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00:00Less than a hundred years ago, the British ruled a quarter of the globe and one in five of the
00:10global population. The British Empire was the biggest there's ever been. And even though it's
00:17long gone, its powerful legacy remains. It used to be the case that people were happy, proud even,
00:24to declare themselves imperialists. But now across great swathes of the world, that sounds like a
00:30badge of shame. In this film, I'm going to examine not whether the Empire was a force for good or for
00:37ill, but instead how it's been portrayed on television over the past 60 years. Using the
00:45history series Time Watch and other gems from the BBC Archive, I'll discover how filmmakers have
00:52altered their perspective over succeeding decades. I'll span the globe like the Empire itself.
01:01I'll see how Britain's Caribbean colonies grew rich on slave labor.
01:07Slaves were expendable. The life expectancy of a slave was seven years.
01:13How chaos gripped India when independence came.
01:17Britain, the once great colonial power, looks on as India burns.
01:25How Africa was plundered for her mineral wealth.
01:30Millions of pounds worth of diamonds represented not money, but power.
01:35They called it the empire upon which the sun never set.
01:40Though it's now gone, the arguments, the divisions over the British Empire are very far from being settled.
01:47Oxford is where many of the masters of empire came for their education.
02:06The colonial officials, the district officers, the viceroys even.
02:11But one Oxford graduate left his mark on the empire in a way that overshadowed almost all others.
02:20He's a figure who provokes bitter controversy more than a century after his death.
02:25So there he is, Cecil Rhodes, the man who had the audacity, the arrogance, not just to seize countries, but to even have one named after himself.
02:35It's his statue here at Aureole College, which some say recalls the very worst side of the empire.
02:43And because of that, he has no right to remain.
02:46They say roads must fall.
02:49So let's look first at some of these empire builders.
02:54Often heroes in their own time, but perhaps less heroic with the hindsight of history.
03:00The actor and historian, Kenneth Griffith, was one of the first to take on Cecil Rhodes, more than 40 years ago.
03:11Oxford University, England.
03:14He wanted to take a degree at University College.
03:18The master wouldn't wear it, but introduced him to the provost of Aureole, saying,
03:24They're less particular there.
03:29The provost of Aureole received him glumly, saying,
03:33All the colleges send me their failures.
03:36What stops the laugh before it has started
03:39is that this young man ended his short life with
03:44850,000 square miles of the Earth's surface in his own name.
03:50Rhodes named his conquest Rhodesia, now the country of Zimbabwe.
03:56Cecil Rhodes is a good poster boy for these kinds of debates about empire, good or bad.
04:01I mean, particularly because he was just one of those figures
04:03who was a colossus in terms of British imperial expansion
04:07and debates about the nature of British imperialism at the time,
04:11and, of course, ever since as well.
04:15The conquered land had belonged to the Matabele tribe,
04:18under their king, Lobengula.
04:22But spears were no match for machine guns and artillery.
04:27The British opened up with their field guns,
04:31and the best of Lobengula's warriors were no more.
04:36One regiment, the Embaisille,
04:38lost 500 of its 700 men.
04:42A witness to this carnage was Rhodesia's young friend, Willoughby,
04:48who recorded the so-called battle rather sportingly.
04:52He wrote,
04:54The Embaisille and N'Gubu regiments were practically annihilated.
05:00I cannot speak too highly of the pluck of these two regiments.
05:05I believe that no civilized troops
05:08could have withstood the terrific fire they did
05:11for at most half as long.
05:12Bear in mind that this film appeared in 1971,
05:25when a guerrilla war was raging between African nationalists,
05:28including descendants of the Matabele,
05:31and descendants of the white settlers,
05:33in a country which didn't abandon the name Rhodesia until 1980.
05:39Rhodes seemed to epitomise the worst of the power-hungry imperialists
05:45come to strip Africa of her wealth.
05:50Money, money, money is ever the key to Rhodes's power.
05:55And in the year 1886,
05:57at a place that was to be named Johannesburg,
06:00the biggest gold deposit that the world has ever known was discovered.
06:05Rhodes was now 33 years old,
06:07immensely wealthy,
06:09and therefore, as he had predicted,
06:11immensely powerful.
06:12He loomed over this goldfield,
06:15they called him the Colossus,
06:17and was poised to monopolise and grab the lot.
06:21And then a strange thing happened.
06:25Rhodes loved a young secretary at De Beers,
06:28his diamond company, very much.
06:30The young man's name was Neville Pickering.
06:33Now, I'm not suggesting that this was necessarily a homosexual relationship.
06:38Anyway, it doesn't matter.
06:40Love is love, and scarce enough not to quibble about.
06:43Don't you agree?
06:45Whatever, Rhodes so loved young Pickering
06:48that in 1882,
06:50he left him his entire vast fortune.
06:55The will simply reads,
06:56I, C.J. Rhodes,
06:59leave my worldly wealth
07:00to N.E. Pickering.
07:03And at that very time,
07:05Rhodes was informed that Neville Pickering
07:08was mortally ill in Kimberley.
07:11Rhodes, to his eternal credit,
07:13turned his back on his gold options
07:16and fled to Pickering's bedside.
07:19Rhodes personally nursed and cherished young Pickering,
07:22while other money-grubbers grabbed the gold.
07:28As young Pickering died,
07:30he looked at Rhodes and whispered,
07:33You have been father, mother, brother and sister to me.
07:41You see, it is impossible
07:43to totally dislike Cecil Rhodes.
07:48Rhodes was an extremely controversial figure.
07:51He was a hero to some,
07:53but a villain to many,
07:54and not just to the people he oppressed.
07:56Many people in Britain
07:56also found him a deeply controversial figure.
07:59His obituaries were extremely critical when he died,
08:02so in his own time,
08:03he was widely criticised.
