Several statues have been toppled, graffitied, broken, and drowned over the last few weeks in light of the Black Lives Matter movement. Removal of the Confederate (Group of states that fought to keep black people as slaves in the American Civil War) statues and monuments, which have long been a site of debate due to their association with racism, has been pushed for. The demonstrations were sparked by the death of George Floyd on May 25th. Statues including those of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Winston Churchill, and Edward Colston, have been vandalized, toppled, or removed recently. Christopher Columbus, due to his colonial ties and genocide of indigenous populations, has also been targeted and brought down.
As on many sites lone graffitied pedestals stand, one is reminded of the role they play in the symbolism of the statues that stand atop these blocks of cement. Pedestals in themselves simply pedestalize these individuals. With their looming metallic/marble structures, the statues intimidate and create an image of an entity above humans and near the concept of a God. Statues have always been a means of immortalizing individuals and their ideas. They essentially act as an endorsement or reflection of the prioritization of a society’s concepts and morals. Hence, the erection of a statue becomes a homage not just to the individual but also to what they stood for.
Historically, the transforming nature of statues is seen as a mark of changing loyalties. For instance, art historian Erin L. Thompson cites the melting of Bronze Statues of Ancient Greece into new statues in the midst of changing regimes or warring territories as an example of the same. Moreover, bringing down statues has always been a sign of rebellion and protest, from the statue of Cecil Rhodes being beaten in Zimbabwe when the country gained independence from Britain in 1980 to the dismantling of Tsarist statues during the Bolshevik Revolution. (Protesters gathered recently at Oxford University for the removal of Cecil Rhodes’ statue from campus, the college responded with a ‘recommendation’ of removal.)
Since statues reflect the ideas of the society that erects them and vice versa, the argument similarly can be extended to the demolition too. The severe disagreement of a society with the ideas that a statue represents is as important in the narrative of the statue. Hence the demolition and defacement of the statues in the spirit of the same are reflective of the society we live in.
The New Yorker explores the symbolism of the seemingly immovable object, here the Colston statue in Bristol, falling. Vanessa Kisuule, a performer and poet, spoke of her surprise at the weight of the statue that she thought to be made out of bronze. She talks about how the statue seemed big and permanent, yet when she saw it come down it felt like ‘wafer’ and that changed her perception of the statue drastically. She wrote and performed a poem online, “Hollow.”
“Colston, I can’t get the sound of you from my head, countless times I passed that plinth, its heavy threat / of metal and marble. But as you landed a piece of you / fell off, broke away, and inside: nothing but air. / This whole time, you were hollow.”
Some have opposed the falling statues in the interest of history, citing reasons of statues being a source of learning history for those without books. Another line of argumentation given against the demonstrations is that of viewing the individuals as ‘products of their times’. Statues act as a (literally) pedestaled version of an individual, wherein there is little to no scope of a counter-narrative or an understanding of the nuances that go into making a person. For instance, the fact that the confederates and other individuals were racist is something that is not mentioned in their epitaph, which is then a more harmful way to learn.
Although one must always place individuals and instances in the context of the period they occurred in, there are two assumptions one makes when forwarding the ‘product of the time’ defense. The first being that the current society is a post-racist or post-sexist society, which it is not, it assumes that social progression moves in a straight line which is something we cannot necessarily conclude. It also undermines the individuals who in that time actively worked against racism, sexism, and associated problematic ideas.
The current status quo features systemic racism, casteism, and sexism, statues of individuals that stood for the same ideas reinforce these ideas and their normalization of informal systems on a day to day basis. Especially since most of these statues are more often than not placed in front of museums supposedly depicting the histories of all people, libraries, courts, government buildings, etc. Wherein then, the statue and the systems of governance extend to one another legitimacy. One cannot detach the individual a statue represents from their problematic past or ideas. These statues become daily reminders of troubled pasts and shared experiences of marginalized communities, which is bound to make one feel alienated.
It’s expensive to maintain statues, an investigation in the USA found that taxpayers spent approximately 40 million dollars preserving Confederate monuments. White men have often been the writers and dominators of history. The spaces occupied by various identities in History are unequal and the same extends to financial support as well. Given the above fact, as opposed to Confederate statues, many African-American histories and Native American history sites are deteriorating from a lack of funding. Since statues and sites paying homage to racist, sexist, and problematic people occupy public places, these statues then claim that their history is the history of the public. The current demonstrations then take the form of reclamation of spaces in public and history.
Although some might see the toppling of statues as an extreme act, it has helped put pressure on authorities to be swifter in removing problematic monuments. In the light of the Black Lives Matter protests, government authorities have ordered the removal of the statues commemorating defenders of slavery in both US and UK. For instance, the day Colston found himself in the River Avon, a statue of Robert Milligan, a slave trader, was quietly removed from the Museum of London Docklands.
In that context, India needs to re-evaluate the statues it homes. The ten-foot-tall statue of Manu, the believed author of the Manusmriti, the text that lays down the rules and laws to maintain the caste hierarchy and hold the gender disparity in place, is a starting point. 2018 saw Kantabai Ahire, a 40-year-old Dalit woman, and 42-year old Sheela Pawar enraged by the demonstrations on Parliament Street against reservations by Azad Sena and Arakshan Virodhi Party in Delhi. The two women decided to channel their protest against Manu’s statue in Jaipur at the Rajasthan High Court. Originally, they intended on protesting in front of the statue and then submitting a memorandum demanding the removal. Instead, the women climbed the statue and smeared black paint over it. The fact that the statue, not only celebrating Manu but also endorsing his ideas of the caste and gender hierarchies, still stands in the campus of a court created for individuals to seek justice, seems fairly unjust. As a post-colonial state, the Coronation Park in Delhi is another site to perhaps re-evaluate. The park features colonial-era life-size statues of the Viceroys of India.
Much discussion has happened about what replaces these statues. Although that is the sole decision of the affected communities, the vandalized and broken statues in themselves are monumental. As statues have been a representation of ideas valued in society, the breaking and graffiti on them now is representative of the values of the current times. In the sense that they’re now symbols of the fact that these are absolutely not concepts that are now valued in any way and that no one can circumvent accountability, not even statues.
A writer trying to pen down words with ink made from sunset's colors. Surmayi has authored a story in a collection of short stories called Cadence. She is currently a student of Political Science and History at Miranda House, DU. Adjudged the Best Poet at the Chandigarh Literature Festival, she has been a contributor to Medium and an active content writer for Reform The Norm. A raging feminist using writing as her medium.
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