Twenty
years ago, when I visited Calcutta
for the first time, the atmosphere I felt was hauntingly familiar. Modelled on London, – where I lived
at the time - enough remained of the Empire's second city to be living
testimony to the colonial era. My perception was of a city held captive by its
19th century heyday, an echo of a London now long gone. The dominance of the
past is perhaps due in part to the sharp contrast in fortunes that followed
years of political upheaval. A post independence attempt to erase the visible
legacy of colonial rule by demolishing selected buildings proved short lived,
and has more recently been countered by a movement to restore some elements of
the city's heritage. Just as Calcutta's
cosmopolitan origins marked a turning point in the evelopment of Indian
society, so now a paradox emerges as the memory of an imperial past clashes
with the emergence of India as a self-confident global power.
In the
manner of previous empires, the British planned the cities of Calcutta and Bombay to
symbolise their power, and disseminate their value system. As I knew little in
detail about the consequences of this important chapter in my own country's history, an opportunity presented itself to investigate before the inevitable
process of modernisation erased the traces of the past. Returning to India on a
yearly basis since 2003, I had decided to photograph the interiors of the
mostly administrative buildings that still dominate central Kolkata and Mumbai.
I wanted to glimpse behind the imposing façades and study at first hand the
workings of the machine – the remnants of a British installed bureaucracy. An
exhibition in Calcutta two years ago of some of these images led to an
invitation by Soumitra Das, Arts Editor with the Telegraph newspaper, to
collaborate on "Red Square" – a book project of text and images charting the
fulcrum of colonial power in India, the area at the heart of old Calcutta where
British trade was first established back in 1686. As a consequence, the scope
of my project expanded, and a picture started to emerge of a complex and
fascinating story.
Christopher
Taylor
|