08:05The film suggests Rhodes even had
08:07a touch of Hitler about him.
08:11So how fair is that?
08:12I don't think that even someone as imperialistic as Rhodes
08:15quite had that approach in South Africa.
08:18There was a broader kind of civilising mission,
08:21and I'm not sure that the Nazis had that.
08:23I don't think they thought that they were civilising
08:25inferior people.
08:27They thought that they were in a life-and-death struggle with them.
08:32That heartfelt critique of Rhodes,
08:34the man who planted the seeds
08:36for the 1970s turmoil in Southern Africa,
08:39feels as pertinent today
08:41as when it was first broadcast 45 years ago.
08:44That film pretty much set the pattern
08:48for debunking imperial heroes.
08:51And the following year, 1972,
08:53in a wide-ranging series on the empire,
08:56filmmakers once again honed in on Cecil Rhodes.
09:00Rhodes' personality still dominates this club.
09:03There are some 27 pictures of him on its walls,
09:06a fitting tribute
09:07to the man whose mastery of business deals
09:09astonished and discomforted many.
09:11He played company off against company
09:16until finally
09:19he took the jackpot.
09:26He was a multimillionaire by the time he was 35.
09:28But diamonds as jewellery,
09:33as adornments for royal crowns,
09:35or women,
09:36did not interest him
09:37any more than women did.
09:39For him,
09:40the millions of pounds' worth of diamonds
09:41that passed through De Beers' sorting rooms
09:43represented not money,
09:45but power.
09:47Rhodes restated the imperial creed.
09:50I contend that we are the first race in the world.
09:54And the more of the world we inhabit,
09:56the better.
09:58Every acre added to our territory
10:00provides for the birth of more of the English race.
10:03I have viewed the people of the world
10:05and have come to the conclusion
10:06that the English-speaking race
10:08has the highest ideal of justice,
10:10liberty, and peace.
10:11Therefore,
10:13I shall devote the rest of my life
10:15to advancing the English,
10:16the greatest people the world has ever seen.
10:21In the post-imperial early 1970s,
10:24with Britain's economy on the slide,
10:26Rhodes' racist creed
10:28seemed particularly out of place
10:30to many historians.
10:33Preoccupations of the time affect history.
10:36Every historian is completely influenced
10:38by his or her time.
10:41In the 60s and 70s,
10:42you know,
10:43we might be interested in Marxism,
10:45obviously there's a Cold War going on,
10:47and so you have a Marxist
10:48interpretation of empire.
10:51It's inevitable that in the historiography
10:53of something as vast
10:55as the British Empire,
10:56there are going to be
10:57different generations
10:58of historical approach
10:59and interpretation
11:00and vicious debates
11:02within each generation.
11:05But it would be wrong to think
11:07that the failings
11:08of these giant characters
11:10like Cecil Rhodes
11:11only emerge
11:12long after they're gone.
11:14Controversy has always
11:16swirled around
11:16certain empire builders,
11:18as the BBC found in 1998
11:20when it examined
11:21Earl Kitchener of Khartoum.
11:25Once the most famous face
11:27in the world,
11:28Kitchener,
11:29Britain's military chief
11:30in the First World War,
11:31played a controversial role
11:33a decade or so earlier
11:34in the South African Boer War.
11:37his legendary
11:40organisational skills
11:41seemed to have deserted him.
11:44He was nicknamed
11:44Kitchener of Chaos.
11:47His own troops
11:48were stricken with illness
11:49made worse
11:50by the harsh climate
11:51and Kitchener
11:52economising on medical care.
11:54British losses mounted
11:55and the guerrillas
11:56were still fighting.
12:00Suddenly,
12:00he was faced
12:01with a dreadful conundrum.
12:02Here was an enemy
12:03which would not
12:04get into the fields
12:05and fight them
12:06in a pitch battle.
12:07It was a hidden enemy
12:08and so he had to flush it out.
12:12Kitchener needed to starve
12:14the guerrillas
12:14of all supplies.
12:16Farms, crops
12:16and livestock
12:17were burnt
12:18by British troops.
12:19Boer women and children
12:20were evicted
12:21from their land
12:22and sent to makeshift
12:23concentration camps.
12:24By the end of the war,
12:27at least 26,000
12:29women and children
12:30had died
12:30from hunger
12:31and disease.
12:33It caused
12:33appalling suffering
12:34which was quite unnecessary.
12:36He didn't need
12:37to deny
12:38proper supplies
12:39and medical arrangements
12:40for women and children.
12:42He just
12:42wasn't interested.
12:44This was just
12:45callous Kitchener.
12:46He was not
12:47too fastidious
12:48about the means.
12:50He was very much
12:51like an engineer.
12:51I mean,
12:51he was trained
12:52as an engineer
12:52and he took
12:54every problem
12:55he solved
12:56and took apart
12:57in the way
12:57that an engineer did
12:58regardless
12:59of the consequences.
13:00So he thought,
13:01well,
13:01we need to isolate
13:02these communities
13:03so we'll put them
13:04in internship camps.
13:05He didn't think
13:05of the humanity.
13:07That wasn't
13:07how his mind
13:08was structured.
13:10Kitchener's
13:10concentration camps
13:11did come in
13:11for extensive criticism
13:13at the time
13:13and lots of people
13:14felt the conduct
13:14of that war
13:15wasn't really acceptable.
13:17Of course,
13:17now the phrase
13:18concentration camps
13:19is so loaded
13:19for us by World War II
13:21that we have a kind of,
13:22you know,
13:22an extra horror perhaps.
13:25As that film showed
13:27almost 20 years ago,
13:29Kitchener's reputation
13:29is still in flux
13:31a century after his death.
13:33I know from my own work
13:35that there is no such thing
13:37as a verdict of history.
