welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. how can we understand the present without interrogating the past? history matters to our sense of ourselves, the place we live in, and the world beyond. so believes my guest today, the writer and historian sathnam sanghera, whose own family story, indian sikhs migrating to the english midlands prompted him to look afresh at the impact of the british empire, both on britain and the vast territories colonised and controlled from london. did the british empire really do so much to shape the world of today?

sathnam sanghera, welcome to hardtalk. it's nice to be back. it's great to have you back, and you are back with a new book, which i have here — empireworld. it's your take on just how massive the impact of the british empire was and still is on the world. you certainly don't undersell your idea, it's subtitled how british imperialism has shaped the globe. i really do believe that. i think the british empire explains so much about people's 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. you've just come back from guyana — there's a border

dispute there that goes back to empire, israel—palestine, a dispute that has its roots in empire, but also, there's 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 you're of indian heritage, born and raised in the united kingdom, so britain and india matter particularly to you, you know them particularly well. i'm just wondering if you're 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 can't 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 who've 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 that's the only way we've 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 you're trying to get to sort of core motivations for the british imperial experience? there weren't any core motivations in the sense that it was such a sprawling history, covered such a wide geographical area. it's 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 that's a really powerful way to understand this history. and what you seem to be telling

us is that we shouldn't look at the empire and its legacies through prejudiced eyes, we shouldn't 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 there's 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 don't 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 don't 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 it's taken a lot of time for historians to catch up with what happened. we've only had one view of history, which has been the view of the colonisers, but now we're getting multiple perspectives finally. yeah. what you seem to be saying as well, though, and again, you've just told me, you know, i'm open to both the contradictions and the complications of empire, what you seem to be saying more than anything else — again, correct me if i'm 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 there's 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 it's 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 supremacists around the world. and you'll see it in the poem, white man's 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 don't know how you measure racism. there's not a unit of racism, but they've got a bit of a point in that the country with the biggest problem with imperialism, nostalgia at the moment is not britain, it's russia. could say turkey's 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 couldn't 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, they're separate. no, but the whole point of your book is that — to quote the subtitle again — how british imperialism shaped the globe. and i'm just wondering whether you're overreaching? no, because the british empire was the biggest empire in human history. that is the fact. that's 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 don't think there's 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 isn't so much in the book about the way, for example, nigerian society worked in all of its complex — of course it wasn't 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 don't spend too much time looking at what came before and, indeed, you don't spend that much time looking at the 75 years of history that went after the british empire. it would say it's a big enough book already! it's 350,000 words long. if i started talking about what life was like... no, but isn't 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. there's 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 it's pretty obvious, to hong kong where, again, it's pretty obvious, to countries like nigeria where there's 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 that's 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 people's lives. your dad arrived from india, a punjabi sikh, with actually very little education — i think he pretty much functionally illiterate — he's 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 didn't really... i don't think you could really understand sikhism without really understanding the british empire because the sikh identity was supercharged by the british. this idea that we're 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 wasn't for the british empire. i might not exist. i definitely wouldn't be living in a multicultural country if it wasn't 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 — i'm thinking of politicians with power — in some post—british colonial countries would find something rather helpful in your book? cos in a way, you're 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, let's 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 it's been — decolonisation has been weaponised in india by modi who's trying to get rid of all remnants of british colonialism, but also, it's including the mughal emperors, so he's using it as a way to be islamophobic. but doesn't your whole take on empire and its legacy,

doesn't 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 there's 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 — that's a hugely dignifying thing to do. the return of ghanaian loot — the v&a and the british museum have returned some loot to ghana — that's 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 there's a limit to what you can do with decolonisation because it's baked into the world. you can't stop cricket being played in india, you can't get rid of

christianity in africa, you can't 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. you're 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 i've met some lgbt workers who put the blame purely on their current governments.

