Nikki Campbell: Today on The Big Questions,
Should we be proud of the British Empire?
Good Morning
I am Nikki Campbell.
Welcome to The Big Questions today!
We are at the Oasis Academy Media City UK, in Salford
to debate one very big question.
Should we be proud of the British Empire?
Welcome everybody to The Big Questions.
Well, the British Empire once covered 13 million square miles
and held sway over 458 million people.
It was the largest empire in history.
The extent of its territories across all the continents colored the maps pink
and created an empire on which the sun truly never set
but across the 20th century its power waned.
Most of its nearest neighbour island fought
and won the right to self-rule in 1922.
The imperial jewel in the crown.
India and Pakistan gained independence in 1947.
Britain's new impotence was evident over sewers in 1956
and then country after country
in Africa, the Caribbean and the far east
went their own way.
All it's left
is the British Commonwealth
plus a few wind swept outposts
and tax havens.
Looking back now, was the British Empire
something to swell our chests with pride
or something to be deeply ashamed of?
Well, we've gathered together
entrepreneurs, historians, faith leaders commentators and activists
from across the Commonwealth to debate that question
and you can join in too on Twitter or online
by logging on to bbc.co.uk/thebigquestions.
Big Questions!
Join by following the link to the online discussion
plus there will be lots of encouragement and contributions
from our very lively and intelligent Salford audience.
Should we be proud of the British Empire?
Good morning everybody.
Charles Allen, historian and writer,
Lord Curzon, viceroy of India for it was he said,
"The empire was a supreme force for good in the world."
Charles Allen: Yes he says,
"It was the greatest institution the world has ever seen"
he said, "To me the message is
hew in rock and hew in stone, our work is righteous and it shall endure."
Of course because it didn't endure
the question is was it righteous?
NC: Was it righteous?
CA: I think we have to say it's like the 'curate's egg',
it's good in parts.
I also think we need to clarify there are two definite models here
and going back to the Greeks and the Romans,
the Greeks concept of imperialism was the colony.
Your little island is not big enough so you had to find somewhere else to live.
So you move, settle and become independent.
The other model I suspect is the one that upsets us.
The model like Rome where you become extremely predatory.
You attack the Sabines and you take their women,
you attack the Etruscans and you gradually expand
and eventually you end up exploiting a weaker nation and then you...
NC: Which model were we ?
CA: We are a mix of both precisely.
We have got places like Canada and Australia
and indeed America I suppose you could say
where in a sense the local population was not big enough to resist.
NC: But look, you mentioned Australia
Look at the the genocide of the Tasmanian people.
What we did to the Aboriginals and Maoris
and look at the atrocities.
Do they not outweigh any good that may have come from...
I mean look, it's a hall of shame Charles.
The Bengal famine 1769-73 under the aegis
of the East India Company where 10 million people died
because of wilful incompetence.
Massacres that Amritsar and
atrocities in Kenya relatively recently.
How can we be in any way proud?
CA: I think by today's standards we cannot!
NC: Today's standards!
CA: But nevertheless what we have to do when we actually look at it
particularly me as a historian
we have to set in some kind of context.
NC: Yeah
CA: If we talk about British-India we have to say
"What was there before the British came, what was in other parts of the world
when the British were there and what legacy did they leave?"
Really it's there that we can pick out
what to me are straws because my family they deeply involved in British India.
My father was one of the last of the civil service to rule over India.
I actually I am a child of the empire.
I saw it in action
and I saw in a sense the best to it
because here I saw one man.
My memories of him are very strong.
Sitting on the veranda
as it were dispensing justice, paternalistic.
You called might call it dictatorial, impartial justice
on a model that seemed to work very well.
But as I said, that is the good aspect
but of course there are other aspects too.
NC: There are, and we shall explore
at both sides of the imperial coin as we proceed.
Dr Anita Ghosh,
what Charles says there is interesting.
It's all about the context
and perhaps, we are rather value-led,
when we look at the past,
and value-led history is bad history.
There were atrocities and appalling things.
What were the good things?
Anita Ghosh: Well, the good things were also there
and like Charles I agree it's hard to draw any line there.
We are organized in the form of a debate today
so we are encouraged to take sides.
NC: No, listen, listen,
You can agree with each other that's fine. We're looking for a genuine enlightenment.
AG: In terms of the good things
I think the infrastructure that was left behind
by the British in India
which were built for reasons of exploitation and extraction of resources.
NC: No altruism.
AG: No altruism there whatsoever.
One of the byproducts I think is the infrastructure
that was left behind of the empire.
Which you could say gave India an added benefit in 1947,
which propelled us into the modern age
but I see that as a by-product of the empire.
It wasn't put in place for the good of people.
I mean the railways for instance which are very often cited
as one of the best things that the British left behind
they were there for the extraction of resources.
If you look at the way the railways were planned in the 19th century
they were directly connecting the ports to the hinterlands.
That was the sole purpose.
They were not connecting cities, towns
or people to pilgrimage centres, where people would have loved to go,
but they were built in a strategic way
functioning as arteries of extraction.
NC: When you look back as a British Indian—
AG: At exploitation.
NC: Yes, at exploitation.
When you look back as a British Indian, are you angry?
AG: Yes, I am.
NC: What you most angry about?
AG: The way the empire functioned, the way it was set up.
It was a hugely unequal power structure.
A sovereign state went in to invade another sovereign state
by virtue of its military might and economic power,
that fundamentally was unfair.
Everything else that emerges out of that
is a direct result of that process.
So the moment at which historians have,
as I am sure some of my colleagues would know
historians have called this the "Absent-Minded Empire".
It was not an absent-minded empire.
People went in knowing what they wanted.
It was it was very well structured and organized.
Otherwise how could a handful of people from millions of miles away
construct such an effective system which was the British Empire in India.
