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Empire State of Mind is a two-part television documentary presented by British journalist and author Sathnam Sanghera, exploring how the legacy of the British Empire shapes modern Britain.
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00:03I'm Satnam Sanghera, I'm a journalist and an author, and for the past few years I've been
00:08writing about the legacies of the British Empire in newspaper columns and in a book.
00:15The intense and often racist backlash to this has been like nothing else in my career.
00:20You are morally stunted, a journalist scared to speak the truth.
00:25You are a product of British patronage. Choke on it, Satnam.
00:32I believe that any criticism of empire inspires huge emotions because we've never come to terms with it.
00:39We have a multicultural society because of empire, just one of its legacies that confuses us about who we are.
00:48People are fighting you because their sense of identity feels threatened by what you're saying.
00:55As a child of Punjabi immigrants, I myself have been confused about who I am.
01:01I've sometimes struggled to integrate my Indian and my British heritage.
01:09This country is divided.
01:11You're so into Nazi!
01:15Whether it's football, statues, or Brexit, we continually end up in opposing camps with often dangerous consequences.
01:29It's mad that something as gentle as a national trust involves death threats.
01:35I want to try and find a way out of this stalemate.
01:38And I believe understanding empire is the answer.
01:54At its peak, the British empire covered nearly a quarter of the globe and ruled over more than 500 million
02:00subjects.
02:01From South Africa to India, Australia to Canada.
02:07But the way we deal with this history in modern Britain is problematic.
02:12We don't really know our empire story, but we have a vague sense of nostalgia about it.
02:17We like to think empire, along with our role in two world wars, is what put the great into Great
02:23Britain.
02:27The roots of this rose-tinted view of empire are many.
02:31One of them dates back to 1916, when in the midst of the chaos of the First World War,
02:37the British government created an official Empire Day to boost morale and national unity.
02:46The empire was built up by brave and wise men and women in the past.
02:56Empire Day was the brainchild of the Earl of Meath.
02:59An old Etonian and ardent imperialist, he worried that British schoolchildren were ignorant of the glories of empire.
03:08It is a great inheritance.
03:11Its future welfare and good name are under the providence of God in your hands.
03:22Children were given half a day of school, and most British towns had parades, music and games.
03:33I want to tell you children, when you think that you're proud of the empire,
03:38I want you to feel that you're proud of yourself.
03:43It's a forgotten festival now, but it was celebrated annually across Britain right until the late 1950s.
03:51Not only did the BBC cover it as it would a royal wedding today, but newspapers also went to town
03:57on it.
03:59This is the London Illustrated News, who looked like they produced a special edition for Empire Day.
04:05And I see the Union Jack.
04:07It looks like thousands of boys have got together in a giant Union Jack.
04:16Wow, that's amazing.
04:18This is a Daily Mail article from 1926.
04:20It talks about how one million medals have been handed out and 250,000 flags.
04:27And this is the Mail on Empire Day in 1933.
04:32Why not celebrate it this year by winning one of these prizes for the best essay on Empire Day?
04:37Imagine the millions of people who grew up writing essays on the glory of empire.
04:43What you've got to remember is that British Empire was something that happened generally outside Britain.
04:48So the average man didn't really have a relationship with it.
04:51Their only experience of it was probably through events like this.
04:55It's quite easy for them to think that empire was a nice thing,
04:58because they associate it emotionally with fun parades and waving a flag.
05:02And what's wrong with that?
05:06I was born in the 1970s, far too late to experience the patriotic fervour of Empire Day.
05:13But as a child, I absorbed a general feeling that empire was a force for good.
05:19This partly came from my grandfather, one of the first in my family to emigrate in the 1960s.
05:25He would occasionally reminisce about the British rule in India, known as the Raj.
05:31Describing the British as a tribe of clever men who conquered India,
05:36bringing technology and infrastructure to our homeland, the Punjab.
05:47But it was my secondary school that cemented this positive view.
05:52I went to a grammar school with 500 years of history,
05:55which was modelled on the British public school system.
06:04So this is my first school assembly in more than 25 years.
06:08Passing my 11 plus to get into this school was the best piece of luck I ever had.
06:12It's the reason why I entered the establishment, it's how I escaped poverty.
06:17So it's always emotional coming back.
06:20Well, good morning everybody.
06:22The first thing I want to talk about is that wonderful WGS tradition of coast to coast.
06:27To attend and take part in over the first weekend of past term.
06:32Wolverhampton Grammar in the 1990s was like nothing else I'd ever experienced.
06:37I was so shell-shocked coming into this white world from my sheltered Punjabi home
06:42that I barely spoke a word in my first two years here.