but what you've 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 isn't the point, you know, you're 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. that's about agency and these countries, which we left long ago, also have that same agency. but you don't 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 affect of british empire upon india — i think that robs agency from indians who didn'tjust take it all, you know, they responded to imperialism in all sorts of ways, some of them did well out of it. it's a deeply paradoxical situation, hence my point that opposite things can be true at the same time. yeah. 0pposite things can be true, it can all be complex, nuanced and contradictory, and yet, you know, again, i come back to the point you've written something of a sort of polemical book. it's that mismatch in a way that you're saying much of the previous history of empire has lacked nuance. it's either been empire good or empire bed, it's been binary. you want the nuance, and yet there's one fundamental way in which you're not nuanced. you say definitely for good or ill the british empire mattered more than anything else. i don't think that's polemical. but, equally, i get told all the time i've been too negative about empire or too positive about empire. it depends on...

who tells you you've been too positive? oh, the left! the hard left who — i did an interview with novara media on the far left, and they definitely feel like i've been too positive to say, you know, like i've said, britain resulted in — the british empire resulted in a disproportionate amount of democracy. so it depends rather on what you thought about empire before you picked my book up. yeah. it hasn't been easy for you, the aftermath of writing first empireland and now empireworld, because you've stirred controversy. as you say, some people have been very upset because they feel you've been far too negative about the british imperial experience, that, in a sense, you've been talking down britain and its values and its reputation. how seriously have you had to take the abuse, the threats — what has happened? it has been pretty horrible. you know, i've had kind of stalking situations and occasionally had to worry about my personal security.

0nline or actual physical? in real life. i stopped doing adult events at one point because of all the shouting and the screaming. but i haven't had it the worst. i mean, david 0lusoga, it's a matter for record, has a personal bodyguard at some live events. he's a great black historian in the uk. yeah. and corinne fowler who was a historian who wrote a report for the national trust about colonialism. she's talked about having to call the police, about becoming too scared to walk down the street. and this shouldn't happen, and because all we are doing is trying to promote knowledge, but it has happened. but i also feel at the same time that the culture war that has led to all this behaviour is kind of over. really? i feel like it hasn't really been tested in an election, i feel like the politicians who were engaged in it have lost heart, we even had keir starmer... did you really think... imean, i'mjust... as you're saying that, i'm actually eyeing a quote from rishi sunak, of course, the prime minister of britain with indian heritage, who said just a few days ago

that "extremists are spreading a poison, they want us to doubt our country's history and achievements. "they want us to accept a moral equivalence between britain and some despicable regimes in the world." i mean, i'mjust thinking to myself — when sunak talks about extremists who want us to doubt our country's history and achievements — i'm not saying you're an extremist, but... yeah! ..you're certainly somebody inviting us to be a little bit sceptical about the received wisdom of britain's achievements? yeah, he said all sorts of silly things. he also recently said that historians should stop rewriting history, which is literally what they do. but he's on his way out. if you look at the surveys, something like two—thirds of british people think it's a good idea to teach kids about colonialism and slavery. a survey last year found that 44% of people think the royal family should pay reparations for slavery, which i thought was really high given i don't think most people even know that the royal family were involved in slavery. so i feel quite optimistic the population that the population are over this culture war way before the politicians. do you want british people to feel a sense of guilt, shame,

responsibility? absolutely not. it's got nothing to do with pride, shame, your feelings are irrelevant. history is an intellectual exercise. for me, what this is about is about having therapy as a nation and it's about carrying yourself in the world in a more grown—up way, at a time, because of brexit, where we're having to re—establish our international relationships. right, but therapy — i mean, taking it from the personal to the political — therapy is about taking responsibility often. you want... you know, whether it be political rulers or the general public, to sort of have a sense of responsibility, do you, for this past? but therapy�*s also not about pride or shame, is it? i mean, i've had therapy. i've also written a memoir about my family and discovered very dark things about my family. did it make me love them any less? no. actually, it made me love them even more, because looking into the history, taking the time to find out can be an act of patriotism. but there are specific things —