NC: David Vance what are you proud of ?
David Vance: Well, I am proud of the British Empire.
I think if you look at it
in the general context of in 1897,
I think the year of Queen Victoria's Silver Jubilee.
Britain controlled about 25 percent of the world.
What a remarkable achievement for these little islands!
The fact is that were this an audience of Italians
celebrating the Roman Empire or an audience of Spanish.
They would be proud of their empire but we are not supposed to be.
NC: Is there anything you are ashamed of ?
DV: From a 2016 perspective lots!
You just said Nicky that
"If you're going to have revisionist history
that's very bad history."
At the time in the moment, the British Empire achieved lots of good
and it leaves legacies which bring lots of good.
That needs to be said loud and clear.
The revisionist argument trying to apply our standards in 2016 to things
that happened hundreds of years ago, in my mind is folly.
Owen Jones: People were horrified at the time
about many of these crimes and to give an example of Ireland.
Half its population either died or fled
because of the potato famine in the 19th century.
Whether it be...
There's a brilliant book by a guy called Mike Davis
called 'Late Victorian Holocausts'.
It looks at how when tens of millions of Indians were starving to death
in the middle of the 19th century.
The British were exporting grain
and leaving them to starve these are crimes of historical proportions.
What I am frustrated about this debate is
we have so much to be proud of in our history,
that we don't talk about the people
who fought for our rights and freedoms, for the right to vote,
for the welfare state against racism,
and against homophobia for trade union rights and workers' rights.
That's a history we should be proud of,
not a history of subjugating the world and invading it.
NC: Going into other people's countries
taking their resources, subjugating them
very often dehumanizing them and very often killing them.
DV: Yes, empires rise and empires fall!
No empire to the best of my knowledge has been perfect
none of them has provided utopia
there's plenty like the Soviet Empire for example
that have provided nothing but the genocide of millions of people.
I think as empires go the British Empire was generally speaking reasonably benign
and I think to characterize it in the way that you say Owen,
for example, ignoring the fact that were it not for the the royal navy,
would the slave trade have ended?
OJ: Well it's funny you should say that because—
NC: Wait hang on, Charles Allen.
Actually I'll tell you what, I'll save you Charles Allen because Anita,
I saw you a couple of times wanting to come back in.
AG: You were talking about the value system
and I think that's absolutely essential
in our sitting in judgment of our empire today
and like you said, what was going on then
in the late 19th century in Africa with the Nama massacres and everything.
These are contemporary concerns of those times
where this is where we need to make a distinction
between the Roman Empire and the British Empire.
Post enlightenment, given this is the post-humanist period.
We are talking of an age of liberalism and humanism.
How could empire be justified even by those contemporary standards?
So this is not a 21st century inflection
of our values onto the empire in those days
but by contemporary standards this is post-humanism.
CA: Can I talk about...
NC: Charles you can and there is a lady right behind you.
CA: Go on.
NC: Are you deferring?
CA: Yes of course I am.
NC: I will be with you right after.
Good morning.
Audience: Good morning,
Well the values and truth remain the truth
whether it's in the 18th century or the 21st century.
One human should not exploit another human, full stop.
So whether it happened in the 18th century, 19th century or today.
So I would say—
NC: It is an absolute truth.
Audience: It is an absolute truth.
NC: Yes, but Charles isn't an empire the default position of history.
We are all the legacy of some empire, everyone on the planet is.
We had the Roman Empire, Venetian Empire
the Arab Empire, the slave trade and the Islamic Empire.
On it goes, should we be beating ourselves up about this?
CA: If you look at history,
it is essentially the exploitation of man by man
NC: Yes, it's what humans do.
CA: The part that makes humans strong.
So really you have a question of what empire it is.
Now if I can just look at the 18th century
which is when the British come onto the map in India
Now we have two... Three empires essentially
we have Aurangzeb, the last of the Mughal Emperors.
Now he tries to rule India with one standard law
which actually happens to be Sharia.
He brings in a whole series of rules
which essentially discriminate against the Hindus.
Now the other model we have are the Sikhs.
Now the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh are trying again...
They are essentially nevertheless a predatory empire.
They're expanding and they again have another model
which essentially draws on an even earlier system
which is the caste system.
The caste system now,
Sikhs would disagree with me I suspect.
But I do this deliberately because...
We have the Hindu model. which is deeply racist
NC: Did we exploit the caste system or did we try to get rid of the caste system.
CA: What I am saying is that when the Brits come in,
the British do try and have the idea that the law applies to all equally.
NC: Okay.
CA: So this is a new model in the Indian context.
There are advantages in that
which is to this day the Indian penal code
was developed by Macaulay in the 1830s and it just still functions today.
NC: All right Jagraj, you come in here.
Andrea, I'll be right with you.
I mentioned the caste system there
and you were agreeing as i posited
the fact that it was exploited by the British ruling elite.
Jagraj first of all,
when you look back at the British Empire, what do you think, what are your feelings?
Jagraj Singh: Well, I grew up in India till I was about 11.
I can tell you that just coming back to the point there,
the fact is that now a lot of the voices that were unheard
are coming out into the forth.
So when we look back now it's from a more balanced viewpoint.
We can look back and hear the voice of those that were actually exploited.
We can realize actually, it wasn't so good.
Here what we're seeing now is that the propaganda
of the British government is now...
The power back then was so powerful.
Before every movie they would have,
cheering natives thanking the British Empire.
It was all designed to make people here feel good
that actually this was a force for good
and that viewpoint has endured.
Even though it wasn't real,
even though the people didn't want to be exploited
Many Indians fought against the British to get them out of India
but that viewpoint was kept quiet,
and the point that was sold to the British public here was that
"This is an empire that is actually designed as a force for good."
What I find worst about this is that, that viewpoint now,
looking back 100 years later.
Hearing about all the exploitation and all the murders.