06:47It all changed when I decided to cut off my top knot,
06:50the bun of hair traditionally worn by Sikhs.
06:54Today Sikhs have no problem integrating top knots, turbans and long hair with being British.
07:00But for me, back then, it was a crucial step towards assimilation.
07:06I began to feel like I fitted in.
07:08I kissed a girl for the first time and eventually became head boy.
07:14It's no surprise that at grammar school I picked up a nostalgic view of Empire.
07:19While it was barely mentioned in lessons, Empire was in its DNA, its bricks and mortar.
07:27Just across the river from Windsor is Eton, most famous of the English public schools.
07:32That's because my school emulated British public schools,
07:35which for more than a century trained young men to go forth to the colonies and rule,
07:40armed with an imperial mindset.
07:43In perfect weather, 78 public school teams shoot for the Ashburton Shield.
07:47Winchester, Eton, they're all there.
07:50The schools promoted leadership, a sense of duty and a martial spirit,
07:55with the sports field central to fostering these values.
07:59Even Hitler admired the system, saying it produced men of inflexible will
08:04and ruthless energy, men who knew how to dominate other men in the most unscrupulous fashion.
08:13Looking back at my education, I realised that it helped me to understand
08:17and eventually join the white establishment.
08:22Hello, Mr Trafford.
08:23How are you?
08:24How are you?
08:25It's good to see you.
08:26Bernard Trafford was headmaster during my time here.
08:28Nice to meet you on a site of massive athletic underachievement for me.
08:33Yeah.
08:33I was crap at everything when it came to sport.
08:36Yeah, that's what I felt for you because I was the same.
08:39It's quite weird meeting your headmaster when you're growing up because
08:41for me, you were a massive authority figure.
08:45And I remember I went to your house and it blew my mind.
08:48You fed us gazpacho.
08:50Oh, did I?
08:51It's my first time I've had cold soup.
08:53It blew my mind.
08:54All right.
08:57Obviously, this school had a massive effect on me.
08:59It changed who I was.
09:00I changed culturally.
09:01I changed religiously.
09:02I changed class in this school as well.
09:04I went from being working class.
09:06I suppose so.
09:06Being middle class.
09:08But I feel like I lost touch with where I came from.
09:11And I think it was because I had a very traditional education here.
09:15You know, our history education just never referred to empire at all, I think.
09:19It wasn't a deliberate exclusion.
09:21It was just a blindness.
09:23It wasn't a denial.
09:24It was an unawareness.
09:25I think it disconnected me from who I was because, you know what,
09:29I didn't study a single brown author in seven years here.
09:32You know, our Remembrance Day services were very moving,
09:35but we never talked about the brown troops that died.
09:39We never talked about them, did we?
09:41No, we didn't.
09:42Race and empire sort of weren't part of it.
09:44It was, I suppose, it was a very different angle.
09:48I mean, we just didn't, we didn't think at all.
09:50It's ignorance which we need to put right.
09:56Empire wasn't the DNA of my school,
09:58but it's often far more visible in the symbols that surround us.
10:03These symbols transmit an identity and a set of values,
10:07and we absorb them without even realising it.
10:15We're on the side of the Foreign Office,
10:17just around the corner from Downing Street,
10:19and this is the Victorian depiction of empire, how they saw it.
10:24So you've got all the major continents involved in empire,
10:28framed by government and education.
10:30And you see how the imperialists in the Victorian age
10:35have depicted themselves as civilised men,
10:37and then they depicted Asia, Africa, America and Australasia as women.
10:45Well, there's an obvious hierarchy you've got here.
10:47You've got enlightened white men educating primitive half-naked women.
10:53And in the case of Asia and Africa, the women are surrounded by jungle animals.
10:58It's misogynistic and it's racist,
11:01and it shows you what empire was in the 19th century.
11:04And it's everywhere, this kind of stuff.
11:06It's part of our culture.
11:25So this is my diary from when I visited India with my mother.
11:31And it's mortifying because I'm 19 and I'm a literature student,
11:35and therefore a complete wanker.
11:37So this is my diary from when I visited India with my mother.
11:39I'm talking quite a lot about how bad I am Punjabi,
11:42and everyone kind of gathers to laugh at me,
11:45speak Punjabi with my Wolverhampton accent.
11:47And I get very annoyed about the sheer size of my family.
11:51I spend a whole day at a religious ceremony, and I say,
11:53one of the good things about religious ceremonies
11:56is the opportunity they provide for a little solitary privacy,
12:00something always lacking when you eat, sleep and seemingly shit together.
12:05I'm studying English by this point,
12:07and I'm viewing India entirely through Western literature.
