Empireland: The Fallout, with Sathnam Sanghera

Following the publication of Empireland, Sathnam Sanghera received thousands of abusive messages from what he has called “imperially nostalgic racists”; people outraged that a second-generation immigrant might dare to question the legacy and atrocities of the British Empire. The historian William Dalrymple - despite detailing the same atrocities and complex beginnings of the East India Company - has received none. Is this proof of our need to understand the dysfunctional way much of Britain still thinks about Empire? How much do we really know about the reality of Empire? Has Britain, unlike other former colonial powers, ever really reckoned with its past? Is the problem really one of ignorance; or are we as a country unwilling to confront some of the uncomfortable truths? How should we teach the British Empire, its complex history, and the legacy it still leaves today?
In an era where the Empire is the new front of the culture war, with debates about statues raging, how can we have serious conversations about the British Empire without being accused of being unpatriotic? Instead, how do we show that you can love Britain, without being blind to its faults?

[@maori_brotha]

Thanks for this. I am from NZ and this discussion is so relevant. The chickens are coming home to roost. Thanks to Satnam and William and others for their amazing work.

[@kanchhediachamaar9289]

Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembene made a film called Emitai on how the French abducted black men for enrollment in the French army for WWII, and a film called Camp de Thiroye on how the French mistreated black soldiers after the war. The French ambassador to Senegal walked out from the premier of these films, which depicted historically accurate events.
I wonder why no Indian film has ever made an ordinary Briton, let alone the British ambassador, even so much as fidget in his seat.
Now, India makes a lot of films and documentaries. It has also had directors like Satyajit Ray whose films were regarded well in the West. Perhaps the reason why British injustices and atrocities in India haven't been portrayed in films is that most if not all Indian filmmakers come from a class that actively collaborated with the British on exploiting the rest of India. Even 74 years after independence, this class of English speaking spineless Indians is mentally enslaved and would lack the courage to utter a word against their Western masters even if they had the wits and the independence of outlook to learn about the British atrocities in India.

[@forret]

That’s quite a harsh appraisal of your countrymen. As with all things the truth lies somewhere in between. Sanghera would have us believe that India was the garden of Eden where everyone was free and equal and there was no violence. He’s not an historian and lacks the perspective of one.

[@kanchhediachamaar9289]

@@forret Here's another relevant comparison. When TS Elliott finished reading Joyce's Ulysses in one sitting, it was 2AM. He nevertheless felt agitated enough to go to Virginia Woolf's flat in Bloomsbury to tell her that English novel was dead: Joyce had killed it in Ulysses. Oliver Gogarty described Finnegans Wake as a sustained dismemberment of English literary heritage. In sharp contrast, all that Indian writers in English ever do to English literary heritage is to kiss ass. English speaking Indians are spineless ass-kissers.

[@forret]

@@kanchhediachamaar9289 So what? No one has emulated Joyce. It's not exactly a great example

[@AnyaB18]

Did you not catch Lagaan in 2001? Pretty uncomfortable watch for the Brits and a hugely emotional one for Indians.

[@kanchhediachamaar9289]

@@AnyaB18 I didn't see lagaan but don't think lagaan comes anywhere close to what Sembene did.

[@androc75]

Oh god, that rambling white shirted old dude...🤦‍♂

[@forret]

It’s a nicely written, if one-sided book. He cherry picks incidents to suit his agenda. It makes uncomfortable reading, not only for the awful things that the British did, but also the airbrushing of facts to suit his narrative.

[@samsammsammm1547]

Whats makes YOU qualified to be an objective judge? Sounds like your white and English and so a direct beneficiary of the ill gotten riches that the empire stole to build Britain.

[@intello8953]

So what’s “airbrushing of facts” did he do?

[@kanchhediachamaar9289]

I cannot imagine a people whose minds are more thoroughly colonized than English speaking Indians. India is perhaps the only country whose history is almost exclusively written in languages that most Indians don't understand. The imperial languages are English and French. In 18th century Germans got interested in and wrote on ancient India. But what's surprising is that more books on Indian history are written in any ONE of Russian, Japanese, or Korean than in ALL Indian languages put together. Indian historians gain academic credit for publishing in journals in English on Indian history, and there aren't any academic journals on Indian history in any Indian language. Leaving aside primary sources, I have never found a reference to anything published in an Indian language in the bibliography of any book or article in any journal on Indian history. Even Indian historians don't find it strange to choose to write Indian history in a language ill-understood beyond a small cabal of English speaking Indians.