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
was 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.

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 organised 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 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 organised.

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 dehumanising them 
and 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 characterise 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 judgement 
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 posthumanism.

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 realise 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 British rule?

KL: The first time, in 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 civilising 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: The British stopped it.

KL: The 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 civilising 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,
a 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 British colonial rule.

The British Raj was actually a model

for the use of the Hausa-Fulani in 
Northern Nigeria, an indirect rule.

The British Raj was the model

for a lot of what happened later 
in the process of colonisation.

You mentioned that 
"There are legacies of the 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 no 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 the civilising 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 the civilising 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.

It's a very great achievement. 
It didn't just normally stop.

NC: An early manifestation 
of globalisation.

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 there.

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.

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 a 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 a 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.

DV: 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 dehumanisation,

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% of 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 civilising 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 to 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 civilising 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 civilising 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 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.

NC: Nuances are the great delights 
of history aren't they?

Let's talk about legacy.

RHW: I...

NC: 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 civilised, 
they didn't need you to come in.

Sati is not an Islamic principle 
but let's modernise 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 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.

NC: You're British. 
The jewel in your crown.

Audience: No, it needs to be returned 
back to the people you stole it from.

JS: No, the Sikh Empire is the one 
who should hold that.

Audience: 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 the 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 colonised 
were dehumanised.

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—

NC: 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 an 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.