12:10There's one point I'm saying,
12:11I keep on thinking about a line from Ruth Jabwala's Heat and Dust.
12:15I came to India to discover my spirituality and found only dysentery.
12:20I saw even my ancestral country through the prism of the British.
12:27I assume that things have changed,
12:29that today's young people have a more sophisticated and balanced grasp
12:33of our imperial history.
12:37Hello, students.
12:39I'm pretending to be a teacher for the day.
12:43Debates about the national curriculum,
12:44and how to tackle the thorny subject of empire,
12:47have been rumbling on for over 30 years.
12:50It's easy to see why.
12:52Over that time, troubling questions have increasingly been raised
12:56about that part of our history.
12:58What have you guys been taught about British Empire?
13:02Not much.
13:04Really, I thought things had changed.
13:06Was it explained to you that slavery was part of empire?
13:09We get taught, like, a lot more about American slavery and how it worked over there,
13:16and we talk a lot less about Britain's involvement in slavery.
13:19What do you feel the education curriculum on history, what do you think it should involve?
13:25What changes should they be?
13:27That's what the world was, because we've covered that for years and years and years and years.
13:31It's all we hear about.
13:32But, yeah, we should probably do more about Britain and other parts of the world as well.
13:37I mean, especially the empire.
13:38I mean, it's a massive part of British history, and we don't even touch on it once.
13:43I bet you had a lot about Henry VIII as well.
13:48This ignorance about empire is hardly surprising,
13:51even among the high-achieving students from my old school.
13:54The British Empire is only a small and optional part of the national curriculum.
13:59In the GCSE exams of 2020, only 10% of students studied a module that concentrated on empire.
14:09But the debate about what children are taught in school is mired in a much bigger debate about
14:14who we are. A curriculum that acknowledges our multicultural society is still seen by some
14:21as a threat to Britain's national identity. And this is troubling.
14:25BU POLONE
14:37Lord Brainsworthy of Essex probably not a real name
14:41says, yet again another race baiter trying to paint Britain racist for things that happened
14:47100, 200, 300 years ago.
14:50Santhanam, once racial divisions, failed to integrate and bringing his prejudices to the fore.
14:57Yeah, I failed to integrate so much that I became a columnist for the times.
15:01But that's basically the level of the crap you get.
15:06My writing about empire is hardly radical.
15:10I point out both its positive and negative legacies.
15:14But it's clear that anything that criticises our imperial history provokes a knee-jerk response in some people.
15:21And there's often the implication that I'm not allowed to have an opinion because I'm not truly British.
15:27It's not your nation, Babu.
15:29You're another third-world shitholean leeching off another nation's luxuries.
15:34Keep it up and all you street-shitting goatfuckers will be sent back home to sister Pakistan.
15:52I've come to Yorkshire on the eve of a contentious by-election
15:56to explore what's probably the most controversial legacy of empire.
16:00And one which is personal to me, multiculturalism.
16:04At the heart of it is a debate about who or what gets to be British.
16:12The by-election in Batley and Spen is for the seat once held by MP Joe Cox,
16:18a defender of multiculturalism who was murdered by a constituent with links to the far-right.
16:27Joe's sister Kim is standing for Labour against 15 other candidates,
16:31five of whom are from extreme right-wing or nationalist groups.
16:39Members of these groups have different beliefs but are united in a feeling
16:43that white British culture is under threat.
16:52Batley School in West Yorkshire chained up and shut today.
16:57Pupils told to stay...
16:58Batley has become the focus of attention because of a recent controversy at a local school.
17:04Parts of the Muslim community took offence when a teacher showed images of the Prophet Muhammad
17:09while teaching a class on blasphemy.
17:11That's what we want.
17:14This school is located around the Muslim community.
17:19So we should be even more careful.
17:23The school controversy and the by-election has attracted the far-right to the town.
17:30They're hoping to capitalise on racial tensions.
17:34This, in turn, has prompted a counter-demonstration by anti-fascist groups.
17:41Quite tense.
17:43There's police everywhere.
17:45The far-right are detecting the culture of this by-election.
17:49I think we really need to know and understand what they're saying
17:53and why their message appeals to certain people.
17:55Let me stop!
17:57I'll mark me!
17:58I'm meeting candidate Anne-Marie Waters,
18:00an anti-Islam activist who left UKIP after losing the leadership bid.
18:05Hello, Anne-Marie.
18:06Hi, how are you?
18:06Is it Anne-Marie or Anne?
18:07Anne-Marie.
18:08Anne-Marie.
18:08In 2017, she set up a far-right party called Fall Britain.
