The Empress & Resolution
Resolution: Power, Proclamation, and the Limits of Change
The final scenes of The Empress bring the play to its resolution, but Gupta deliberately avoids a simple happy ending. Instead, she presents a complex mixture of hope and disillusionment. Queen Victoria’s proclamation, the establishment of the Ayahs’ Home, and the historic election of Dadabhai Naoroji all suggest progress, but Gupta undercuts each moment to show that real change has not occurred.
For the exam, the final scenes are where you most need AO1 (evaluation and alternative interpretations). Is the ending hopeful or pessimistic? Does Gupta believe the system can change, or is she showing that progress is always incomplete? You need to be able to argue both sides.
Queen Victoria’s Proclamation
A key moment late in the play is the reference to Queen Victoria’s 1858 proclamation, which placed India under direct Crown rule following the 1857 rebellion. The proclamation promised that Indian subjects would be treated equally, that “none be in anywise favoured, none molested or disquieted, by reason of their religious faith or observances.” Gupta uses this historical document to create a devastating ironic contrast between the Empire’s promises and the characters’ lived reality.
Queen Victoria’s 1858 proclamation promised equality for all Indian subjects. Gupta sets this promise against the ayahs’ abandonment, Hari’s exploitation, and the racism faced by every Indian character. The gap between the proclamation’s words and the characters’ reality is one of the play’s most powerful dramatic effects.
The Ayahs’ Home
The play depicts the establishment of the Ayahs’ Home as a moment of qualified hope. The home provides shelter and safety for the abandoned women, but Gupta presents it as a solution to a problem that should never have existed. The home is an act of charity within a system of exploitation — it helps individual women without challenging the structures that create their suffering.
Gupta makes an important distinction between charity and justice. The Ayahs’ Home is an act of charity — it helps women who have already been harmed. But Gupta implies that what Indian people need is not charity but justice: legal rights, equal pay, protection from exploitation, and an end to the racial hierarchy that treats them as inferior. This distinction is central to the play’s political argument and is worth exploring in your own argument, which is where AO1 marks are won.
The Home also raises the question of who gets to define progress. From a British perspective, establishing the Home might seem generous and progressive. From the ayahs’ perspective, it is a bare minimum response to a catastrophic injustice. Gupta invites the audience to consider whose version of progress matters.
Dadabhai Naoroji’s Election
The play references the historic election of Dadabhai Naoroji as MP for Finsbury Central in 1892 — the first Asian person to be elected to the British Parliament. Gupta presents this as a moment of genuine hope: proof that Indian people could participate in the political system and challenge the Empire from within. Naoroji’s victory is celebrated by the Indian characters as a sign that change is possible.
However, Gupta also complicates this triumph. Naoroji won by a margin of just five votes, and his election was contested by opponents who used racist opposition. Lord Salisbury, the Conservative Prime Minister, said he doubted whether a British constituency would elect “a black man” (his Edinburgh speech, 1888). Hostile campaign opponents also used the term “fire-worshipper” (a reference to Naoroji’s Parsi faith) but this phrase is not Salisbury’s. Students should attribute “a black man” to Salisbury specifically. Gupta uses this to show that even when Indian people achieved success, they faced racism and resistance.
Dadabhai Naoroji was elected MP for Finsbury Central in 1892, the first Asian MP in British history. His election represents hope and political agency, but Gupta complicates this by showing the racist opposition he faced. The play presents progress as real but incomplete.
Hope and Disillusionment
The ending of The Empress is deliberately ambivalent. There are genuine moments of progress — the Ayahs’ Home, Naoroji’s election, the characters’ growing solidarity. But there is no sense that the fundamental injustice of the Empire has been resolved. Racism persists. Exploitation continues. The system remains intact, even if individuals find ways to survive within it.
Gupta avoids a happy ending because she is writing a political play, not a feel-good story. A neat resolution would suggest that the problems of Empire have been solved, which would be historically dishonest. By leaving the ending ambivalent, Gupta forces the audience to recognise that the issues the play raises — racism, exploitation, erased histories — are still relevant today. The play was written in 2013, during a period of intense debate about immigration in Britain. Gupta draws a direct line from Victorian attitudes to contemporary politics.
This refusal to provide closure is a deliberate dramatic choice. It mirrors the historical reality: there was no single moment when Indian people in Britain stopped facing discrimination. Progress was slow, uneven, and constantly challenged. Gupta’s ending reflects this truth.
The play’s final moments ask the audience to hold both hope and disillusionment simultaneously — to recognise that individuals can make a difference while acknowledging that the system they are fighting against is vast, deeply rooted, and slow to change.