Episode 7: Government House (Raj Bhavan), Calcutta

Masala History

The history of the Government House, now the residence of the Governor of West Bengal, is a history of the British Empire in India condensed into 26 acres of land at the heart of the "white town" of Calcutta. Amongst its maidan, gardens, and cannons, the Government House stands tall in typical neoclassical fashion--conservative, traditional, and imperial. In this episode, we discuss how a building came to be conceived as the domestic face of an empire and a monument to imperial success, yet, in its use, reuse, and misuse (by birds, animals, and even gardeners of India) stands today as an apt metaphor for colonialism in the Indian subcontinent.