Queen Elizabeth II: An exception, not the rule

'She epitomised soft power before we knew what the term meant'

The last few days have aptly summarised the odd relationship between many postcolonial nations and their former oppressors. On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke at the installation of the new statue of Subhas Chandra Bose in the long-empty canopy near India Gate in New Delhi — from which a statue of George V, Queen Elizabeth II’s grandfather, had been removed after independence. Mr Modi’s speech — and the renaming of Rajpath to “Kartavya Path” — was pitched as a reminder of British oppression from which we in India are finally emerging. Constant links were derived between current government policy