Abstract
The Chattri Indian Monument, erected upon the Sussex Downs above Brighton in 1921, commemorates the Hindu and Sikh soldiers who died in hospitals in Brighton as a result of wounds received fighting for the British Empire in the First World War. The form and name of the monument reference the chatrī, an architectural element characteristic of historical palaces and tombs of northern India. The monument, designed by an Indian architect, Elias Henriques, was intended by the India Office and officials in Brighton to be legible as a hybrid structure, both Indian and British. Conceived as a respectful act of eulogy in honour of Indian soldiers who died in the imperial forces, it nonetheless enshrines the ideology of white supremacy upon which the British Empire rested, and thus embodies the ambiguities of imperial mourning.
Published Version
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