18:13She was born in Ireland but emigrated to England as a university student.
18:18She's hoping to gain support in the town where emotions are running high.
18:23Do you think Britain is a country at ease with itself?
18:26No.
18:26I think it's divided.
18:28It's divided because of multiculturalism.
18:31It's divided because we're turning people against each other.
18:34These groups like Black Lives Matter, for example,
18:36stirring up all this racial division.
18:38And the anti-white hatred in this country, which is never addressed,
18:41is turning people against each other.
18:44I think we should all be uniting under a British identity
18:47because it's the one we've got.
18:48It's fractured now.
18:50The reason we have a multicultural society in Britain
18:52is that we had a multicultural empire.
18:54And it's a relationship between communities that goes back centuries.
18:58Brown people helped to build the NHS.
19:01Right.
19:01They helped to win both world wars.
19:04They've been part of this country for centuries.
19:06OK.
19:06And people arrived in 1948 under the Nationality Act as British citizens.
19:12My problem with multiculturalism, I've just explained to you,
19:15it's divisive.
19:16It means that one community can commit terrible crimes
19:20and get away with it in the name of their culture.
19:23We know that we have Sharia councils,
19:26we have forced marriage, we have child marriage,
19:28we have FGM, we have rape gangs.
19:30We know all of this.
19:32And all of them are, not by horrible coincidence,
19:34but all of them are connected to this religion for a reason.
19:36Do you know how the Irish were treated
19:38when they came to Britain in the 19th century?
19:41Why is that relevant?
19:43Because they were accused of being...
19:44Why is that relevant to what I'm talking about?
19:46They were accused of being religious fundamentalists.
19:48Why is that relevant to what I'm talking about?
19:48They lived in ghettos, they didn't speak their language,
19:51they were seen as anti-British.
19:53They were talked about in exactly the same way
19:55you talk about Muslims.
19:56My community, the Sikhs, were talked about in this way.
19:58It's just the way it goes.
19:59Right.
20:00You know, and eventually, obviously there's pockets
20:03of the community that don't integrate.
20:05It's not pockets.
20:06But give them time, they will.
20:07Why should we wait?
20:09Why should we be forced to wait for other people to integrate?
20:13How do you feel about British Empire?
20:16I do think that there's an awful lot of anti-British bias in it.
20:20It's not the only empire that's ever existed.
20:24And yet there's this constant emphasis
20:26on the unique evils of the British Empire.
20:28It's simply not true.
20:29And I think that we are teaching British children
20:31to be uniquely ashamed of British history.
20:36Anne-Marie and others like her ignore a very simple fact.
20:40We have a multicultural society
20:42because we had a multicultural empire.
20:45As the saying goes,
20:47we are here because you were there.
20:53And because of empire,
20:55most of us who live in Britain,
20:56descendants of the colonisers and colonised alike,
21:00have a shared history.
21:02But that shared history isn't the rose-tinted one I grew up with.
21:07Nor is it the one that Anne-Marie believes we are teaching,
21:10that empire is something to be ashamed of.
21:14It's a complicated history.
21:16And our ignorance of it means we're confused about our national identity.
21:20That confusion is at the heart of inflammatory debates about our heritage.
21:26They're called the culture wars.
21:30Not justice!
21:32Not justice!
21:34Tired of colonial iconography.
21:37Tired of white supremacy in our curriculums.
21:41As with Empire Day during World War I,
21:45empire is being used to remind ordinary Britons of their greatness
21:48during a time of uncertainty.
21:51British people did great things in this country and across the globe.
21:58This idea of our greatness is being challenged by people
22:01who believe we've ignored unsavoury facts about empire for far too long.
22:12They've got plenty of ammunition.
22:15Whether it's the controversial pasts of famous individuals,
22:18the transport of three million slaves across the Atlantic,
22:22or the brutal repression of thousands of dissenters in India.
22:29A singular view of the past,
22:31whether positive or negative, is dividing this country.
22:37I know all about the culture wars because I've been caught up in them.
22:41The reaction to my book is proof enough.
22:45These unresolved conflicts about our identity
22:47makes me wonder whether we need some kind of therapy as a nation.
22:56Hi, Sat Nam. Come on in.
22:58Hello.
23:00Philippa Perry is a psychotherapist
23:02who's worked in the field of mental health for more than 20 years.
23:06She's also married to the artist Grayson Perry.
23:08This is Kevin.
23:10Hello, Kevin.
23:11Aw.
23:12Kevin's a great neighbor cat.
23:14Thanks very much.
23:14He's had enough of me already.
23:16I'm actually excited to be in your house
23:18because I love Grayson's work.
23:19Oh, right.