13:40Just a fascinating
13:41but never-ending
13:42trial process
13:43where we historians
13:45are always desperate
13:46to uncover
13:47new evidence.
13:49That's absolutely
13:50a driver,
13:51if you like,
13:52a motivating factor
13:53in historians' work.
13:56If you want to provoke
13:57and stimulate debate,
13:59there is an impetus
14:00to try and say
14:02something different,
14:03something slightly unusual
14:04because you can't just
14:05keep saying the same thing.
14:08Fortunately
14:08for us historians,
14:10the story of empire
14:11is dotted
14:12not only with giant
14:13iconic characters
14:14but also iconic
14:16milestone events,
14:18often ripe
14:19for revisionist analysis.
14:22Time Watch
14:23followed this trend
14:23for debunking
14:24by tackling
14:25what some moviegoers
14:26would have considered
14:26one of the empire's
14:28finest hours.
14:30In 2003,
14:32half a century
14:33after the movie
14:33Zulu appeared,
14:35Time Watch asked
14:35how much of the movie
14:37is accurate
14:38and came up
14:39with a startling answer.
14:43It turns out
14:44the victory we see
14:45in reality
14:46masks a military disaster.
14:51Once again,
14:52Southern Africa
14:53was the battleground.
14:55A British army
14:56marches across the plain,
14:58seeking out an enemy
14:59they regard
15:00as native savages.
15:04January 11th,
15:051879.
15:07Under the command
15:08of Lord Chelmsford,
15:09the British
15:10crossed the border
15:10from Natal
15:11into Zululand.
15:14The whole British army
15:15was driven on
15:16by a mixture
15:16of self-confidence
15:17and contempt
15:18for their foes.
15:20Though a murderous
15:21looking crew,
15:22we look upon them
15:23as wild animals.
15:25The Zulus
15:25will fly away
15:26for their lives
15:26because they haven't
15:27got the weapons
15:28that we have.
15:29in the end.
15:30Chelmsford made the first
15:31of a series of blunders,
15:33splitting his forces
15:34to pursue
15:35what he believed
15:36was the main Zulu army,
15:38leaving 1,700 men
15:39exposed at the camp
15:41at Isendlwana.
15:4511 a.m.,
15:47and British scouts
15:48made a terrifying discovery.
15:5220,000 Zulu warriors
15:54within spitting distance
15:55of the undefended camp.
15:59The Zulus
16:01were given then
16:02to a low musical murmuring,
16:03which gave the impression
16:04of a gigantic swarm of bees
16:06getting nearer
16:07and nearer.
16:15The British army
16:16suffers its most humiliating defeat.
16:19extraordinary military blunders
16:24allow Zulus,
16:26most armed with just spears,
16:28to crush
16:28a modern British army.
16:29and the British army
16:41were killed.
16:4195% of the British soldiers
16:44had been killed.
16:45It was a source of huge shock to the British Empire.
16:54And in lots of ways, one can see in that image of Isandlwana an icon, if you like, for the
16:59progress of the British Empire across southern Africa.
17:02It really stands as a moment of the great resistance of the Zulu Kingdom against white
17:08intervention.
17:08Time Watch shows how this major defeat would be followed later the same day by a second,
17:17much smaller victory.
17:20A small breakaway band of Zulus spontaneously moved to attack a supply depot in British-controlled
17:26Natal, bordering on Zulu land.
17:29It was called Rourke's Drift, a name which, for many, symbolizes the Zulu War.
17:36The clash here at Rourke's Drift is the story told in the film Zulu.
17:42The garrison held off their attackers for ten hours and were awarded 11 Victoria crosses.
17:50Though compared to the earlier catastrophe, it was a sideshow.
17:54Yet it was this action that came to define the conflict, celebrated by every Briton, including
18:01Queen Victoria.
18:02There is no doubt about the value of our troops.
18:05They have shown the utmost devotion and bravery.
18:08It seems that people should take more pride in such a memorable victory instead of bemoaning
18:12the tragedy of Isandlwana.
18:15I am entirely of your magistrate's opinion that the British people should dwell as little
18:19as possible.
18:19Elevating the strategic significance at Rourke's Drift wipes out some of the stain of the very
18:24real disaster, the real defeat here at Isandlwana earlier in the day.
18:28One of the most notable things about this period of colonial warfare was the fact that the
18:34British always had columns of troops, gunboats here, there and everywhere.
18:38We were always operating somewhere in very large numbers and the losses were usually very,
18:43very small.
18:44So when you get things like Isandlwana, when you're losing sort of hundreds of troops in
18:48one day, these things of course really stand out and that's why they try and if you like
18:52sort of switch on the victory narrative.
18:55But the shock of this defeat went far beyond its military significance.
19:01It threatened the deepest beliefs of some empire builders.
19:07The idea of Africans armed with spears thrashing the technically superior British ran counter to
19:14contemporary racist theorising.
19:18Jeremy Paxman explored that theme in 2012.
19:22He looked at how some imperialists had tried to exploit the idea of a master race.
19:29In 1863, the members of the Anthropological Society of London gathered to hear what was billed
19:36as a scientific lecture.
19:40It was a momentous and, as it turned out, hugely controversial occasion.
19:49The speaker was the president and founder of the association, Dr James Hunt.
19:54The title of his paper was The Negro's Place in Nature.
20:02I propose to discuss the physical and mental characteristics of the Negro with a view to
20:08determining not only his position in nature, but also the station he should occupy.
20:15I shall also dwell on the analogies between the Negro and the anthropoid apes.
20:23What followed was over an hour of racist nonsense dressed up in the pseudo-technological language
20:30of scientific observation.
20:32The skull is very hard and unusually thick, enabling Negroes to fight
20:38or carry heavy weights on their heads with pleasure.
20:42There were hisses and boos from the audience.