there are things like apologies coming from the very top, for example, from the royal family orfrom the prime minister of the country and, you know, it's been complicated, we've sort of said sorry but not quite a full apology to nations for slavery, for example, and then there's the very practical issue of reparations. are you, having been historian who's dug deep into the history of empire and of slavery, are you an advocate now of absolutely paying up reparations to those countries which suffered so much as a result of slavery? i think when you use the word �*reparations�* in britain, people clutch their pearls, and i get it. i mean, there was a judge at the international court ofjustice who recently said, "we owe £18 trillion" and that's an unrealistic amount of money, that's not going to happen. but i also think, at the same time, we've started the process. 0ur relationship with ireland has been completely reimagined, i think, in recent decades through post—colonial truth and reconciliation, through the good friday agreement. there was money paid out, there were apologies. same with kenya —

we were forced by court to pay £20 million — i would say those were reparations — we made an apology, our relationship with kenya is better as a result. the church of england has set aside £100 million, possibly even more. that may go further now. may go further. individualfamilies are paying reparations — the gladstones, the trevelyans, your colleague, alex renton. and i feel like we've embarked upon the process of reparations without really thinking about it. we just need to do it for more countries. a final thought — your books, including one that you've written specifically for children, are now read at british schools. i think you personally have made sure that thousands of them have been sent to schools across the uk. do you think the next generation of british kids will have a very different view of what the british empire was and what it meant? i haven't personally sent them, my publisher did — i couldn't afford it. but i feel that young people have got no time for the culture war. they deal with this history in a frank and honest way.

they feel the way about museums that, you know, we used to feel about zoos as kids, and they haven't got any time for the backlash, they'rejust interested in having a grown—up relationship with the world. sathnam sanghera, thank you very much for coming back on hardtalk. thank you. hello there. thursday was a mild april day. in northern ireland, the

warmest day of the year so far for northern ireland. loss of moisture free parts of wales and southwest england bringing spotted drizzle into the afternoon and grey skies. northern england and scotland, sunny skies more typical and it felt warm in the sunshine. friday, looking at the jetstream, a similar pattern. it is why the weather continues to be exceptionally mild and temperatures forecast to reach the high teens or low 20s. that compares with the average of 11 side temperatures seven degrees above average. friday morning, above average. friday morning, a great note to start with. mist and fog patches of coastal areas. it will not be raining all day. driver eastern scotland. england and wales a

better chance of seeing sunshine. temperatures well above average. through friday night, a few more patches of rain around, particularly for scotland and at the far north of england. 0therwise drive. it would be another mild night. —— otherwise dry. high pressure to the south uk breaking up cloud and we have weather fronts working into scotland and northern ireland. saturday, it really represents something of a day of transition. rain was into scotland and northern ireland and accompanying that rain a cooler flow of westerly winds. some warmth across england and wales. the jetstream is going to change pattern as we go through sunday and into next week. instead of the miles south flow, a cooler

westerly wind. the weather will become increasingly unsettled and temperatures drop. show is moving in across scotland and northern ireland for sunday. fresh up weather conditions invading across parts of the country. temperatures dropping significantly. close to average four of the time of year. a monday, a more general area of low pressure forming and diving southwards and eastwards across the uk. a band of rain moving southwards and following that band, a rash of sunshine and showers. the showers will be frequent across north—western areas. some of them will be happy. likely to be hailstorms mixed in with some of these downpours. temperatures if anything a little below average across northern areas. enter

tuesday and wednesday, still quite a few showers around. the weather still on the cool side particularly in the breeze but then high—pressure building later in the week and into the following weekend. what i do not know at this stage is just how long that high—pressure will hang around for. bye for now.

live from london, this is bbc news. oj simpson, the former american football

star turned actor who was controversially cleared of double murder, has died aged 76. president zelensky says ukraine is in critical need of more air defences, after a barage of russian missles left more than 200,000 people without power. president biden says us defence commitments to the philippines and japan are ironclad, as he hosts the leaders of its two pacific allies at the white house. and coming up on business, we'll bring you the latest from the bafta games awards where baldur�*s gate ii! swept the board with five wins, including best game. hello and welcome to bbc news. i'm lukwesa burak. the american football star oj simpson,

who was cleared of murdering his ex—wife and her friend