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In wake of #Coronation colonialism & empire are being grappled with new fervour. We’d never see a Robert Clive statue in modern India. His 🇫🇷counterpart (my recent photos) looms over Pondicherry. I’ve a connection w/ Joseph-François Dupleix ex-Governor General of French India 1/5 
Nemesis to #Clive & East India Company (discussed brilliantly @EmpirePodUK w/ @tweeter_anita @DalrympleWill + read his book The Anarchy), Dupleix harboured aspirations of establishing a French empire in India. Oddly, my metro station in #Paris was also named in his glory. 2/5
Spoiler: it all went downhill for Dupleix. He died back in Paris impecunious, despairing. He was no match for Clive’s military & strategic prowess . Yet it is his statue that stands on Indian soil: a jarring nostalgic nod, as if colonizers came in good & bad moral flavours. 3/5