20:45But his ideas struck a chord among more fanatical empire builders.
20:55Because the empire had been such a huge success story, they began to talk about how they had,
21:01and this phrase was pretty widely used, a genius for empire.
21:06But what was this genius?
21:09It got muddled up with Charles Darwin's ideas about evolution.
21:14The champions of empire argued that the British had evolved naturally to rule over others.
21:21Everywhere we see the European as the conqueror and the dominant race, and no amount of education
21:29will ever alter the decrees of nature's laws.
21:36In 2012, such views, of course, sounded not just offensive, but ridiculous.
21:44It's hard to believe that even in the heyday of empire, ideas like that were taken seriously.
21:52Let's not get too, with the benefit of hindsight, judgmental.
21:57But yes, I mean, there was social Darwinism, the survival of the fittest.
22:01You've got genetic theories emerging, and there is scientific racism, definitely.
22:06You know, that's part of the mix, the intellectual mix.
22:09But there was certainly a sense in the air that, you know, the British were the top nation.
22:14If you look at the coverage of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in 1897 in American newspapers,
22:20there was one editorial which was saying, you know, we must acknowledge that the British are
22:24in charge of the world, they are the kingpins.
22:28The movies and television have, I would argue, pretty much defined our image of the empire
22:38as it was in its Edwardian heyday.
22:42It's those crazy bright red soldiers' uniforms and solar topies.
22:48It's the world of ripping yarns, of carry on up the Khyber, of Corporal Jones and his fuzzy wuzzies
22:54who don't like it up them.
22:56In one sense, it's made the whole thing appear a bit comic.
23:01That sort of humor is something that we relate to.
23:05The whole idea of sending up a figure in authority or someone who's quite self-important
23:10and is a big cheese, as it were, that's something that's quite British.
23:15But as I've learned on my trawl through the archives, there are some subjects
23:19that provoke argument, not laughter.
23:26And Britain's record in India, the jewel in the imperial crown, is one of them.
23:35The BBC's 1972 series on the British Empire was one of the most ambitious history series ever made.
23:42This 13-hour analysis of the empire took two and a half years to complete.
23:50It cost the then huge sum of half a million pounds,
23:54in an era when the Prime Minister was paid Ā£20,000 a year.
23:58In one episode, filmmakers tell the story of the 1919 Amritsa massacre,
24:06a seminal event which hardened sentiment against British rule in India.
24:11Amritsa in the Punjab, the holy city of the Sikh religion.
24:21In 1919, it was to be the inappropriate setting for a historic moment of violence,
24:26which would detonate a prolonged struggle between the British Raj
24:29and Indian nationalists for control of India.
24:33Punjab had always been one of the most loyal of provinces.
24:39It supplied over half the Indian army's recruits,
24:41but in 1919, its cities were torn with rioting born of post-war discontents.
24:46There were attacks on Europeans and on government buildings.
24:49A town crier was sent round the city by General Dyer,
24:53the local British commander, to announce that all public assemblies were banned.
24:57A large crowd gathered in this park, the Jallian Wallabag, on the 13th of April 1919.
25:06General Dyer, with fewer than 100 troops, called on the crowd to disperse.
25:11It failed to do so.
25:12Unknown to Dyer, this narrow alley was the only exit from the Jallian Wallabag.
25:17General Dyer said later,
25:27I fired and continued to fire until the crowd dispersed.
25:30And I consider this is the least amount of firing
25:33which would produce the necessary moral and widespread effect.
25:36379 people were killed and 1,200 injured.
25:42The wife of the assistant commissioner recalls what happened after the shooting.
25:48General Dyer came in looking very sad, and we gave him a drink.
25:54And then he said,
25:56I'm for the high jump, but I've saved you women and children.
26:00Swift retribution.
26:01That was how the Raj had always maintained its authority.
26:04But at home, the sentiment which prevailed was of horror and outrage.
26:10For post-war Britain was liberal, humanitarian in its climate of opinion.
26:15Dyer was disavowed by the government and sacked.
26:21This story of the massacre recalls, perhaps,
26:24Britain's most shameful act during the Raj.
26:28And the filmmakers seemed to underline that sense of shame
26:32once the Raj had ended in 1947.
26:35This was once the mansion of Lord Clive,
26:39the first governor-general of British India nearly two centuries before.
26:45The honourable East India Company, the Empire of India,
26:48governors-general, viceroys, king emperors,
26:51all was over now.
26:56The British had said farewell at last,
26:58and India had returned to herself.
27:01Once these pillars had proclaimed a conqueror's pride,
27:12now they served to dry the hand-moulded cakes of cow dung,
27:15which are the staple Indian fuel.
27:21Eternal India's epitaph for an empire.
27:23For some viewers, the film seemed to mock the very idea of empire.
27:40A former official of the Raj, Lord Ferrier,
27:45launched a debate in the House of Lords,
27:47which unleashed fierce criticism of the BBC.
27:52In the official record, Hansard,
27:54there are pages and pages of complaints.
27:56The lords, many of them quite elderly,
27:58turned out to be the most critical audience imaginable.
28:01I was brought up in the Victorian era,
28:05when discipline, patriotism and the establishment
28:08were all respected.
28:10Today, apparently, they're dirty words.
28:14The BBC was compared to Lord Haw-Haw,
28:18the radio propagandist for the Nazis during World War II.
28:22We tend to think by 1972 the empire was over
28:25and that that was, you know, a new era in British politics.
28:28And, of course, to some extent it was.
28:30But historical memory doesn't die immediately.
28:32A lot of the people who were objecting to this
28:34in the House of Lords and so on had lived through it,
28:36had worked in it.
28:37You know, many British families had spent
28:39not only their lifetimes but generations
28:41working in the empire.
28:43It was still a very live political issue
28:45for people at that time.
