Should we be proud of the British Empire - BBC The Big Questions - Jagraj Singh

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!

and 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"

and 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.

But 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,

for reasons of 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!

And 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!

But you just said Nikki 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

and 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 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 cast 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 eleven.

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
"well 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",

but in reality it was a very
exploitative system.

Dr Lalvani, Kartar Lalvani,
you wouldn't come back.

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 was the railways.

Railways again, hundreds of thousands.

Boston telegraph, 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 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 all 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"

and 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,
it's quite 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,
that is a by-product.

then that there were there were good people there there were noble-minded people there

because humans are you know we're complex creatures

who saw this and thought this is wrong

and who in very very good faith sought to

and succeeded in abolishing it

You give those people credit ?

I absolutely would give those people credit.

Of course in any place in any time

there are good people and bad people

and there are people who are working from good intentions

what they believe to be good intentions at the time

and also those who are willing to sort of undertake nefarious acts

to personally profit or profit the nation

of course there's good and bad.

Rose in just one second to talk about the spread of religion

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,

thousands of pages of parliamentary papers on them

none at all on hundreds of thousands of people who died of famine.

professor Lavani

Yes, I think it is it is far far more to be appreciated

that the authority who stopped it was a company

and company was solely responsible to directors

East India Company

to do what the kings could not dare to do in India before

and they did it to courage to do it this is it's a very great very great achievement

it is really much it's not just normally stopped you know an early manifestation

they were advancing globalization yeah they were strongly advised advice what you're seeing here is the best of best of british values

and we can't say that Britain has no good values

army yeah I spent four years i believed in British values

yeah

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 and and find a few little good things that we did and then say well the whole thing must have been good

the reality is they did the good things they did i don't know where to start from

There's so many one after other

Railway was I have a 20 chapter book of doing good

there is only Railway is only oneone the

the rest is it comes about 20 one after other

now you see judiciary what what judiciary was before

and the judiciary civic society judiciary system the universe

First university in India was built by British

The Empress of India, Queen Victoria

Yeah

She never went there did she

University was built by the company itself

Okay, listen everyone,
listen everyone.

Femi mentioned the religious there in Sudan Animism and Islam and Christianity let's talk i'm sorry

It brings us actually on nicely to talking about religion

and the missing missionary position if you like

spreading I wish I had not said that spread spreading spreading the word

spreading the the the good word of the of the lord

that wasn't a good thing though, was it ?

You were you were destroying people's cultures

I am not saying you were Rose

but people's cultures were destroyed

Absolutely, I would agree with that entirely

and as a Christian I want to say yes to christianity

but at the same time recognizing

that along with Christianity

people brought their own culture with them

and of course you know people had
their own religions where they were

and the audacity of the British Empire

to think that we know what is right

and yours is no longer
important or valuable

but you know there was health

and education some of the the longest

serving establishments in terms of education

and health were brought through
the Christian medium there

so it is not so much

another cure its egg

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

because it and I am not just looking at it

through rose tinted lense

as it were

as it were I

I really do believe

that some awful things were done

and you mentioned about

the the British demolishing slavery

they didn't

it was the people who were being enslaved

who were making slavery unworkable

I am afraid Rose, what that does is

that simply contradicts the fact

that the British navy was the instrument

to ensure that the slave trade
was eventually

it is a matter of historical fact how

can you deny history ?

Let's go to the audience.

The navy actually took africans

and indentured them on the Caribbean

to work just like slate
but that's a bad thing

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 had it so you would

you think that had the royal navy

not sought to stop the slave trade

it would have magically stopped anyway ?

No they didn't no no no no no

They actually encouraged it in the sense

of using those same Africans

to do what the planters wanted.

That was the point.

Well, hence, of course the Jamaican rebellion

which was some years after emancipation

because of the disappointment

emancipation had not made
a difference to their lives

and that was very brutally put down

when was it it was the 1865

65

So this gentleman wants to promote

this image of some Utopian British Empire

and then talking about a Soviet dystopia.

The Caribbean was a dystopia for the Caribbean people

The Africans who were transported as German said

and 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 their own Gods.

At the same time granted
there were a lot of people in the UK

who fought for abolition as well

but don't ______ this position

because from the early from the late 1500s until 1833

there was that forced migration of 20 million people

plus all of their descendants forced dehumanization,

rape and movement of culture and eradication of culture

for you to then try and say oh the navy stopped

it it's frankly historically disingenuous.

