{"id":43930,"date":"2025-07-25T22:42:46","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T18:42:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/?p=43930"},"modified":"2025-07-25T22:42:46","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T18:42:46","slug":"how-the-empire-never-left-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/how-the-empire-never-left-us\/","title":{"rendered":"How The Empire Never Left Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

Identity and alienation<\/u><\/span><\/p>\n

The Empire gave uniforms, titles, medals — but never equality. Not dignity. Those remained the preserve of white skin<\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n

By Shyam Bhatia<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I was just a boy when I realised the British Empire had no intention of letting us go — not really.<\/span><\/p>\n

My father, a decorated officer in the British Indian Army, served under General Slim in Burma. He was sharp, disciplined, and loyal to the idea of honour — a post-Macaulay man who wore his medals with pride. But his loyalties were never as simple as his uniform suggested.<\/span><\/p>\n

He grew up in Lahore, on Lodge Road. As a boy, he was taken to school on the back of a bicycle — not by a servant or a relative, but by Bhagat Singh.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, that Bhagat Singh.<\/span><\/p>\n

The revolutionary who hurled bombs and insults at British rule and was hanged for it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The boy on the bicycle and the freedom fighter were one and the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a boy, he rode to school gripping the waist of Bhagat Singh. His fingers pressed into the ribs of a man who would soon walk smiling to the gallows. How could he have known? How could any of them? That the same hands steering the bicycle would later shake the foundations of Empire and then vanish into legend — leaving only silence behind.<\/span><\/p>\n

That ride — between colonial schoolbooks and whispered rebellion — \u00a0shaped him in ways I only began to understand much later.<\/span><\/p>\n

In private, he spoke of Bhagat Singh with the intimacy of a friend, not the reverence of a martyr.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was raised in that same paradox: loyalty to a system that promised justice, and the memory of a man who died proving it couldn\u2019t be trusted.<\/span><\/p>\n

One story captured that contradiction perfectly.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1945 or early 1946, my father was assigned as ADC to Lady Edwina Mountbatten during one of her visits to India. At the time, her husband, Lord Louis Mountbatten, was based in Singapore, still awaiting his appointment as the last Viceroy of British India.<\/span><\/p>\n

Clad in full regimental finery, father accompanied her to the gates of an exclusive Calcutta club. The doorman took one look at him and said: \u201cKala aadmi mana.\u201d Black men not allowed.<\/span><\/p>\n

He\u2019d fought in the jungle, stood beside generals, protected a viscountess — but one glance from a doorman undid it all. \u201cKala aadmi mana.\u201d No black men. Not here. Not ever. Edwina Mountbatten took his arm with fury. But she could not take the shame. He never spoke of that day again. But I saw it — lodged behind his eyes, like shrapnel.<\/span><\/p>\n

That was the Empire in action. It gave uniforms, titles, medals — but never equality. Not dignity. Those remained the preserve of white skin.<\/span><\/p>\n

My own education began in that shadow.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I entered boarding school in Dehradun — India\u2019s imitation of Eton — I quickly learned that we weren\u2019t being educated. We were being trained.<\/span><\/p>\n

The school was designed by pro-British Indians to create brown sahibs. Our headmasters were white men imported from England, a bit too fond of their Scotch, emissaries of the public school tradition.<\/span><\/p>\n

They taught us discipline, mannerisms, and silence.<\/span><\/p>\n

English was everything. Hindi was shame. To speak it was to be called a dehati <\/em>— a provincial. Or worse: \u201cbloody kaalu\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

We were beaten by older boys, bullied, molested, and told it was character-building. I still remember the slang.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Toye time\u2019 meant homework. \u2018Keeda\u2019 meant worm. \u2018Whacking\u2019 meant beatings. \u2018Toe jam\u2019 was another slang word for congealed sweat. \u2018Lender\u2019 was the dirtiest word — a boy who submitted sexually in exchange for food or protection.<\/span><\/p>\n

We admired Biggles, Bertie Wooster, the Famous Five, and Churchill — the same Churchill who called Indians \u201ca beastly people with a beastly religion\u201d and let three million Bengalis starve.<\/span><\/p>\n

We weren\u2019t just brainwashed. We were remade in the image of our masters — and taught to admire those who despised us.<\/span><\/p>\n