28:47The irate politicians would have been astonished
28:50to learn what had been going on behind closed doors
28:53at the BBC.
28:55The series almost didn't make it to the screen.
28:59The rows backstage inside the BBC about what to say
29:03about the empire were the same as those raging outside
29:07among historians and politicians.
29:09According to one of the producers on the series,
29:12then in his 30s, the BBC wanted to glorify
29:16and celebrate the empire.
29:18But the young producers were having none of it.
29:21They even talked about resigning en masse
29:24before they got their way to tell the story warts and all.
29:29The empire is still an incredibly political thing to discuss
29:33because its echoes are still with us so strongly.
29:36You know, it still affects so much of the world today.
29:38Certainly if we're talking about, say, the Middle East,
29:41parts of Africa or South Asia,
29:43there is the British Empire at the root of a lot of those problems.
29:47Of course, those political situations have evolved
29:49since the end of that empire.
29:51But part of what we now know as current events
29:55is rooted in that history,
29:57so it is still incredibly political for many people.
29:59More than a quarter century after that row over the empire series,
30:04India was still a controversial topic.
30:10In 1998, Time Watch invited one of our best-known historians
30:14to argue the case for the benefits of British rule.
30:18It was during the Queen's visit last year
30:21that the British rule in India was once again brought
30:23to the world's attention.
30:25There were calls for the Queen to apologise for the Amritsar movement,
30:29a massacre in 1919,
30:31and implicitly for two centuries of British colonial rule.
30:36How should we assess the British Raj?
30:39Is it an episode of which we should be proud, embarrassed or ashamed?
30:43Andrew Roberts highlights what he believes
30:45to be historical myths of British rule in India.
30:51The viceroys, whose effigies are carefully preserved
30:54in a secluded estate outside Calcutta,
30:57governed the country with foresight and wisdom.
31:04English prevailed as the language of the law
31:06and of the administration,
31:08helping to unite as a single nation
31:10the once disparate peoples of the subcontinent.
31:13The young men of the Indian civil service
31:17came out here to dedicate their lives
31:19to the teeming multitudes of India.
31:21They did so with fairness and decency
31:23and, astonishingly, little interest in personal gain.
31:35The building of over 40,000 miles of railway track
31:38connected the country in a way never before possible.
31:44Of all the enduring achievements of the British in India,
31:47this railway system was one of the greatest.
31:53Throughout Britain's dominion over India,
31:55the British military establishment was tiny.
31:58It rarely numbered more than tens of thousands
32:00in a country of hundreds of millions.
32:02If our rule here had really been tyrannical,
32:05as is now made out,
32:07it could never have survived
32:08with Indians outnumbering Britons
32:10by a thousand to one.
32:14Sir Winston Churchill,
32:15a great servant of the Raj,
32:16thought it Britain's greatest achievement.
32:18He was right.
32:20And rather than apologise for our record here,
32:23we can and should be proud.
32:26First of all,
32:27what's your overall attitude to his proposition?
32:31It is sneering,
32:33snivelling,
32:34supercilious and silly.
32:36It's unhistorical
32:38and totally unworthy
32:40of a history, Don.
32:41Turning to you, Patrick French,
32:42do you take Andrew Roberts
32:44to view that it was a benevolent kind of government?
32:46Well, I mean, it's like Manishankaya said,
32:48it's such a grotesque caricature
32:50of what actually happened
32:51that it's hardly...
32:52I mean, I honestly don't know where to begin,
32:54to be frank.
32:55I'm startled that he could have made a film
32:57saying some of the things that are in there.
32:59Does it disturb you at all
33:00that Hitler admired
33:02what the British had done in India
33:03and, in fact, used it as an example
33:05when he was wanting to march into Russia
33:07to see that, in fact, this was his India?
33:09Does that not disturb you dreadfully?
33:10Of course not.
33:11Look what he did in Russia.
33:12He did the absolute opposite
33:13of what the British did in India.
33:15He depopulated,
33:16he killed people completely arbitrarily.
33:21The absolute opposite
33:22of what we had done for a century.
33:24I think that just because Adolf Hitler
33:26is said to have admired the British Empire,
33:28I mean, he admired Wagner.
33:29Does that mean we're never to listen to Wagner?
33:31That lively exchange
33:33took place half a century
33:35after the British quit India.
33:37One result of their leaving
33:39was the partition of India,
33:41with disputed territory, like Kashmir,
33:43still the cause of bloodshed today.
33:46Filmmakers have consistently returned
33:49to the events of 1947,
33:51as historians constantly reassess
33:54the roots of the tragedy.
33:56On the 60th anniversary of partition,
33:58the BBC showed just how bitter
34:00the conflict had become.
34:02In British India, the 255 million Hindus
34:06were in a majority.
34:07India's 92 million Muslims
34:09were concentrated in the northwest
34:11and northeast of the country.
34:13The six million Sikhs lived mostly
34:15in the Punjab,
34:16one of the richest
34:17and most diverse provinces in India.
34:19Muslim fears that Hindus would dominate
34:24an independent India drove the demand
34:26for a separate Muslim homeland.
34:29With religious hatred and suspicion growing,
34:32the dream of a united India
34:34seemed to be falling apart.
34:36The task of managing the handover
34:39had been given to Earl Mountbatten,
34:41the last viceroy of India,
34:43and he was in a hurry to get the job done.
34:47At a press conference,
34:52Mountbatten dropped a bombshell.
34:54Britain would not be leaving in June 1948,
34:57as had been planned,
34:58but on August 15, 1947,
35:01just three months away.
35:03The whole problem was
35:05that Mountbatten tried to do this job
35:08in too short a time.
35:10To expect a country to be partitioned,
35:13a new country to be created,
35:15and within two months,
35:17everything went out of control.
35:19It was no question of it being too soon.