Well, I can die from that yeah

About the navy point,

the French was of the early 19th century

when we were fighting the French

it was partly just 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 canceled their own slave trades after

and excuse them 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 let's attack the French

because they're 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.

But i'm not suggesting

Excuse me

Do you want to come sit in the front row ?

I think we need to put this in context,

we have to also understand

that while all this debate about abolishing was going on

forty percent of the contemporary state budget

was given to former slave owners as compensation

forty of the contemporary state budget!

that much amount of 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 ?

Well, of course it wasn't impossible

I mean i mean somewhere at the end of the the slave trade is it's like going on a killing spree

and then saying I don't like killing anymore you won't pat him on the back foot would you

but the one 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

is this argument that somehow that again which is we're applying 21st century standards to the past

in the 1950s there was the marijuana uprising in kKnya against British rule

and the British Empire responded brutally killed thousands of people here wasn't it

that there were people 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, there were people who stood up against this brutality

and 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 this

the broader point here which some don't seem to seem to have rather overlooked this no one's arguing that the british empire was a model a utopian model of empire there never has been a utopian

Yes, but the broader point here

which some don't seem to rather overlooked this

No one is arguing that the British Empire

was a model, a Utopian model of empire.

There never has been a Utopian model of empire.

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 towards in the mid 18th century

towards the stopping of the slave trade

shows that it was a more enlightened empire

than many other ones that existed

but you're not here to whinge about them.

that you agree with that

iIthink i think the Arab Empire was far more brutal

Yeah

I want to make just one point though,

the thing with the Arab Empire,

because the Sikhs suffered from both the British Empire and the Arab Empire

Yeah

The thing with the Arab Empire the Sikhs knew was

is that these are 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

is they tried to change the Sikh religion.

So the Arabs never really tried to change the secret religion

and try to twist it to suit them

it was just straight out it was clear enemies

they are your enemies and you are theirs.

With the British it was very much a case of take a religion

which was very independent very free very freedom loving

and try and 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 then use them to then subjugate other Indians.

The British were far more

Subtle

No, not subtle

Insidious

Insidious yes, exactly.

Dangerous.

Lawrence, let's talk about decolonization.

There are things I want to return to as well,

the Christianization as well

because that's left

it's when we come on to talk about legacies

that's left some people argue.

Some very negative legacies and it's tearing apart the anglican communion

At the moment with very conservative christianity

homophobia rife in the West Indies

and in Africa Jamaica

but 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 ?

Well, I am not sure, African states

no let's think of it if there were

how many African states are fighting
boundary wars at the moment ?

Quite a few actually.

You have a lot of interest

Well, then they will fight them.

but let's forget about the boundaries

I think that 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

a lot 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

and I think that's the first thing in the background

to decolonization

thousands and thousands of Africans

with an educated elite and ex-soldiers were asking the question

this freedom we fought for for five years

when is it coming to us

and the British government turned round and said,

"Well, I think we have got to consider decolonization

in 45 labour government comes to power promising in india no money

so we liked them yes they won it and it was a manifesto the labor said

we will give independence to India, Shalom and Burma

and this was in the labor 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 will be

the 1990s was given until 1950 and then something else happens in 1945

and i'll cut off here we have the beginning of a cold war yes 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

and to finish 1954 an African ruler of an independent country uh

wants weapons and he asks khrushchev for weapons khrushchev says i will give you mig fighters i will give you tank

I will make Egypt strong to fight in this case Israel

but also to resist any encroachments by Britain

and 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.

And so we are rather irrelevant

Well, Britain does become irrelevant

yeah but and interestingly of course nasser there are there are arguments

well-sourced arguments that that secular regime of nasa 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 anandita

If you were if we talk about 4647 the India's uh freedom if you were to have to drawn uh to draw a mat to draw a line on the map and to have done it better

What would you have done ?

Over to you

That's what we're looking for.

Well, I certainly would have taken more than two weeks to draw that body.

I think you know this question isn't it it is it is um so if

if i can slightly uh evade that question

and come come to another

there's so many things just been
bandied about in this debate

that I want to get back to one is

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

and this was the time when we felt

that India was right to be handed over its its freedom

and we left it didn't work like that Britain was in a terrible mess in the post-war situation

and it might have been in the labor manifesto for obvious reasons

but it was also a question of this was becoming a very expensive colony

to maintain it just could not 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 kind of cooperative

talks could go on between themselves and and Britain.