We can still sit there thinking
"Oh no there must be something good about it"
It's fake, it's not real.
In reality the people never wanted to be exploited
Many great nations were destroyed.
NC: There's no mitigating the negative.
You hear this a lot, mixed feelings, love hate.
JS: There may be something good about getting shot in the back
but you might say "Some good came out of that."
Now we can straggle
we can look around for a few straws here and there and say
"Well we had a benign rule or we made some railways."
In reality it was a very exploitative system.
Dr Lalvani, Kartar Lalvani, you wouldn't come back.
Dr Kartar Lalvani: Actually, it was during the British rule
when all the castes, cultures, races and religions
worked together for the first time in 5000 years.
It goes back, the caste system...
NC: Is that because of the British rule?
KL: The first time, in the British rule.
They worked together in the army,
all the untouchables and then
everybody worked and ran for the first time.
So were the railways and the Boston telegraph,
again hundreds of thousands worked together.
There's no problem. It was actually the first time in...
As India was a conglomerate of many kingdoms
and the British made them work together.
Then took time to collect and put them together
and conquered other things.
NC: So a sense of nationhood almost was...
KL: It was British who created India, there was no India before.
Out of a conglomerate of many kingdoms they made one India.
NC: That was a good thing.
KL: Yes, very good thing.
NC: Can I ask you Dr.Lalvani?
Do you think...
You do hear this sometimes and it is a contentious thing
but you read it and you hear it when people say
"Ultimately in terms of social progress
the British Empire in India was a civilizing mission."
Do you believe that?
KL: It certainly was, most certainly
JS: I think the British Empire destroyed—
NC: I will let you come back in a second.
Explain what you mean.
Look here, certainly he should know better than anybody else,
he is a Sikh,
but I don't know what he's saying.
Let me tell you it was first time, the burning of the Sati—
The widows who would be burned in their husband's pyre.
Over 1000 years, there were many kings
not one king ever bothered to do anything about it.
NC: British stopped it.
KL: British stopped it.
Not just the British but the British Company stopped it.
The company took a great risk by indulging into social matters.
The kings did not bother before.
DV: This is the point, that to look at it in black and white is actually wrong.
You have to have a more nuanced view.
NC: David sorry, I will get Jagraj to come back in.
because Jagraj is extremely exercised.
Lawrence in a second. David I will let you come back.
My Goodness, everyone wants to speak to me,
and Andrea, you too.
KL: There's a lot of social reforms including the infanticide.
If a girl is born—
NC: The British stopped infanticide.
KL: They stopped it. It was banned. So a lot of things.
The person who should appreciate this most of all is Mr Singh.
I don't understand.
NC: Mr Singh, are these inconvenient truths?
These civilizing influences and examples of social progress?
JS: I think what we are seeing here is somebody...
A mindset which is basically the colonial mindset.
Where people have been programmed to believe
that people are coming here to exploit you for your own good.
They look past the exploitation and think,
well they gave us a few things.
Let me just go back to those two points
that they raised about Sati and female infanticide.
Well, firstly the Guru's banned that.
So what we are seeing is that the empire that the Sikhs built,
the law for every Sikh...
I take issue with that fadaise about Sikhs mandating Sati.
For a Sikh it was totally against the law,
something made by the Gurus in the 17th century,
to ever have Sati or female infanticide.
Issues like this make me think that actually we had a very high culture
and then we were told
"Oh your culture was actually terrible."
In fact it was amazing,
the Sikh Empire never had any capital punishment
so we had an empire that was so talented and yet nobody was—
NC: Charles Allen.
CA: How many of Ranjit Singh's wives had to commit Sati?
KL: That's right.
JS: Ranjit Singh was not the epitome of Sikh religion.
He was in fact called to account by the Sikh leader.
CA: So, he was the head of the Sikh empire.
JS: No he was the king of a Sikh Empire,
but he was not seen as an exemplary Sikh.
He was punished by the Sikh authorities themselves.
He was pulled to be whipped by the Sikh Empire in Amritsar.
NC: Just clarifying, Lawrence in a second and Andrea I've got you.
Just clarify what you're saying.
CA: I'm just saying if you go to Lahore,
you will see the imprints of all the wives of Ranjit Singh
who had to be cremated on his funeral pyre when he died.
JS: Not actually, they chose to be, just to make that point
I've heard the history, they chose to be.
CA: That's a good thing?
JS: Listen, we're not judging Ranjit Singh.
CA: You are defending Sikhism as being anti-Sati.
JS: So Sikhism versus Ranjit Singh are two very different things.
NC: Everyone, we're into a very rich scene with this debate.
Laurence Reece.
Lawrence James: Well first of all
NC: Sorry, Lawrence James I do beg your pardon.
LJ: First of all we seem to be examining the tree
rather than having a look at the forest.
We've got odd incidents of injustice here, hospital opened here, so on.
NC: Take us into the forest.
LJ: I think there's important context to come.
NC: Yeah.
LJ: The whole empire, I take to be the forest
and I think we put it in context.
During the 18th and 19th century
there are several revolutions in Europe.
An intellectual, a scientific and an industrial.
They gave Europe, what I might call Western Europe,
certainly a preponderance of power.
At the same time in Europe, there is an enlightened movement to say
"We should share these things with other people."
If you like, when the first...
Banal example perhaps,
but the first cinema opens in India in 1896.
This is a very simple example of the sharing of knowledge.
Now that is quite important and essential.
The fact that there were a lot of cads, scoundrels and rascals
running this empire is certain.
We will all agree on that.
There were also men of virtue, integrity and honesty.
NC: Of course.
LJ: I think we should look in that general position,
that the empire is transforming the world.
Quite an amazing transformation.
NC: Ultimately a force for good?
LJ: I think a force for good
but there were some villains hanging around, yes.
They are in all human institutions.