35:22It was much too late,
35:23because, in fact, when he arrived,
35:25he thought the situation was so much more volcanic
35:30than he'd been led to believe in England.
35:34Communities that have lived together for centuries
35:36turn on each other in one of the worst communal massacres
35:39of the 20th century.
35:42Britain, the once great colonial power,
35:45looks on as India burns.
35:48Hindus and Muslims were in the grip of madness,
35:53you know.
35:54Lunacy, lunacy.
35:56hoolrafts.
35:58Mum, Mahaliles.
35:59Birthdays.
36:06I know they are always seeing the whole way
36:08of running a year.
36:09Some soona.
36:10I'm older.
36:11I'm older.
36:12I'm older.
36:13I'm older.
36:15I'm older.
36:16They're older.
36:17I am older.
36:18When you're older.
36:19I'm older.
36:20I'm older,
36:20when I'm younger.
36:22In the coming months, around 15 million people made the journey from one side to the other.
36:37At least one million were dead.
36:39Thousands more lay abandoned in makeshift refugee camps, stuck on the wrong side of the border.
36:44In only a few months, India had been divided along religious lines.
36:54The Indian part of the Punjab was cleared of nearly all its Muslims, while Pakistan was emptied of most of its Sikhs and Hindus.
37:02The border created in 1947 would become the focus for three wars and 60 years of animosity between the government of India and Pakistan.
37:14There was very much, at the time, and certainly looking back, a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't scenario.
37:24There were some senior British politicians in government who would have liked to have stayed for another 15 years to make the handover more successful.
37:32But, of course, nationalist politicians, quite rightly, want the power now.
37:38From an historian's point of view, films like this may not always break new ground.
37:44Sometimes they tell a familiar story, revived to meet a significant anniversary.
37:50Yet even then, they serve a valuable purpose in outlining the key moments of history for a new generation.
37:58I've seen how the imperial legacy in Africa and India has been the subject of often controversial filmmaking for many decades.
38:12Cecil Rhodes appears to have few defenders, while the motives of the Masters of the Raj were mixed, and that's borne out in the television archive.
38:22But, in another part of the Empire, the motive of the Masters was quite clear, and their methods, despicable.
38:35An episode of the 1972 British Empire series looked at how, for 200 years, Britain drew riches from the Caribbean, using enslaved Africans.
38:46It took three years to break an African tribesman into an efficient field slave.
38:55It was known as the Seasoning Period.
38:57One in three of the slaves died during seasoning, of disease, overwork, ill-treatment, and suicide.
39:10They worked from dawn to dusk, with a short break for breakfast and a longer one at midday.
39:15Though the work in stifling cane fields was back-breaking, crop time seemed the best in the year to the slaves.
39:26Then at least they could stave off hunger by chewing cane, and they were even given rum to keep them going.
39:36Slaves were expendable.
39:37The planters reckoned it more economic to import new slaves from Africa, rather than prolong the life of those they had, by better treatment.
39:46The life expectancy of a slave was seven years.
39:53Eventually, after decades of campaigning, the abolitionists won their moral crusade against slavery.
39:59In 1833, the reformed House of Commons decreed the end of slavery in the British colonies.
40:10In the West Indies, half a million slaves rejoiced on the great day.
40:19In 1972, filmmakers largely accepted that the slaves were freed on moral grounds.
40:26Since then, some historians have suggested that slave rebellions and cold economics also played a role.
40:34Industrialization is far more productive than having slave labor.
40:37It's not a humanitarian thing.
40:39People work out that slave labor actually isn't that productive.
40:42You've got to feed them, you've got to look after them when they get sick, you've got to house them.
40:48And actually, the industrial system, if you like, where you pay people and then they look after themselves, in theory, or are not looked after, was far more productive and profitable.
40:59The film appeared in the early 1970s, at a time when Britain's relationship with its former colonies was hotly debated.
41:06Although the sun had finally set on the empire, there remained the legacy of those imperial citizens who claimed their rights to settle in Britain, which many regarded as the mother country.
41:24Immigration was the big issue, and filmmakers in the 1970s began to ask whether high levels of immigration were desirable, and also if those who came were getting a fair deal.
41:36There have been blacks in Liverpool since the 1770s, a consequence of the shipping trade with West Africa.
41:44In those days, black slaves could be bought in Liverpool.
41:49Later, African seamen settled here, and then, in the 1940s, the wartime government recruited West Indians to work in British factories.
41:57For generations, these black men have married and lived with white women, producing a half-caste community that is British by birth and Afro-British by race.
42:06What's life like in this estate?
42:08It's all right, you know. I've got friends with the woman next door. Some people are all friendly in the neighbourhoods, but the woman next door is very friendly, you know.
42:16Is she white?
42:17Yeah.
42:18Yeah.
42:18She's white.
42:18But locally-born Liverpool blacks want more than neighbourly tolerance. They want equality of opportunity, a fair share of whatever jobs this depressed area has to offer.
42:29According to race relations workers here, many Liverpool employers have discriminated against the black community for so many years that the practice has become an accepted fact of life.
42:38Even in its better days, Liverpool has always had twice the national rate of unemployment, and always the blacks have found themselves at the end of the queue.
42:48There's got to be a policy of positive discrimination. They've got to come forward and they've got to allocate jobs to black people.
42:55They've got to recognise that black people exist and black people need to be catered for.
43:00Kids 17, 18, 19, think I have a right to say, what is this white society doing for me?
43:09Filmmakers were keen to explain, in the simplest terms, the new law to protect the rights of immigrants, which had just come into effect.
43:17It's an attempt to change people's attitudes. Take employment first.
43:22This man is after a job for which he's qualified and which he knows exists because he's seen it advertised.
43:27He applies for the job, but the employer turns him down.
43:32That rejection could be against the new law.