After Dehradun, I was sent to an English boarding school — not for merit, but because my father had joined the Indian Foreign Service and was posted to Kenya.<\/span><\/p>\n

His new salary came in sterling. It made me eligible.<\/span><\/p>\n

I arrived in Britain with illusions. But the drive from Gatwick airport through grey suburbs and rows of squat, semi-detached homes with peeling paint and drawn curtains stripped those away.<\/span><\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t the England we had admired. It was tired, wet, and worn down.<\/span><\/p>\n

The boys at school were pale, silent, and mostly indifferent. The food was awful. The dormitories were cold and the racism was unmistakable.<\/span><\/p>\n

One boy — the son of a senior British diplomat — would lead the others in singing \u2018I\u2019m Dreaming of a White Christmas\u2019 when I walked by.<\/span><\/p>\n

I smiled when they sang it. I stood there in my blue shorts and stockings, my brown cheeks warm with foolish joy — I thought they were singing my favourite song.<\/span><\/p>\n

Later, I told my mother how moved I was. She stared at me — horrified — and said: \u201cDon\u2019t be stupid. They\u2019re mocking you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And in that moment, my childhood ended. Not with war, not with loss, but with a Christmas carol.<\/span><\/p>\n

One teacher at that school in England told me flatly:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEnglish isn\u2019t your language.\u201d He \u2018helped\u2019 me achieve a C-level grade in A-level English. But I had the last word by achieving a distinction in S-level (scholarship level) English — an exam you couldn\u2019t study for. It had to be written blind. No tricks. No bias. Just skill.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even my failures were foreign. In the pub, celebrating the end of our exams, a group of us ordered one of every drink. We staggered out and vomited.<\/span><\/p>\n

The manager looked at us — most of us white — but muttered only one thing when he saw me: \u201cBloody foreigners.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Fortunately, there were a few bright spots. My mother\u2019s old English teacher from Lahore once whisked me away to Norfolk for two weeks of calm, kindness, and Cambridge windmills.<\/span><\/p>\n

A school travel grant took me by Greyhound across America, where strangers were open, generous, curious. It was in North Carolina, of all places, that I was offered a two-year college scholarship — the kind no one in Britain ever mentioned.<\/span><\/p>\n

What I realised, slowly and painfully, was this: The Empire didn\u2019t end. It just rebranded.<\/span><\/p>\n

And there was worse to come.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I joined the staff of a leading British newspaper, I was quickly reminded of the unwritten rules. A colleague confided, not unkindly, that others sometimes referred to me as \u201cjust another WOG\u201d — the colonial slur dressed up as a joke: Westernised Oriental Gentleman.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even gestures of hospitality came laced with condescension. A celebrated columnist once invited me to her home for dinner. I assumed it was generosity. Over the first course, she turned to me and asked: \u201cHow did a village boy like you end up on the staff of a newspaper like this?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But nothing compared to what happened in Belfast.<\/span><\/p>\n

Assigned to cover the Orange Day marches, I found myself surrounded by a group of hostile marchers who noticed my face and shouted: \u201cGrab the coon!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I ran. I didn\u2019t walk or reason or explain.<\/span><\/p>\n

I ran for my life, bursting into a nearby corner shop and hiding under the till until the shouting died down.<\/span><\/p>\n

My breath tore through my throat as I hurtled into the shop, dived behind the counter, and curled under the till like a kicked dog. I could hear their boots. I could hear their hate. And I remember thinking — not for the first time — that my body did not belong here. That even my face was a provocation. That I had inherited something I did not choose, and it might one day get me killed.<\/span><\/p>\n

That, too, was part of the legacy — the reflex to disappear in a land where your presence itself was the provocation.<\/span><\/p>\n

It still lives in our textbooks, in the accents we covet, in the names of our schools, in the quiet shaming of those who speak Hindi with pride.<\/span><\/p>\n

It lives in the way liberal London sips tea under Picasso prints and talks of \u201cbalance\u201d when confronted with colonial crimes.<\/span><\/p>\n

It lives in museums full of stolen gods. You can still visit them — our gods. They kneel in glass cages, far from home. Their eyes are chipped, their limbs broken, their names mispronounced. The incense is synthetic. The chants piped through hidden speakers. The gods look out at tourists, waiting to be worshipped by those who no longer know their names.<\/span><\/p>\n

We were not just robbed of wealth. We were robbed of wonder. It lives in the clubs that still exclude — just more politely now.<\/span><\/p>\n

