Sathnam sanghera, welcome to hardtalk. Its nice to be back. Its great to have you back, and you are back with a new book, which i have here empireworld. Its your take on just how massive the impact of the British Empire was and still is on the world. You certainly dont undersell your idea, its subtitled how British Imperialism has shaped the globe. I really do believe that. I think the British Empire explains so much about peoples daily lives Around The World, tea drinking in india, in britain, patterns of tax avoidance, even the Bbc World Service used to be known as the bbc empire service. It explains so much about our daily news. Youve just come back from guyana theres a Border Dispute there that goes back to empire, israel palestine, a dispute that has its roots in empire, but also, theres a gap between the way in Which Britain sees itself and the world sees britain through the prism of this history, and i think we need to remember what we did before we go around pontificating on things like democracy and the environment and human rights. We need to remember our distinctly patchy records on those things during the age of empire. But do you think your perspective is driven in part by your own background 7 youre of indian heritage, born and raised in the united kingdom, so britain and india matter particularly to you, you know them particularly well. Im just wondering if youre sitting, listening, watching this in tokyo, beijing, brasilia, are you really going to buy the concept that the British Empire, as opposed to any other empire, has been this global force, which you say, apart from the internet, you cant think of Anything Else which influences the world so much . Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it affects south america. I mean, Something Like 60 of the countries who ended up playing football got it indirectly or directly through the British Empire. The english language. Christianity. You know, these are things that we need to understand through the prism of this history. So, many historians whove spent decades looking at the British Empire seem to feel an impulse to treat it as some sort of Accounting Exercise they look at what was positive about it, they look at what was negative and then they try and sort of come to an overall conclusion, good or bad. Were you tempted to do that too . I think initially, cos thats the only way weve talked about empire in britain until recently. But what i realise with the empire world, travelling to mauritius and nigeria and barbados and india, is that the legacies are profoundly contradictory. So, the British Empire resulted in quite a lot of democracy Around The World australia, singapore and so on. It also resulted in a huge amount of geopolitical chaos, it spread slavery, it also spread anti slavery, it spread the free press, it spread press censorship, it destroyed the environment in massive ways, but it also led to the birth of modern environmentalism. So these legacies are much more contradictory than i expected when i started myjourney into this history. Some of that is just happenstance and unintended consequences. Surely youre trying to get to sort of Core Motivations for the British Imperial experience . There werent any Core Motivations in the sense that it was such a sprawling history, covered such a wide geographical area. Its very hard to generalise whatever you say about the British Empire, you can say the opposite to a certain degree. A man in india in the early 20th century might have had a really positive experience with colonialism in the morning a Police Officer might have helped him sort out a dispute but then in the evening, he might have had a horrible experience of imperial racism. Both things can be true. Opposite things can be true at the same time, and i think thats a really powerful way to understand this history. And what you seem to be telling us is that we shouldnt look at the empire and its legacies through prejudiced eyes, we shouldnt bring our own biases to it, we should just confront the truth as best we can discover it from the historical record, and goodness knows you spent a lot of time researching this. But it seems to me theres one telling quote at the beginning of your book, which does give you an overarching motivation and perhaps give you a sense of being on one side. You say, in an i mean, you dont say it, you quote an African Proverb at the very opening of the book, and the proverb goes like this until lions have their own historians, Tales Of The Hunt will always glorify the hunter. I think what that is alluding to, for me anyway, is the fact that the british concealed a lot of the facts of what happened. I dont want to sound. Covered stuff up . Yeah, absolutely. When they left india, there was said to be a pall of smoke over delhi cos of all the documents that were being burnt. If you look into the foundations of nigeria, the founders of nigeria went out of their way to destroy evidence of what they were doing. Even now, the records, the personal records of lord mountbatten, the final viceroy of india, are still officially secret. So its taken a lot of time for historians to catch up with what happened. Weve only had one view of history, which has been the view of the colonisers, but now were getting multiple perspectives finally. Yeah. What you seem to be saying