43:35An employer may not refuse a man a job or deny him promotion or pay him less, simply on grounds of race.
43:43The same man is now looking for somewhere to live.
43:46He goes to a boarding house and he asks for a room.
43:49If the owner turns him down, apparently on grounds of race, he can take the owner to court.
43:54The law applies to hotels.
43:57Indeed, it's now unlawful to deny a person any goods or service on racial grounds.
44:03Whatever the law said, not all of the recent arrivals felt welcome in Britain.
44:08It's now 25 years since Commonwealth Asians first came to Britain in sizable numbers.
44:17At first, the men came alone, uncertain whether they'd stay.
44:21But later, most of them sent for their wives and transplanted their roots and their culture.
44:26And now there's a second generation of British Asians that knows no country but this.
44:35The British don't accept me because they say, although you have to possess a British passport,
44:40and although I have lived all of my life, almost all of my life in this country, they will not accept me.
44:46We are stuck, in a sense, between the two cultures, the Western and our own culture.
44:53The old Jewish quarter of Whitechapel, now occupied by one of the least favoured immigrant groups in Britain,
45:00the Bengalis of Bangladesh.
45:02The parts of Bangladesh they come from are among the poorest in the world.
45:06They face bigger problems of adjustment to British society than any other immigrant group.
45:11The result is tension and sometimes violence.
45:14The window has been broken and one upstairs.
45:17One day I threw the bricks, you know, the glass went everywhere in the room
45:20and the baby was sleeping in the court and the baby had bruised in the face, marked.
45:25Two men may be except in the top and one is putting a knife in the cart.
45:31This, that way.
45:33In 1994, using newly released official papers, Time Watch explored the history of immigration from the former empire.
45:46In an episode which resonates today, politicians apparently underestimated how many people would take the opportunity to settle in Britain,
45:55causing concern in some communities.
45:58By the early 1960s, some of those who lived in the communities where the black immigrants had settled
46:04felt emboldened to speak their mind.
46:06It's no good for folks saying, as people will mix, they just won't.
46:10They're a nuisance at work, they won't work.
46:14And for folks who got them living by them, they're more nuisance still.
46:18I think they should live in a district or to themselves,
46:23because I've got to bring this a cup of oil amongst them.
46:28The problem arose from a miscalculation made in the late 1940s.
46:36British subjects numbered nearly 800 million people.
46:41From whichever country they came, they had the right to work and settle in Britain,
46:45a right enshrined in the British Nationality Act of 1948.
46:48It was assumed that only a few of those subjects would actually exercise their right.
46:55But with the passing of the new act, the children of the empire began to come home.
47:00Leaving behind poverty and unemployment, they were hoping for a better tomorrow in Britain.
47:07Time Watch revealed how quickly the policy of open-door immigration was called into question,
47:12and how the whole subject became mired in politics.
47:15Official documents that have recently been the subject of academic study
47:19reveal that within months of enacting the 1948 Act,
47:23the authorities were already alarmed by its implications.
47:27In April 1954, a meeting was convened to build a case for legislation
47:32intended to withdraw the automatic right of abode in the 1948 Act.
47:38In November 1961, amidst heated debate,
47:42the government introduced a bill to limit immigration from the old empire.
47:48Despite those first measures to control immigration more than 50 years ago,
47:53the subject remains very much alive.
47:56As recently as 2012, filmmakers were able to demonstrate
48:00just how firmly shut the once open door has now become.
48:04The children of those who would once have claimed an entitlement to enter Britain
48:09face a treacherous journey and a cold reception.
48:15Illegal migrants from India trapped in the UK without a home, work or even an identity.
48:21They pay people smugglers thousands of pounds,
48:24yet sometimes end up penniless and destitute.
48:27Punjab, one of India's richest states.
48:44They call it the food basket of India.
48:49In the first decades after independence,
48:52hundreds of thousands of mainly Sikh Punjabis settled in the UK
48:56to fill huge gaps in Britain's workforce.
49:00Today, the criteria they must meet for a British work visa is much tougher.
49:07Agents charge up to $15,000 for a visa and the services of traffickers.
49:12There are no refunds.
49:14This is Southall in West London.
49:22It's home to a huge South Asian population,
49:25one of the biggest concentrations outside India.
49:28Over the last 20 years,
49:30illegal immigrants from India have added to that population.
49:34But for new arrivals, life here is tough.
49:37From sunrise, hundreds of illegal immigrants descend on the train station car park,
49:44a regular pick-up point for cheap, illegal labour.
49:49A lack of work is pushing illegal workers
49:52into the very poverty they hope to escape.
49:57They live here, in Britain's 21st century slums.
50:02Across Southall, 2,500 poorly constructed buildings,
50:06hidden at the end of suburban gardens.
50:10They call them sheds with beds.
50:13Many built without planning permission.
50:15Others, converted garages.
50:17This is just one street,
50:19and on the end of each garden,
50:21there are brick buildings like this one,
50:24all with windows and doorways leading to this alleyway.
50:29And they just go on and on and on.
50:33Increasing numbers of illegal immigrants
50:35are giving up on their life in Britain.
50:38But getting home isn't easy.
50:43Of course, many millions of Commonwealth citizens
50:46have come to Britain and thrived here.
50:49The nation that 70 years ago
50:51offered an open door to all its former subjects
50:54is no longer so welcoming.
50:58But Britain today has been shaped by its imperial past.
51:02The multicultural world we live in today
51:05is a consequence of empire.
51:08My parents were from Ghana,
51:09or the Gold Coast, as it then was.
51:12They wanted to continue their education
51:13in what was even then called the mother country,
51:16the kind of seat of empire, if you like.
51:18I mean, I wouldn't be here
51:19if it hadn't been for the British Empire.
51:21Delving into the empire archive
51:25has reminded me of one important principle.
