Leading up to the coronation of King Charles III on Saturday, South Asians all over the world are reflecting on what it means for another British monarch to come to power. With golden carriages, crowns, capes and jewels all set to be trotted out, people in the diaspora are preparing themselves for a celebration of an institution that they say oppressed their parents, grandparents and ancestors.
Born only a year after India won independence from what was then his grandfather’s empire, Charles’ legacy is impossible to divorce from the pains of colonialism that still ripple through the subcontinent and diaspora today, experts said. The coronation, no matter how scaled back, is a relic of that colonial legacy, they said.
“I think the pageantry and pomp is kind of the last hurrah of an empire in deep decline,” said Priyamvada Gopal, 54, a professor of postcolonial studies at the University of Cambridge. “This is almost like a parody of empire and imperial pageantry, while there is very real everyday suffering.”
Buckingham Palace didn’t respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
Bharat Shah, 88, remembers hearing the news of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953, he told NBC News in an interview translated from Gujarati by his granddaughter Pooja Shah, 31.
At the time, fresh from Partition and the fight for independence, India had been plunged into a period of instability and uncertainty. Prices for basic necessities had soared, Shah said, and he hoped a new monarch might help usher in a better era.
“I remember hearing about it on the radio,” he said. “There was also news about her coronation in the newspapers. … It was difficult to even afford to buy a newspaper; one person would buy it and a group would huddle around and read about her coronation.”
Elizabeth was crowned just six years after India gained independence from the British. Shah still has visceral memories of the poverty and violence that came with the empire’s occupation and…
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