- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Eastern Eye Staff
THOUSANDS of people have signed online petitions demanding the removal of a statue of Robert Clive, who played a key role in establishing Britain’s colonial domination over India, in Shrewsbury.
The petitions addressed to the Shropshire County Council had come up within hours of dramatic scenes of a former slave trader Edward Colston’s sculpture being pulled down and dragged into a river in Bristol on Sunday (7), during a weekend of fiery anti-racism protests.
“Robert Clive was one of the early figures of the British imperial domination of India, Bengal and much of South-East Asia,” read one of the petitions, which attracted over 1,700 people of its 2,500 target within hours.
“Clive as a symbol of British colonialism is significantly offensive to Indian, Bengali and south-east Asian descent and to attempt to justify it as a celebration of British pride and nationalism is only justifiable if one revels in the persecution and murder of millions of innocent people.”
By Wednesday afternoon, over 10,000 people had signed up to petitions remove the statue, a rival campaign to retain the monument got over 1,400 signatures.
David Parton, who initiated the petition to “bring down racist Clive statue”, said the move part of an effort to “begin the conversation about everyday racism in the UK”.
“Clive stands on a plinth in the centre of The Square, but was central to 200 years of theft [and] misrule that led to thousands of deaths, and eye-watering brutality in large swathes of the Indian subcontinent,” he added.
“We think it is now time that we look again at the symbols we value and celebrate and reconsider what our identity in Shrewsbury as [Shropshire people] is and what we are proud of.”
Parton said the statue “embodies” racism and stood as a “celebration to crimes”.
His petition noted that though the statue did not convey “anti-black racism”, it illustrated how “embedded” racism was in the UK.
“If we are not comfortable with a statue of Joseph Stalin or Genghis Khan, how can we be comfortable with a statue of Clive?” asked the petition.
Clive — whom historian William Dalrymple called a “unstable sociopath” — had served as the first Governor of Bengal Presidency under the East India Company after winning the Battle of Plassey in 1757.
This led to the company’s expansions in the region, and the military commander came to be called as “Clive of India”.
Several historians hold Clive’s policies responsible for the devastating Bengal Famine of 1770.
The petition highlighted his role in the “looting” of Bengal in the early years of the British Empire, with many of the region’s riches finding their way back with him to Britain.
“To have a statue commemorating the man that ruined a nation and held innocent people to his barbaric orders is both offensive and embarrassing,” it said.
“Just because a figure is historical, that doesn’t make him good. He is nothing more than a figure of oppression and white supremacy that has, whether consciously or not, been celebrated and commemorated in Shrewsbury town centre for hundreds of years.”
Tory MP of Shrewsbury Daniel Kawczynski, called for a peaceful discussion on the statue and pledged to conduct a “blow by blow” research on the life of locally-born Clive.
“We are doing a research paper and while I won’t comment on his life until after it’s written, the British Empire was a tremendous source for good during its time,” said Kawczynski, who said he would be using the House of Commons library for the research.
“We honour and celebrate those who helped establish this empire. They are part of our history and should be treated with respect and dignity. I know some people will want to eradicate all traces of the British Empire, but I’ve seen huge pluses of things it did around the world.”
Dr Manu Sehgal, lecturer in South Asian history at University of Birmingham, told BBC that Clive’s “rises and falls, depending on who’s looking at him when”.
“People use the name [Clive of India], not paying much attention to what he represents in the first place.
“This gives us an opportunity to curate it in such a way that an ordinary person walking past would be able to glance at a statue and be able to interpret it in an appropriate context.
“You don’t explain things better by destroying them.”
Sehgal added that “let understanding him be the ultimate judgement rather than getting rid of him”.
“If the aim is to place the Empire on trial, that would really be letting him off the hook,” he said.
“The pedestal on which the statue stands could easily take the form of an interrogation box where a witness is made to stand.”
Peter Nutting, the leader of Shropshire Council, said that in line with the council’s constitution, all petitions that gain 1,000 signatures are debated to determine any action required.
“In the meantime, while we recognise the strength of feeling around the Black Lives Matter campaign, and acknowledge people’s right to protest, we ask them to do so peacefully and safely, abiding by the social distancing guidelines,” he said.
Notably, there is a similar life-size statue of Clive near the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) building on King Charles Street, Whitehall, in central London.
The plinth records his two major career spurts in India, including the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and the Treaty of Allahabad in 1765.
Clive, born in Market Drayton in Shropshire before his schooling in London, travelled to India for the East India Company in 1743 before returning to his London home later in life where he died in 1774 — believed to have committed suicide.