51:29History can never be entirely objective.
51:33Historians and filmmakers
51:34must select which facts to work with,
51:37how to interpret them,
51:38and therefore the message they convey.
51:41There is a particularly robust debate in Britain
51:45about empire
51:45and about our supposed heroes or villains of our history.
51:49Now there's actually a great fashion for people saying
51:52it wasn't that bad after all,
51:53that's been going for some time,
51:55and then there's a counterbalance to that.
51:57But I think this is all part of a healthy debate.
51:59You wouldn't want to restrict
52:00what points of views people were allowed to take.
52:04I've seen how, in the 1970s,
52:07filmmakers were keen to expose the excesses of empire.
52:11Fast forward a few decades,
52:14and in two more recent high-profile series,
52:17their authors take a much more benign view,
52:20at least giving empire builders the credit
52:22for a noble enterprise.
52:24The men and women who had sat at their desks
52:27and danced in the club
52:28were not monsters of hard-hearted indifference.
52:32They had, many of them,
52:33only the very best of intentions.
52:37They had, in fact, a vision
52:39that their empire was the best the world had ever seen
52:42because it was built on virtue.
52:45Its power was to be measured not in Gatling guns,
52:48but in an unselfish dedication
52:50to eradicating poverty, ignorance and disease.
52:54We would take whole cultures crippled by those maladies
52:58and stand them on their own two feet.
53:02The more British India could become, the better.
53:07The country would be turned into one vast schoolroom.
53:12Western education was the instrument
53:15by which India was going to be transformed
53:17from a world of bullet carts and beggars
53:20into the progressive Victorian dynamic world
53:23of the telegraph and the locomotive.
53:26English would be a way to bring Indians,
53:29divided by so many faiths and languages, together.
53:35The film recognises that those noble aims
53:38were only partially achieved
53:40by the time Britain decided to call it a day.
53:43In 1947, when India became independent,
53:49all New Delhi's statues of the king emperors
53:51and viceroys and generals,
53:53the great and the good and the not-so-good,
53:56were rounded up and taken here,
53:58where they were interned
53:59like so many forlorn hostages
54:02to that old joker history.
54:06But perhaps the last word on the British Empire
54:08hasn't been Britain after all.
54:10At least if that empire is thought of
54:13not in terms of scarlet tunics and flashing sabres,
54:17but language, law and liberal democracy.
54:22Not just in Calcutta and Madras,
54:25but also in Oldham, Leicester and Bradford.
54:36Remember, in 1972,
54:39filmmakers were accused of treason, more or less,
54:42in their judgement on India.
54:45This 2002 judgement seems far more charitable.
54:50But, as always,
54:51there will be a voice to challenge
54:53each new interpretation.
54:56Even today, I think there's very much a desire
54:58in a country like Britain
54:59not to be told that key aspects of our past
55:02were desperately iniquitous.
55:04People want to believe that generally it was all OK,
55:06even if some nasty things happened.
55:08Well, unfortunately,
55:09when you begin to look at
55:10the very underpinnings of British imperialism,
55:13the underpinnings were often remarkably suspect.
55:16So even if some more benign things happened
55:19at certain junctures,
55:20that really isn't the bit of the story
55:22that necessarily should be focused upon.
55:24A more rounded story is needed,
55:26and I think the tale
55:26should never be allowed to wag the dog.
55:28In 2012,
55:31Jeremy Paxman cast his critical eye
55:34over the empire
55:35and wrapped up his inquiry
55:36by urging that we re-engage
55:39with this critical part of our past.
55:42The sun had most definitely set on the empire.
55:47It had taken centuries to accumulate.
55:50It was gone in a couple of decades.
55:52The empire brought blood and tears
56:00and dispossession to millions of people,
56:03but it also brought roads and railways and education.
56:10For good or ill,
56:12much of the world is as it is today
56:14because of the empire.
56:16From the way it looks
56:18It has changed the very genetic make-up of Britain.
56:45If only we can look at it clear-eyed,
56:48it can tell us a lot about who we are.
56:53It's a story that belongs to all of us.
57:00We've been through pride,
57:02we've been through shame.
57:03Mostly nowadays we seem to be in denial.
57:05But if we really want to understand
57:08who we are,
57:10it's time we stop pretending
57:11the empire was nothing to do with us.
57:18As I've gone through the archive,
57:24I've seen historians being attacked by their peers.
57:27I've seen filmmakers pilloried in the House of Lords.
57:32Wouldn't it be wiser
57:33just to steer clear of the empire
57:35and stay out of trouble?
57:37Quite simply,
57:38it's so full of such astonishing stories
57:41that it's a constant source of material
57:43for documentary filmmakers
57:44as well as dramatists and screenwriters.
57:47And when the pendulum of historical interpretation
57:50swings so violently,
57:52it means that familiar subjects
57:54never lose their appeal.
57:57Ironically,
57:57it's now almost as controversial
57:59to defend characters
58:01like Cecil Rhodes
58:02as it was four decades ago
58:03to denounce them.
58:04It seems to me
58:08that the documentary archive demonstrates
58:09that there's no historical subject
58:11more exciting and colourful
58:13nor more treacherous and controversial
58:15than the British Empire.
58:19And if it gets people thinking
58:21and caring passionately
58:22about who we are
58:23and where we've come from,
58:25is that a bad thing?
58:34and where we are
58:37interested in the scrapbook
58:37and how we are
58:39and how we're trying to
58:41push this out
58:42into the impossible
58:42of knowing
58:43at the uno.
58:44For this podcast,
58:48I'll consider
58:49what to say
58:54in the No.
58:56In the U.
58:57Idea
58:58Oģļæ½ han
58:59Ewan
58:59Mr.
58:59Jared
59:00This
59:01Osh
59:02Osh
59:03The
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