NC: Yeah indeed, so an engine of change, there is a phrase that
"The sun never set on the British Empire
because the almighty couldn't trust what the British would get up to in the dark."
It was certainly a playground for many.
Femi, Andrea one second but Femi's trying to come in here.
You have been responsible for the campaign to get rid of the Cecil Rhodes statue.
Do beg your pardon Andrea but I will be with you.
Join us.
Femi Nylander: We had a bit of talk about the instrumentalization
of the caste system in India in the British colonial rule.
The British Raj was actually a model
for the use of the Hausa-Fulani's in Northern Nigeria, an indirect rule.
The British Raj was the was the model
for a lot of what happened later in the process of colonization.
You mentioned that "There are legacies of empire."
I would say the Darfur conflict and the recent civil war in Sudan,
is a legacy of the fact that you split
the Arab North and the Black African South into two segments
and developed the north whilst leaving the south.
NC: The British are entirely responsible for that?
LN: I would say that the British are largely responsible.
There was conflict in Sudan before the British came,
There was not racial conflict.
There was conflict but it was not as heavily along racial lines.
Now there are.
LJ: I thought the northern parts of Sudan were preying on the south.
In the Sudanese slave trade which General Gordon helped destroy,
relied on the north, the Islamic north
taking people from the tribal region to the south
and selling them into Egypt.
FN: There are three segments,
you have animist and Christian, Black Africans in the south.
In the middle, Muslim Black Africans and you have the north with Arab Muslims.
It was a Muslim Animist conflict mainly
before the imposition of Christianity in the south.
NC: People make their own decisions to rape, pillage and exploit.
Whether that be the British, they don't make their own decisions.
FN: This is the same argument of the fact
that there's so much crime in Black America
because there are primordial tensions for these...
It's not socioeconomic and structural inequality
In the same way—
NC: So you would say the Janjaweed militia is not our fault?
FN: Well no if you look at most conflicts in Africa at the moment
and you look at most ethnic conflict,
a lot of it is due to poverty and people...
A lot of Boko Haram comes from our Maiduguri schools
which are impoverished schools in northern Nigeria,
where hundreds of kids have to go out and beg.
I have been to Kaduna and seen them myself.
NC: So the rape of resources
and drawing of those straight lines on the map.
Hey David Vance, do you want to come back in here for a bit and then Andrea ?
DV: Well, I mean just to revert back
to what we have been talking about a couple of minutes ago.
It did take the British Empire to stop the burning of widows in India
and whilst we talk about so many other things,
that was a clear demonstrable advance of civilization in that part of the world.
Had it not been for Britain, it wouldn't have happened.
NC: Andrea, sorry to take so long to come to you.
Dr Andrea Major: Yeah.
NC: Sorry to have taken so long to come to you.
AM: Thank you.
Going back to this whole thing around civilizing mission.
I think what we have to understand is that
even in the 19th century the British felt they had to justify what they were doing
because it was known to be inherently wrong
so the emphasis on things like the abolition of Sati
and I'm not going to defend burning widows for a second.
I'm not sorry that they abolished it
and I have problems with the idea of voluntary sati
so I am not defending that,
but I don't have a problem...
DV: Was it a good thing?
AM: That's not why we were there,
a by-product doesn't justify the enduring spectre.
NC: Andrea, was it a case that there were good noble-minded people there...
As humans are complex creatures...
Who saw this and thought "This is wrong."
Who in very good faith sought to and succeeded in abolishing it.
You give those people credit?
AM: I absolutely would give those people credit.
Of course in any place, in any time there are good people and bad people.
There are people who are working from good intentions and
what they believe to be good intentions at the time,
and also those who are willing to undertake nefarious acts
to personally profit or profit the nation. Of course there's good and bad.
NC: Rose in just one second to talk about the spread of religion.
That said...
AM: I don't think that we can take a few examples of civilizing mission.
I mean Sati affected maybe 500 widows a year?
There are thousands of pages of parliamentary papers on them.
None on hundreds of thousands of people who died of famine.
NC: Professor Lalvani.
KL: Yes, I think it is far more to be appreciated
that the authority who stopped it was a company
and the company was solely responsible to directors.
NC: East India Company.
KL: They didn't have business to do
what the kings could not dare to do in India before.
They had the courage to do it.
This is it's a very great achievement. It didn't just normally stop.
NC: An early manifestation of globalization.
KL: They were strongly advised...
JS: What you're seeing here is the best of British values
and we can't say that Britain has no good values
NC: Your British.
JS: I'm in the British army. I spent four years.
I believed in British values.
NC: Yeah.
JS: I do think that the current Britain we are living in now
does have at the best, very good enlightened values.
That is not to say that we look back in India
and find a few little good things that we did and
then say "Well the whole thing must have been good."
the reality is there were some terrible things that were done.
It's just about knowing.
NC: Dr Lalvani.
KL: They did good things, I don't know where to start from.
There's so many, one after the other.
I have a 20 chapter book of good things the British did.
Railway is only one and there's 20 more.
Now you see what judiciary was before and the judiciary—
NC: Civic society, judiciary system, you talked about those.
KL: The first university in India was built by the British.
NC: The Empress of India, Queen Victoria.
She never went there, did she?
JS: We had universities ourselves.
KL: The first three universities were built by the company itself.
NC: Okay, listen everyone.
Femi mentioned the religions in Sudan, Animism and Islam and Christianity.
Let's talk.
It brings us nicely to talking about religion.
and the missionary spreading the good word of the Lord.
That wasn't a good thing though, was it?
You were destroying people's cultures
I am not saying you were Rose
but people's cultures were destroyed.
Rose Hudson Wilkin: Absolutely, I would agree with that entirely.
As a Christian I want to agree with Christianity
but at the same time recognizing that along with Christianity
people brought their own culture with them.
