There is something apt about the suggestion that a badger might displace Winston Churchill from Britain’s banknotes. For decades, banknotes have elevated a series of eminent figures into a gallery of saints. What the presence of a kingfisher or a badger might force is a reckoning with all that is lost through a myopic engagement with history. Racial attitudes and the broader ramifications of the Empire have complicated what was once a singular narrative of greatness. His government’s role in the Bengal Famine of 1943, in which nearly 3 million people perished, has come under increasing criticism.

Source: Indian Express March 18, 2026 12:16 UTC