as well, though, and again, youve just told me, you know, im open to both the contradictions and the complications of empire, what you seem to be saying more than Anything Else again, correct me if im wrong is that there was a driver, a motivation behind British Imperialism, and that was out and out racism. To quote you, before you begin your answer this is an important quote the British Empire was the single most significant incubator, refiner and propagator of White Supremacy in the history of the planet. That is absolutely true for what empire was like at the height of empire, but at the same time, because obviously, things can be true at the same time, officially, British Empire was nonracist. At the same time, imperialists in london were taking on the racism of australian colonists and saying you should moderate yourself. But theres absolutely no question that the British Empire was proudly. Yeah, but as soon as you start to convolute the argument, i get a little confused. Was a prime motivating force of British Imperialism racism or not . Absolutely, at the height of empire. And its reflected in the fact that when racial science emerged in the 19th century, it had a distinctly british flavour. It became Something Else in germany and then it became Something Else in america, but it was pretty much british racial science. And also, the British Empire became a kind of beacon for White SupremacistsAround The World. And youll see it in the poem, white mans burden by rudyard kipling, written by famous imperialists, and that poem is about encouraging the americans to do in the philippines what the british did with brown people across the world. But those historians, and there are many of them Andrew Roberts and nigel biggar and many others who critique your history, for being far too negative and condemnatory about British Imperialism, they point out that what you fail to do consistently is look at other forms of imperialism. For example, Otherforms Of European Imperialism as practised by the belgians in the congo or the germans in southwest africa, namibia as it now is, which were more brutally, overtly racist than the British Empire ever was. I dont know how you measure racism. Theres not a unit of racism, but theyve got a bit of a point in that the country with the biggest problem with imperialism, nostalgia at the moment is not britain, its russia. Could say turkeys got a problem too. The dutch, in the recent survey, were found to be more nostalgic about their empire that we are. And you surely couldnt argue, in this argument about racism and the importance of the British Empire, that somehow, British Imperial racism was an incubator for russian racism, could you . Absolutely not, theyre separate. No, but the whole point of your book is that To Quote The Subtitle Again how British Imperialism shaped the globe. And im just wondering whether youre overreaching . No, because the British Empire was the biggest empire in human history. That is the fact. Thats why it matters perhaps more than, you know, the belgian history or the dutch history. The legacies are real and profound, notjust within that 25 of the world that we colonised, but beyond that, cos the world had to deal with us. So i dont think theres been any kind of process of truth and reconciliation with that history. What about consideration of the worlds, the societies, the cultures that the British Empire imposed itself upon . There isnt so much in the book about the way, for example, Nigerian Society worked in all of its complex of course it wasnt nigeria then but that part of west africa worked before the British Imperialists arrived. You could say the same about other imperial projects, that you dont spend too much time looking at what came before and, indeed, you dont spend that much time looking at the 75 years of history that went after the British Empire. It would say its a big enough book already its 350,000 words long. If i started talking about what life was like. No, but isnt that important . Because. Yeah, it is. Because by assuming that so much of what we see in those different territories is all about the British Empire, you may be missing elements of culture, of society that were important before the british ever arrived. Absolutely, but i do use the analogy in the middle of the book about how British Empire was not like a school. Theres a temptation to that the British Empire was like a school with the headmaster in london, the classrooms representing the colonies, but actually, because it took nine months to get a message between the headmaster in the classroom, often, the classroom behaved in its own way. The teacher did what they wanted. Often they already had rules, which continued to be activated and were only corrected when there was a crisis. So i do think the book relentlessly acknowledges the complexity of the history. No, it does constantly reference the complexity. How would you explain the fact that your own grandfather, for example, had a great sort of admiration for the british and their empire, and you could look across the empire, from singapore where its pretty obvious, to hong kong where, again, its pretty obvious, to countries like nigeria where theres a substantial number of people inside Nigeria Today who look back with a degree of admiration, fondness on things that the British