Of course people had their own religions where they were.
The audacity of the British Empire to think that
"We know what is right and yours is no longer important or valuable."
There was health and education.
Some of the longest serving establishments in terms of education and health
were brought through the Christian medium there.
So it is not so much—
NC: Another 'curate's egg'.
RHW: Well, whatever you may call it
but the reality is we cannot just say...
I personally with my hand on my heart cannot say that
"I am proud of the British Empire."
I am not just looking at it through rose-tinted lens.
NC: As it were.
RHW: As it were.
I really do believe that some awful things were done
and you (DV) mentioned about the British demolishing slavery.
They didn't.
It was the people who were being enslaved who were making slavery unworkable.
DV: I am afraid Rose what that does is,
it simply contradicts the fact that the British navy was the instrument
to ensure that the slave trade was eventually removed.
It is matter of historical fact. How can you deny history?
NC: Let's go to the audience. Some arms have sprung up in the audience.
Audience: It was a con.
The navy actually took Africans
and indentured them on the Caribbean to work just like...
The bad thing is that they also took many back to Africa again
to endure poverty and trouble.
So in fact it was not a good thing that the navy did.
Not at all! Don't believe that brother.
So would you think that had the royal navy not sought to stop the slave trade
it would have magically stopped anyway?
Audience: No they didn't, no no.
They actually encouraged it in the sense of using those same Africans
to do what the planters wanted.
That was the point.
NC: Well hence, of course the Jamaican Rebellion
which was some years after emancipation because of the disappointment that
emancipation had not made a difference to their lives
and that was very brutally put down.
When was it' It was the 18—
Audience: 1865. NC: 1865.
Yes so right beside you.
Audience: So this gentleman here wants to promote
this image of some utopian British Empire and then talk about a Soviet dystopia.
The Caribbean was a dystopia for the Caribbean people,
the Africans who were transported, as this gentleman said.
You are trying to present this position about the navy cancelling slavery.
Say who stopped slavery,
it was the Africans who for hundreds of years
in the Caribbean rebelled violently against...
At the same time, granted there were
a lot of people in the UK who fought for abolition as well,
but don't posit this position because from the late 1500s until 1833
there was forced migration of 20 million people
plus all of their descendants were forced dehumanization,
rape, movement of culture and eradication of culture.
For you to try and say "Oh the navy stopped it."
It's frankly historically disingenuous.
Finally, about the navy point,
the French wars of the early 19th century when we were fighting the French,
it was partly just an excuse to attack French ships.
"Okay, we have abolished slavery
the people have abolished slavery. How can we attack the French?
I know the French who..."
Yes, granted it was your other Europeans who were transporting slaves across
and who cancelled their own slave trades after.
An excuse then to attack French ships because
"When we are at peace with the French we can't just attack them,
but since we don't like slavery anymore
we can attack any ship flying French colours."
You read the historical parliamentary papers.
The excuse essentially is "Let's attack the French
because we're in a time of peace but they're carrying the flag."
So don't try and posit the navy as this great humanization force
when it was that same navy who enforced that policy
of forced migration of people for 350 years prior.
DV: I'm not suggesting—
NC: Excuse me.
Do you (audience member) want to come sit in the front row?
AG: Can I put this in context?
NC: I'll let you come back. Anita, go on.
AG: I think we need to put this in context.
We have to also understand
that while all this debate about abolishing was going on,
40% of the contemporary state budget
was given to former slave owners as compensation.
40% the contemporary state budget!
That much money was at stake here, that was given over to the slave owners.
Why did they need to be pacified?
Why did they need to be paid compensation for exploiting people's lives?
DV: Well, of course it wasn't—
NC: Owen Jones.
OJ: I mean somewhere at the end of the slave trade
It's like going on a killing spree
and then saying "I don't like killing anymore."
You won't pat them on the back for it, would you?
I just wanted to bring that point about cinemas
which I thought was quite a curious point,
because it is possible to have cultural exchange
and to share culture and ideas without conquering much of the world and
inflicting famines which killed tens of millions of people.
NC: I think Lawrence said it was a trivial example.
LJ: …do carry on.
OJ: Final point, it is this argument that somehow again
we're applying 21st century standards to the past.
In the 1950s there was the marijuana uprising in Kenya
against British rule.
The British Empire responded brutally, killed thousands of people—
NC: It was patched up here, wasn't it?
OJ: I'm just making this point.
People spoke up against it. Do you know who one of them was?
That well-known lefty, Enoch Powell who condemned the British brutality in Kenya.
The point I am making is this.
There were people who stood up against this brutality.
It is a disservice and a smear on those people at the time
who fought for the freedom of people to say that
"They did not do so and we're just applying the standards of today to then."
DV: The broader point here which some seem to have rather overlooked is
no one's arguing that the British Empire was a utopian model of empire.
There never has been a utopian model of empire.
Let me finish my point.
There's never been a utopian model of empire.
The very fact that the British Empire did contribute in the mid 18th century
towards the stopping of the slave trade shows that it was a
it was a more enlightened empire than many others that existed—
JS: That's true.
DV: …but you're not here to whinge about them.
NC: You agree with that, do you?
JS: I think the Arab Empire was far more brutal.
NC: Yeah.
JS: I want to make just one point though,
the thing with the Arab Empire...
As the Sikhs suffered from both the British Empire and the Arab Empire.
The thing with the Arab Empire is the Sikhs knew that
"These are our enemies, we are going to fight them."
With the British Empire. it was it was a bit more nuanced
How they tried to do was, they tried to change the Sikh religion.
So the Arabs never really tried to change the Sikh religion
and try to twist it to suit them.
It was just straight out and clear.
NC: Full On.
JS: They are your enemies and you...
With the British it was very much a case of
taking a religion which was very independent,
very free, very freedom loving
and try to convert that into something which you can use for your own benefit.