The colonial yoke was never just about conquest. It was about rewriting the imagination — training us to doubt ourselves and worship elsewhere.<\/span><\/p>\n

What the Empire excelled at — beyond conquest — was gaslighting entire nations into submission. It didn\u2019t just take land or gold; it made us question our tongues, our gods, our sense of worth. It told us we were lucky to be civilised, taught us to admire our abusers, and shamed us into silence.<\/span><\/p>\n

The result wasn\u2019t just colonisation — it was emasculation. We were trained to feel small, even when we succeeded. Like Native Americans in the United States, we too were stripped of dignity and taught to vanish — not physically, but culturally.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our languages, gods, and histories were overwritten. We were meant to forget who we were. We were the Hindustani equivalents of Tonto and Hiawatha supervised by white Lone Rangers who had us under their microscopes for 24 hours a day.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even today, if we dare to remember — if we ever get too confident, too visible, too \u201cuppity\u201d — we are quickly reminded of our place.<\/span><\/p>\n

The British version of this isn\u2019t always a boot in the face. It is often a smirk, a raised eyebrow, a joke at dinner.<\/span><\/p>\n

As the celebrated writer Eric Newby once put it, we were being kept in line by the \u201cOK generation\u201d — those quiet custodians of power who believe the world runs best when everyone knows their place and stays in it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re OK, provided you behave. You\u2019re OK, provided you don\u2019t ask for too much. You\u2019re OK — until you\u2019re not.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A few do manage to slip the net — but only by becoming more royalist than the king, more conservative than the conservatives.<\/span><\/p>\n

For everyone who rises, there are countless others who still brace themselves to be slapped down the moment they appear too confident, too vocal, too \u201cuppity\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

The system hasn\u2019t disappeared. It has simply learned to smile while doing the slapping.<\/span><\/p>\n

To this day in 2025, Indian diplomats posted to London are reminded of their place.<\/span><\/p>\n

When approaching the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, they must sometimes walk up the so-called \u2018Clive Steps\u2019 — named after Robert Clive, the man who looted Bengal and laid the foundations of a hated Empire.<\/span><\/p>\n

You climb them in silence — past the statue of a man who bled Bengal dry. You carry your portfolio, your passport, your perfect English. But still, you climb.<\/span><\/p>\n

And still, he towers. The stone above you. The shadow inside you.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so, to the eternal question: Can we ever escape the Empire, if it still lives in our minds?<\/span><\/p>\n

Shyam Bhatia is a London-based Indian-born British journalist, writer, and war reporter. He has covered conflicts in the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Sudan, and is a former diplomatic editor for The Observer. His career also includes roles as US correspondent and Foreign Editor for the <\/em><\/strong>Deccan Herald<\/strong> (Bangalore) and Editor of <\/em><\/strong>Asian Affairs<\/strong> magazine (London). He is presently the London correspondent of The Tribune (India).<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 25 July 2025<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Identity and alienation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":470,"featured_media":43931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[23],"tags":[35819,19051,54827,54823,54824,6102,54822,6664,54830,899,54829,2415,26897,23305,946,54821,33327,2301,32847,13759,5248,9148,685,165,54832,13083,28479,34836,36,5845,54826,74,42617,54831,19553,54819,54820,12112,54825,54828],"class_list":["post-43930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","tag-belfast","tag-bhagat-singh","tag-bloody-foreigners","tag-bloody-kaalu","tag-brainwashed","tag-british-empire","tag-brown-sahibs","tag-churchill","tag-clive-steps","tag-colonialism","tag-coon","tag-culture","tag-dignity","tag-discrimination","tag-education","tag-emasculation","tag-england","tag-english","tag-gaslighting","tag-gatwick","tag-hindi","tag-identity","tag-independence","tag-india","tag-lady-edwina-mountbatten","tag-language","tag-legacy","tag-lord-mountbatten","tag-mauritius-times","tag-media","tag-mockery","tag-racism","tag-rebellion","tag-robert-clive","tag-shame","tag-shyam-bhatia","tag-subjugation","tag-violence","tag-white-christmas","tag-wog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Clive-Steps.-Pic-Getty-Images.jpg?fit=1200%2C680&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8QzSF-bqy","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/470"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43930"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43933,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43930\/revisions\/43933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}