Empire gave them. How do you explain that . I think thats the way it always was. I mean, even gandhi, the most famous opponent of empire, at one stage of his life was quite into imperial values when he was a lawyer, you know, and like i was saying, empire was Different Things in different times of the day in india. It was Different Things in different parts of empire, it was definitely Different Things in different parts of peoples lives. Your dad arrived from india, a punjabi sikh, with actually very little education i think he pretty much functionally illiterate hes watched your rise as a writer and historian and i wonder what he makes of your take on both the country he came to and the country he life behind . Well, sikhs have a very close relationship with empire. I didnt really. I dont think you could really understand sikhism without really understanding the British Empire because the sikh identity was supercharged by the british. This idea that were a martial race, something you might struggle when looking at my physique, but that was created by the british right . Yeah. The sikh demographics were hugely shaped by the British Empire because the british fetishised us, so there were a lot of conversions to sikhism in the 19th century. So i might not be here if it wasnt for the British Empire. I might not exist. I definitely wouldnt be living in a multicultural country if it wasnt for British Empire, because we are a multicultural country because we had a multicultural empire. Do you think there is a danger that some leaders im thinking of politicians with power in some post British Colonial countries would find something rather helpful in your book . Cos in a way, youre saying there are deep rooted impacts, and many of them malign that are the result of the British Empire that are very difficult to root out of these societies. And take an example, take zimbabwe we know that robert mugabe, an authoritarian, a tyrant, lets be honest he blamed the white man and he blamed the imperial legacy for many things, which, frankly, many people would put at his own door as just a result of corruption and mismanagement. Yeah, and its been decolonisation has been weaponised in india by modi whos trying to get rid of all remnants of British Colonialism, but also, its including the mughal emperors, so hes using it as a way to be islamophobic. But doesnt your whole take on empire and its legacy, doesnt it rob these nationstates, which have, after all, been independent for 70, 80 years, it robs them of agency and of a sense of responsibility. To a degree, but i think theres been hugely inspiring work being done In The Name Of Decolonisation recently. I mean, the renaming of places in tasmania, for example, suicide bay, the site of an aboriginal massacre, now has an indigenous name thats a hugely dignifying thing to do. The return of ghanaian loot the v a and the British Museum have returned some loot to ghana thats hugely important to their national psyche. These are powerful symbols. Do they really make any difference to the people. I think they make a huge difference, like learning medicine, like. It� s happening in india to teach medicine in indigenous languages can be a really important part of your rising Self Confidence as a nation. But theres a limit to what you can do with decolonisation because its baked into the world. You cant stop cricket being played in india, you cant get rid of christianity in africa, you cant undo entire nations made by the british, like niger and australia and pakistan, can you . No. But i want to come back to the point about agency and responsibility, cos you make a point, for example, just one specific point you make a point of talking about the anti gay laws much tougher and draconian in recent years in some parts of africa, and you tie it explicitly to the British Empire and the way in which british rulers in these countries ensured that laws were toughened up against homosexuality, for example. Youre sort of piling on the blame on the british, but surely, if you look at a country like uganda today, or ghana, which hasjust toughened up its anti gay laws, the responsibility, the agency lies with the governments, which have been in power for many years, which are truly utterly independent. Absolutely, and ive met some lgbt workers who put the blame purely on their current governments. But what youve got there is a very paradoxical situation because, you know, the majority of anti gay legislation that existed in the world in 2018 came directly or indirectly from the British Empire. But, equally, the western governments and britain are doing quite a lot to help lgbt people in the modern age. Yeah, and isnt the point, you know, youre saying, look, here was britain, and through the sort of 18th, 19th century, it posed its will and its values upon the world in, as you say, in an overtly racist form in many ways. But the point surely is that britain, over the last 70 years, has changed massively, the sort of social morays and attitudes and legislation for those things in britain has changed in all sorts of ways. Thats about agency and these countries, which we left long ago, also have that same agency. But you dont seem to pinpoint that . No, i do, iagree with you to a degree. I mean, someone like Shashi Tharoor who wrote a very negative book about the