Convince these people to join the British Army.
Convince them that it's for their own good and use them to subjugate other Indians.
The British were far more—
NC: Subtle.
JS: No, not subtle, they were far more
NC: Insidious.
JS: Insidious yes, exactly. Dangerous.
NC: Lawrence, let's talk about decolonization.
There are things I want to return to as well.
The Christianization as well.
It's when we come on to talk about legacies,
that's left some people argue some very negative legacies.
It's tearing apart the Anglican communion
at the moment with very conservative Christianity,
homophobia rife in the West Indies and in Africa Jamaica.
Lawrence, let's talk about decolonization and generally those
sitting down in those straight lines drawn on the map in Africa and
no understanding of tribal or ethnic complexities in that continent.
I mean I suppose, empires have been historically rather short on foresight
but we made some terrible mistakes there, didn't we?
LJ: Well I am not sure, African states...
No let's think of it.
How many African states are fighting boundary wars at the moment ?
FN: Quite a few actually. You have a lot of interaction.
LJ: Well, then they will fight them, but let's forget about the boundaries.
I think that's slightly irrelevant.
What is relevant is that in the British Empire between 1939-1945,
the British government asked for the assistance of the subjects of empire
to fight the Second World War
and this generated a powerful sense of reciprocity.
Well I think Indians and Africans knew
what Hitler and Mussolini had in store for them.
It was very nasty.
So they fought and at the end of the war in 1945
thousands upon tens of thousands of them,
in the French as well as the British Empire
came home and asked the question
"We have risked our lives in a fight which we have been told,"
and rightly so I believe,
"Was a morally good cause, What do we have in return?
We have been fighting a war for freedom,
the freedoms of president Franklin Roosevelt's
'The Atlantic Charter',
what share are we going to get of the spoils of this war."
I think that's the first thing in the background to decolonization,
thousands and thousands of Africans
with the educated elite and ex-soldiers were asking the question
"This freedom we fought for, for five years, when is it coming to us?"
JS: That's a good point.
LJ: The British government turned around and said
"Well, I think we have got to consider decolonization"
In 1945, the labour government comes to power promising it India, Pakistan—
NC: With no money...
JS: Yes, exactly.
LJ: Yes they won it and it was a manifesto
the Labour said
"We will give independence to India, Shalom and Burma."
This was in the Labour manifesto
and of course it came about in 1947.
They go further into saying "This will be extended to Africa."
No one could work out quite what the timetable would be.
The 1990s was given,
until 1950 and then something else happens in 1945.
I'll cut off here.
We have the beginning of a cold war
in which newly independent countries are going to find that the
Soviet Union and the United States are competing for them.
They are coming along and saying
"Join us, vote for us in the United Nations, we will help you"
To finish, in 1954 an African ruler of an independent country wants weapons
and he asks Khrushchev for weapons. Khrushchev says
"I will give you MiG fighters and tanks. I will make Egypt strong to fight."
In this case Israel,
but also to resist any encroachments by Britain.
Then you have Africa decolonizing at the same time as the Soviet Union,
and the United States are looking for world power and confronting each other.
NC: So we are rather irrelevant.
LJ: Well, Britain does become irrelevant—
NC: Yes and interestingly of course, Nasser.
There are well-sourced arguments that, that secular regime of Nasser,
the reaction to it has led to
many of the Seeds of Islamism and the problems we have there.
One thing leads to another basically.
Can I ask you because you've been trying to come back in, Anita?
If we talk about 1946-47, India's freedom.
If you were to draw a line on the map and to have done it better.
What would you have done? Over to you.
AG: God, I have been put on the spot.
NC: …That's what we're looking for.
AG: Well, I certainly would have taken more than two weeks to draw that body.
I think—
NC: It's an interesting question isn't it?
AG: It is. If I can slightly evade that question and come to another.
NC: It's happened before.
AG: There's so many things just being bandied about in this debate,
that I want to get back to one, which is that the idea
that Britain gave India independence in 1947, is a myth.
I think we need to get over that.
So all the civilizing that we had been doing for all this period,
"We did all this great good to the people. This was the time when we felt that India
was right to be handed over its freedom and we left."
It didn't work like that.
Britain was in a terrible mess in the post-war situation.
It might have been in the Labour manifesto for obvious reasons
but it was also a question
that this was becoming a very expensive colony to maintain.
It just couldn't have happened.
The congress showed itself as downright non-cooperative
during the Second World War and this was the last straw.
This was the time when they were absolutely sure
that no more cooperative talks could go on between themselves and Britain.
So from the point of view of the Indian freedom struggle,
it had reached its head as well so this had to be solved.
It was internal pressure as well,
so it wasn't just the war and all the aspirations for liberation that
had been suddenly sparked alive in people that led it.
This is a freedom struggle that goes back to 1885.
The Second World War wasn't suddenly creating all these aspirations in people.
Can I just quickly finish?
That is one myth we should get over
and if I can return to what Dr.Lalvani was saying earlier on,
the idea again, that the nation itself was a gift of Britain to India
doesn't absolutely hold true at all.
It wasn't western education, railways or the civilizing mission that did all this
but it was the presence of the British in India.
It was the anti-colonial nature of the struggle that
brought India together.
So the British contributed to the Indian nation but by just being there
and being what they were, which was an oppressive colonial regime.
NC: Let's talk about legacy as well not just decolonization
but legacy of, for example in Africa
we paved the way to Apartheid didn't we David Vance?
Many of the... Femi touched on this, many of the problems in Africa today
are down to how we behaved and what we did.
Should we hide our heads in shame because—
DV: No I don't think that the problems today, right now today in Africa—
NC: Our attitudes to race.
DV: …can be laid at the heart at the door of an empire long since gone Nicky.
I mean it's time people have to
accept responsibility for themselves in their own independence.