So from from the point of view of the indian freedom struggle it had reached its its its head as well so you know this had to be solved

so it was internal pressure as well

so it wasn't just the war and all the aspirations for liberation

that had been you know kind of suddenly

sparked alive in people that this led to you know this is a this is a freedom struggle that goes back to 1885

it isn't suddenly the second world war which is creating all these aspirations in people.

Can I just quickly finish ?

So you know that that is one myth we we should 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

does not absolutely hold true at all

it wasn't western education it wasn't railways it wasn't the civilizing mission that did all of 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

but yeah let's 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 what we did

Should we hide our our heads in shame because

No I don't think that the problems today

right now today in Africa our attitudes to race can be can be laid at the heart at the door of an empire long since gone Nicky.

I mean it's time we people have to accept responsibility

for themselves in their own independence

people today are still suffering because of the traits of the slave trade,

aren't they

which which of course is being carried out by other rising empires

such as for example some of the 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

you know we were not a perfect empire

I have not said that we were.

Did we make mistakes ?
Yes we did!

but we have done good!

and as well regards Africa

I would simply raise this one final point

when for example, Zambia

whenever it was part of the British Empire

we ruled and governed in it the average zambian had an income of about one-seventh of what we had here.

All these years later what do they have ?

127th of the income we have that

Whose fault is that ?

We have gone.

Who's responsible ?

I don't think you can separate

as being the fifth richest country

in the world from our colonial past.

Secondly, there is 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 anal rape of men with snakes

and scorpions and knives

you have you have you have women

and pregnant women shot

you have kids when the British went to Australia

Are there atrocities in all that other atrocities in all empires ?

There are trustees in the French empire

There are trustees in the French empire

there are trustees in the buildin

There are trustees in all empires.

but they were not attracted because human beings these people were not writing about liberalism at the time and freedom there are atrocities in all empires but yes that there are um but not that not all empires call themselves civilizing missions um well moving but yeah everyone else is

You mentioned, how many wars are there in Africa at the moment

in a kind of flippant 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 x colony

no but it went on for 40 odd years which is two-thirds of the extent to which some of the last colonies were

and then you're they're saying it's not that long ago this

is 60 years is in is not a it's not a very long time long term

the great span of history

in the greatest benefits we haven't heard from you for a while in a second we're going to talk about legacy Charles

I think there's an awful tendency to simplify

the fact is 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 liberty it is a liberation um they do not study anything rather than the freedom movement india is a classic example

if you ask people about what happened uh in the 19th century people will not know because this freedom movement has now become we need national myths we need founding myths

and i can understand why every country whether it's kenya or if it needs to portray the freedom struggle in the most positive terms but it's it's all ambivalent there are there are nuances here which are being missed in the question of mauma

for instance how many other tribes beyond the kikuyu got involved how much of that was actually about land grabbing by the kikuyu how much of that who were the victims other africans

who were the main victims very few europeans actually got killed by the malmo 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 in this yeah and the great delight do you want nuances are the great delights of history aren't they let's talk

about legacy you can come in without me even asking you a question i would like it's 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 these major major issues that that is still

that is still impacting on us today so for example by virtue for example of paying the slave owners and and giving nothing to those who are the victims of it have left people still in that victim mode by virtue of um taking away a people's culture um killing

who they are still exists today and that is why the racism that exists in in our in our present time exists because we still think we are white we are great black you are not good enough but it's not this is gross can i just say something yes this is this is right

it's the legacy we see this happening all over the world from upsets of one set of human beings towards another set of humans we see that we see the chinese empire 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 things yeah we are discussing the present which do you think it has a uniquely uh pernicious legacy because of the slave trade

because of the racial aspect it it is there we cannot deny it is still it is still there why is it that our children today do not learn about um cultural things of their particular groups why is it only what is eurocentric

or can we take upon ourselves a type of collective guilt people watching the you know today can should we feel guilty guilt is useless guilt is useful are we are we responsible in the way we speak christianity

for homophobia i was listening to a documentary the other day about homophobia in jamaica and they were saying look you gave us the bible you gave us the truth and we believed it and all of a sudden you're telling us not to believe it well

