The 70-year-old retiree spent Monday in front of a television in the New Delhi retirement home where she now lives, watching with a touch of wistfulness as the queen was transported a final time during a traditions-laden funeral and procession.
In Mumbai, Sarvar Irani watched the ceremony furtively on her smartphone during her workday as a mall administrative officer. At home she has dozens of rare books, stamps and other memorabilia, collected over decades, highlighting Elizabeth and Princess Diana.
“Something about [the queen’s] eyes and her smile told me she must be a kind and nice person,” said Irani, 61. “That sparkle is gone forever now.”
But most Indians, particularly young people, felt little nostalgia. The queen’s death has sparked a complicated conversation here over colonial legacy, and so even as world leaders and heads of state gathered in London for the service, there was no profuse expression of sorrow in the country that once was a crucial corner of the British realm. Unlike many of his counterparts, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stayed home.
Mumbai activist Yash Marwah, 27, called the funeral not a “big deal” and didn’t watch it. His first thought on hearing of the queen’s death on Sept. 8 was that it would overshadow more important events.
“I thought of all the news that won’t make it to the news,” he said.
Though India attained independence before Elizabeth was crowned queen, many people feel she could have at least apologized for the violence and plunder that marked British rule in the subcontinent and led to the partition of India and Pakistan.
“There is a need and demand for an apology,” said historian Jyoti Atwal, who teaches at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University.
The closest the queen came to that was in her third and last trip to India in 1997. Before a visit to Jallianwala Bagh, a site in the north where British troops in 1919 had fired on a gathering of unarmed Indian protesters and killed hundreds, the queen obliquely acknowledged the bloody past.
“It is no secret that there have been some difficult episodes in our past,” she said. “Jallianwala Bagh, which I shall visit tomorrow, is a distressing example.”
Yet she went no further, saying “history cannot be rewritten, however much we might sometimes wish otherwise. It has its moments of sadness, as well as gladness. We must learn from the sadness and build on the gladness.”
Atwal said the queen played an important role in outreach to former colonies and that the new king must decide what to do next. “She laid the foundation for this kind of renegotiation and recasting the role between the crown and colonies,” she said. “This is the changed scenario in which Charles has to function.”
On social media, memes and posts have demanded a return of the Kohinoor, a 105.6-carat diamond originally from India that adorns the queen’s crown. “Reminder that Queen Elizabeth is not a remnant of colonial times,” one tweet noted. “She was an active participant in colonialism.”
And just last week, Modi renamed a stretch of road in the heart of Delhi that had been called Kingsway or Rajpath. He described it as a “symbol of slavery.”
“Today, we are filling the picture of tomorrow with new colours, leaving behind the past,” he said.