NC: People today are still suffering
because of the traits of the slave trade, aren't they?
DV: Which of course is being carried out by other rising empires
such as, for example in terms of the Islamic Empires that we see cropping up.
No we cannot be carrying the consistent guilt
over everything that isn't perfect in every part of the world.
We weren't a perfect empire. I have not said that we were.
Did we make mistakes? Yes we did, but we have done good!
As regards to Africa, I would simply raise this one final point.
When for example Zambia, whenever it was part of the British Empire and
we ruled and governed it.
The average Zambian had an income of about one-seventh of what we had here.
All these years later what do they have? 1-27th of the income we have.
NC: Whose fault is that?
DV: Whose fault is that? We have gone. Who's responsible?
NC: Femi, whose fault is that? Rose in a second.
FN: Firstly, I don't think you can separate Britain being
the fifth richest country in the world from our colonial past at all.
Secondly, there are a few points I want to make.
First one is on Owen and what he said about the Mao Mao insurrection.
We should keep talking about this civilizing mission.
How is bringing civilization to a culture,
systematic internment camps of 1.5 million people,
rape of men with snakes, scorpions and knives,
women and pregnant women shot?
You have kids when the British went to Australia—
NC: Are there atrocities in all empires?
FN: There are atrocities in the French Empire, the Benin Empire—
NC: There are atrocities in all empires. Human beings can be ghastly creatures.
FN: …but these people were not writing about liberalism at the time and freedom.
NC: There are atrocities in all empires.
FN: Yes there are, but not all empires call themselves "civilizing missions".
NC: Well...
OJ: Everyone else is killing people, so we're doing that....
NC: Whose saying that.
FN: Another point I'll make is, you mentioned
"How many wars are there in Africa at the moment?"
In a flippant kind of way.
The British media does nothing to cover the Congo civil war,
the biggest war since World War II. It doesn't look at it.
The British media did not look at the Angolan war
which went on even though it was not a British ex-colony
but it went on for 40 odd years
which is two-thirds of the extent to which some of the last colonies were.
Then they're saying "It's not that long ago"
60 years is not a very long time at all.
NC: In the great span of history.
FN: In the great span of history.
NC: Charles Allen we have not heard from you for a while.
Rose in a second.
We're going to talk about legacy, Charles Allen.
CA: I think there's an awful tendency to simplify the fact that
we do not study this period and indeed in many countries which are
newly liberated or been liberated from 1947 onwards
and I use that word 'liberated' as it is a liberation.
They do not study anything rather than the freedom movement
India is a classic example.
if you ask people about what happened in the 19th century
people will not know because this freedom movement has now become
"We need national myths and founding myths",
and I can understand why every country
whether it's Kenya or one that needs to portray the freedom struggle
in the most positive terms but it's it's all ambivalent.
There are nuances here which are being missed.
In the question of Mau Mau for instance,
how many other tribes beyond the Kikuyu got involved?
How much of that was actually about land grabbing by the Kikuyu?
Who were the victims? Other Africans.
Who were the main victims? Very few Europeans actually got killed
by the Mau Mau so it's not simple black and white.
This is history, my worry is that now we're getting a black and white history
but there are so many nuances involved
Nuances are the great delights of history aren't they?
Let's talk about legacy.
Rose, you can come in without me even asking you a question.
RHW: Yes I would like us not necessarily to go away feeling guilty about
the atrocities of the British Empire.
What I want us to do however is to acknowledge that there were major issues.
That is still impacting us today.
So for example, by virtue of paying the slave owners and
giving nothing to those who are the victims of it
have left people still in that victim mode.
By virtue of taking away people's culture and killing who they are,
is why racism in our present time exists. We still think
"We are white we are great, black you are not good enough."
NC: Rose, can i just say something?
We see this happening all over the world
from one set of human beings towards another set of humans.
We see the rape of resources in Africa from the Chinese Empire at the moment.
There are still the American Empire, the Chinese Empire.
There will always be empires,
there will always be human beings doing terrible things
RHW: We are discussing the British Empire.
NC: Yeah we are discussing the British Empire,
which do you think has a uniquely pernicious legacy
because of the slave trade and the racial aspect?
RHW: It is there, we cannot deny it. Why is it that our children today
do not learn about cultural things of their particular groups?
Why is it only what is 'Eurocentric'?
NC: Can we take upon ourselves a type of collective guilt,
the people watching today? Should we feel guilty?
RHW: Guilt is useless.
NC: Are we responsible in the way we spread Christianity for homophobia?
I was listening to a documentary
the other day of a phobia in Jamaica and they were saying
"Look you gave us the bible, the truth and we believed it
and all of a sudden you're telling us not to believe it."
RHW: Well, I would agree that that's wrong.
I would never condone that but the point that I—
NC: Are we responsible for spreading those attitudes back in the 80s?
RHW: Yes, I think we did spread those and we are reaping the legacy of it today.
DV: So do you think the spreading of Christianity was wrong therefore?
RHW: It's not so much about the spreading of Christianity.
It's what we packaged it in
NC: Rose I just want to explore something.
There are very strong arguments that we're
responsible for the spread of homophobia and spreading those attitudes
but there have been generations after generations
trying to change the penal codes and they haven't changed the penal codes,
so can we still put the blame on our door?
RHW: That is a very good question. I think we are very much still under
the umbrella of it as it were, of that painful time in history.
NC: Still very close to...
Audience, yes you've had your hand up for so long and I've been trying.
Audience: There's been a lot of nonsense talked this morning and...
NC: You should come every week.
Audience: Yeah the saddest thing is I think I've seen this morning,
the typical British way
where the two Sikhs have been arguing the most.
I find that interesting.
We talked about how the British went.
They were non-civilized, let me tell you.
You just talked about the Mughal Empire preceding the British Empire.
