upon the death of Queen Victoria, George Curzon – at that time the Viceroy of India – proposed the creation of a memorial on a grand scale in the capital of what was Britain’s most precious colonial possession in the world. King George V laid the foundation stone in January 1906, less than a year after the controversial partition of Bengal into Hindu-majority West Bengal and Muslim-majority East Bengal – the latter then became East Pakistan in 1955 and eventually Bangladesh in 1971. The timing to build the colossal memorial couldn’t have been worse as resentment toward the British was on the rise following the partition.
In a bid to subdue nationalist movements, a bill was passed by Britain’s parliament in 1909 which allowed Indians to stand for legislative council positions for the first time. However, feeling threatened by the growing number of Westernized and well-educated people in Calcutta who continuously opposed British colonial rule, in 1911 King George V declared Delhi as the new capital of British India. Apart from being a less hostile city, Delhi’s more central location – as opposed to Calcutta’s geographical position in the far east of India – also contributed to the decision to move the British colonial administration there. The Victoria Memorial, however, was only half-completed when Calcutta suddenly lost its status as capital of the British Raj.
94 years after the completion of the memorial in 1921, James and I are standing in front of the magnificent structure in Kolkata (many people still call the city Calcutta despite the name change in 2001). Even on a hazy day when the city’s pollution tints the air with a grayish tinge, the grand monument stands tall in the middle of a manicured garden surrounded by the city’s busy streets where yellow Ambassador cabs roam. Made with the same kind of marble used for the construction of the Taj Mahal, the beautiful building evokes mixed reactions from locals and tourists alike. From fascination to disdain – to some the memorial is a reminder of the British exploitation of India – the Victoria Memorial is as impressive today as it was almost a century ago.
Click here for the full list of stories from the Spice Odyssey series.