i i would agree that that is wrong i would never condone that but the point that i have are we responsible for it spreading those attitudes back in the 80s i think we did we did spread those and and we are reaping the legacy of it today so do you think the spreading of christianity was wrong therefore it's not so much about the spreading of christianity

it's what we packaged it in but i just want to explain something simply those okay those there's very strong arguments that we are responsible for the spread of homophobia in spreading those attitudes but there have been generation after generation to change the penal codes and they haven't changed the penal codes so can we still put the blame on our door

i that is a very good question i think we are very much still under the the umbrella of it as it were of that painful time in history still very close to mcgregor audience audience yes you've had your hand up for so long and i've got i've been trying there's been a lot of talked this morning

and i think the saddest thing should come every week yeah the saddest thing is i think i've seen this morning is 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 we had 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 you're not smart enough there's something about your culture your 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 we you can't get above you above your level how dare you get anywhere

one of the arguments you hear is that one of the positive legacies of the british empire is our multicultural society

it's not working is it because there's a multiculturalism to an extent they always want to keep you at a level

they don't want to progress so let's talk about what we do what do we do next well it's interesting in your intro you talked about indian pakistan

being the jewel in the crown literally the jewel in the crown you've still got the jewel in your crown we wanted micro no in the queen's

it needs to be returned back to the people you stole it from i won't recreate it from anyone

there's a lot of use going on here

charles allen the korean charles allen should go back to the tribal people in golconda okay that's they're the ones who turn it up return it it certainly shouldn't go to lahore

very few because it's gone through hundreds of rulers and conquerors over the centuries the idea that these little simple tokens

that's not enough yeah it's not just let me go back there to that gentleman there you've you've been yeah you you

good morning to you good morning hi well quick point yeah very quickly well i i just needed a minute uh what i want to say

is i've heard some of the most preposterous comments today made by many panelists which one which one most of all mainly from this side but we started as an india with the nation

nationhood was given by britain thank you yes but that was and then there were infrastructure that was laid whether it was indian indian penal code indian uh post office

or indian railways indian army these were all central to the development of the the empire that the infrastructure was necessary so it was for their own needs as uh one of our panelists

we we had that point out earlier well we haven't got a lot of time but what i'm what i'm coming to is the also the social engineering

that we talked about earlier is was not given by the british it was by all the social engineers

like raja ram mohan roy uh people like gandhi ambedkar they they they are the ones who did okay

i just think that point you made about race and racism is just 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 but just finally i do think the worry is i have are people going to watch this

and go oh you will just custody in britain it's a big british anti-british hate fest and 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 freedoms are you proud of churchill

i'm proud of the british war effort against the nazis of the people service people who went to as they say it's like he had racially supremacist attitudes he did yeah well of course

the people who run the british would you like to take his stuff churchill would you like a statue in the long run

i think having a statue of someone who called um who called he said indians were ghastly people with a ghastly religion the famine was their own fault because they bred

like rabbits he said he said many things churchill is is is ultimately would you like to there's a statue i'm not going to make a comment on that because i'll be dragged through

the daily mail tomorrow nonetheless nonetheless just to make your point on the um on the uh you said chinese rape of african resources as if shell was not a british dutch company it was not paying the nigerian government in we are now a 1990 society

china and we can build we can build on it and go forward is that for you what is the positive legacy what can people look at and remember is there anything about the empire that still binds us together

right i think commonwealth for me is a good thing and i am glad that you gave us cricket in that we and i'm talking with my caribbean hats on i gave you cricket yes and look what we're doing with it look how terrific we are but but i'm also glad that right here in britain we can be a truly we're not we're not fully there yet we need to work at it

we need to work at better being being a better diverse and multi-ethnic multicultural society celebration there are three three enduring legacies that that we can be proud of we've left libera

l we 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

with and in some regards what what what a wonderful legacy as well so there's lots to be proud of we've heard lots of grievance gravens mongeri going on wait Andrea

you have the very last word and it's a quick one well they only need to speak english today as the global lingua franca precisely because we did colonise half

listen we did a shakespeare special a few weeks ago but let's just you know 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 you know it's an achievement but it's not a great achievement it's actually a very negative immigration

which french has and it's not a good thing you know it's an achievement but it's not a great achievement it's actually a very negative immigration

they we are here because we're finished rose we're finished rose the sun will never set on the big questions thank you very much for watching see you very soon

you