They were more than civilized, they didn't need you to come in.
Sati is not an Islamic principle but let's modernize it.
As a young British Pakistani Muslim,
what we're talking about now angers me the most.
Muslims are always told
"You don't integrate, you're not involved",
black people are always told "You're not good enough and smart enough,
there's something about your culture, you're criminals,
you need to follow this way of life."
The reality is the British Empire is the biggest reason
that racism exists today in this country.
When you have people like this
on the front row who will always see black, brown, Asian people,
as being below them.
"We subjugated you, we owned you at one stage,
you can't get above your level, how dare you get anywhere."
They keep you at your level.
NC: What's your name?
Audience: Muhammad.
NC: Muhammad, one of the arguments you hear is that one of the
positive legacies of the British Empire is our multicultural society.
Audience: It's not working is it because there's multiculturalism to an extent.
They always want to keep you at a level, they don't want you to progress.
So let's talk about what do we do next?
Well it's interesting in your intro
you talked about India and Pakistan being the jewel in the crown,
literally the jewel in the crown.
You've still got the jewel in your crown, we want it back.
NC: My crown? Whose crown?
Audience: The Queen's, the British.
You're British. The jewel in your crown.
No, it needs to be returned back to the people you stole it from.
I want reparations.
NC: There's a lot of "you" going on here.
Charles Allen
CA: The Kohinoor diamond should go back to the tribal people in Golconda okay.
They're the ones who dug it up.
Audience: Return it.
CA: It certainly shouldn't go to Lahore where it was for very few years
because it's gone through hundreds of rulers and conquerors over the centuries.
The idea of these little simple tokens is not enough.
JS: Yeah it's not.
NC: Let me go back there to that gentleman there you've been...
Yeah you. Good morning to you,
Audience: Good morning well—
NC: Quick point.
Audience: Yes well I just needed a minute.
What I want to say is I've heard some of the most preposterous comments today
made by many panellists.
NC: Which one most of all?
Audience: Mainly from this side (Proud of British Empire).
but we started as, an India with the nation.
Nationhood was given by Britain, thank you.
Yes and then there was infrastructure that was laid
whether it was Indian penal code, post office, railways or the army.
These were all central to the development of the empire,
the infrastructure was necessary for their own needs as one of our panellists—
NC: We had that point out earlier.
We haven't got a lot of time, so come to your point quickly.
Audience: What I'm coming to is, also the social engineering
that we talked about earlier was not given by the British.
It was by all the social engineers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy,
people like Gandhi and Ambedkar. They are the ones who did that.
KL: Very short one.
NC: Very quickly please.
Audience: We have not talked about famines in India.
NC: We have talked about famines. Owen Jones.
OJ: I just think that point you made about race and racism is critical
because obviously to justify empire
people who were being colonized were dehumanized.
They had to be seen as inferior because you wouldn't possibly allow for
that sort of barrier to be conducted
against people you would see as being like yourself
and that legacy scars our society today.
Just finally the worry I have is
people are going to watch this and go "It's a big anti-British hate fest."
The truth is what frightens me is
in our curriculum in schools across the country.
What we're not seeing is the history we should be proud of
that I spoke about before.
People of all backgrounds and faiths, who fought for our rights of freedoms.
NC: Are you proud of Churchill?
OJ: I'm proud of the British war effort against the Nazis,
the service people who went to Europe—
NC: As they said "He had racially supremacist attitudes."
OJ: Of course the people who ran the British Empire were—
Would you like to take his statue down at Churchill?
FN: In the long run I think having a statue of someone who said
"Indians were ghastly people with a ghastly religion,
the famine was their own fault because they bred like rabbits."
DV: He said many things, Churchill.
FN: He was glorifying someone a bit dodgy.
NC: Ultimately would you like the statue to...
FN: I'm not going to make a comment on that
because I'll be dragged through the Daily Mail tomorrow.
Nonetheless just to make your point on...
You said "Chinese rape of African resources",
As if Shell wasn't a British-Dutch company
that was not paying the Nigerian government … in 1990.
NC: Rose.
RHW: I'm proud that we are now a diverse society
NC: Of Chinese.
RHW: We can build on it and go forward.
NC: What is the positive legacy?
What can people look at and remember?
Is there anything about the empire that still binds us together?
RHW: I think Commonwealth for me is a good thing and
I am glad that you gave us cricket and I'm talking with my Caribbean hats on—
NC: That I gave you cricket?
RHW: Yes and look at what we're doing with it.
Look how terrific we are but I'm also glad
that right here in Britain we can be a truly...
We're not fully there yet, we need to work at it.
We need to work at being a better diverse and multi-ethnic multicultural society,
celebrating each other.
DV: There are three enduring legacies that we can be proud of.
We've spread liberal capitalism around the world to the annoyance of some,
we shared a form of government which in many ways still continues and
last but by no means least 450 million people speak English.
What a wonderful legacy as well. So there's lots to be proud of,
we've heard lots of grievance mongering going on.
NC: Wait Andrea you have the very last word and it's a quick one.
AM: Well they only need to speak English today
as the global lingua franca precisely because we did colonise half the world.
DV: You should be proud of that, it is a good thing.
AM: That's not a good thing, That's a necessity brought around...
DV: It's called a achievement.
JS: English is not a very cultured language I'd say.
I mean, I speak English to...
NC: Listen we did a Shakespeare special a few weeks ago.
JS: When I speak to my kids I have to
constantly tell them you've got to speak to elders with a bit more respect
because English does not have that verb left anymore for adults
which French has, and it's not a good thing.
NC: It was a matter of time...
JS: It's an achievement but it's not a great achievement.
It's actually a very negative achievement.
RHW: Let me fuss about immigration. We are because you went there.
NC: We're finished Rose.
The sun will never set on The Big Questions.
Thank you very much for watching, see you very soon.