The design-politics of decolonization: nationalist ritual confronts imperial statuary in New Delhi, India

Decolonization, like colonization itself, takes many forms. These forms intertwine politics with design in numerous ways that both signal and propel post-independence power shifts. In India, Edwin Lutyens designed New Delhi's grand ceremonial axis – the Kingsway – to reinforce British imperial claims, placing the Viceroy's House at the western end and punctuating the eastern end with a Grand Canopy housing an imposing statue of King-Emperor George V. Indian independence in 1947 eventually re-dubbed this axis Rajpath and, starting in the 1950s, used it to stage elaborate national ceremonies including the Republic Day Beating Retreat march, but the canopied statue lingered for two more decades. Faced with increasing nationalist sentiments, the government relocated the statue to Coronation Park in 1968, leaving an empty canopy engulfed in national and global geopolitics for five decades. Finally, in 2022, soon after removing the last vestiges of Western-composed music from the Rajpath's Beating Retreat ritual, Prime Minister Modi unveiled a new statue under the canopy on the now-renamed Kartavya Path (path of duty). Drawing from historic documents including letters, speeches, English and local language newspapers, this paper explores the design-politics of decolonization through evolving intertwined attitudes to statuary and sonic ritual within perpetually shifting political contexts.