23:20But I can see there's actually some very old-school art here.
23:25Well, these are paintings I've inherited from my family.
23:28Oh, really?
23:29Yeah.
23:29Is that...?
23:30This is my grandfather,
23:32and he had cotton mills in Lee.
23:36That would have been 19th century, early 20th century.
23:40Are you someone who's interested in family history or not?
23:43Well, of course I'm interested,
23:45but it's also somehow a little bit painful
23:48to know that if you come from cotton mills,
23:51there must be there some exploitation going on
23:55because where did the raw cotton come from?
23:57It either came from India,
23:59and we probably didn't pay enough for it,
24:01or it came from the Caribbean,
24:03where we used slaves to harvest it.
24:06So it's not great, is it?
24:09We tend to, when we look back at the history,
24:12find the things to be proud of
24:14rather than look at the, you know,
24:17patterns of dysfunction.
24:19And I'm all for looking at patterns of dysfunction
24:21and facing up to them.
24:24I've had a 20-year career in journalism,
24:26had very little racism.
24:28Yeah.
24:28Very rarely even talked about race.
24:30Yeah.
24:30And now I've written a book about our history,
24:34and I'm getting so much hatred.
24:36I can't really understand it,
24:37and I frequently wonder whether we're screwed up as a country.
24:41When I was at school,
24:43there was a map on the wall,
24:45and right in the centre of the map,
24:47as though it was the most important thing,
24:49there was Great Britain,
24:50and it was pink,
24:52and then anything that was part of empire
24:56was also pink.
24:58And we were sort of told,
25:00look, we've won.
25:01And so this kind of puffed you up, you know?
25:04That skewed idea that gets into your identity
25:07of what Britain is and what Britain has done.
25:10I think people are fighting you
25:14because their sense of identity
25:17feels threatened by what you're saying.
25:21Philippa is right.
25:23But how do you get people,
25:25and a nation,
25:26to accept the darker aspects of empire
25:28when they see it as something that's made them special?
25:43Exploring our national identity
25:45has made me want to reconnect
25:46with a part of my own identity
25:48that I've neglected for a long time.
25:53I just think I've become more and more British
25:55and less and less Sikh.
25:56And I've lost touch with the fact
25:58that Punjabi was my first language,
26:00and that I mainly live in the world
26:02of Western literature and Hollywood films.
26:04I don't watch Bollywood films,
26:06I don't listen to Indian music,
26:08and I feel slightly disconnected from that culture,
26:10which was me once upon a time, you know?
26:14And I'd like to reconnect with that little boy.
26:17I'm travelling back to Wolverhampton
26:19to have a chat with my older brother Jazz
26:21about my drift away from Punjabi culture.
26:31This is 26 years ago.
26:34Strange time though, wasn't it?
26:36The 90s.
26:38I don't think green suits were ever in.
26:44I've got Jazz to pull out his wedding video
26:46as a starting point,
26:47because it's a bit awkward
26:48talking about my sense of identity with him.
26:55This is one of the reasons
26:56I think I never got married,
26:57because when you get married as a Sikh,
26:59you have to dance for about an hour.
27:02But that's not particularly dancing.
27:03That's just walking around.
27:05You look pretty mortified,
27:06but I think I'm just too much of an introvert
27:09to be able to do that.
27:12I clearly can't dance.
27:14I'm doing that kind of George Michael being electrocuted dance.
27:19You know, when he just swung from side to side.
27:22There's a kid with a top knot there who's just vibing,
27:25as the kids say.
27:26You know, he's in his own universe.
27:29He's not self-conscious.
27:30I was never like that.
27:32I was always very self-conscious.
27:34I had a top knot,
27:34and I was always very aware of what I looked like.
27:37I wish I could have been like that.
27:39He's at one with his identity.
27:42I can see in this video
27:44that basically I'm already drifting away from the culture.
27:49I think I knew by this point I was going to go to Cambridge.
27:52I think mentally I was leaving already.
27:55What you do if you're an Indian son
27:57is that you look after your parents.
27:59And mum and dad had a very difficult time.
28:02On some level I felt like I had abandoned them,
28:04and I felt guilty about leaving.
28:08If you change, you also lose where you came from.
28:11So, you know,
28:13I wish I knew more about Punjabi history or Sikh history.
28:17I just don't know enough.
28:19I think it's been who you are,
28:22and obviously part of you is Indian,
28:24you know, in terms of your heritage.
28:27So, you embrace it how you feel comfortable embracing it.
28:34Frustratingly, I know little about my family history,
28:36only that they were farmers in the Punjab.
28:40Their lives were in stark contrast
28:42to those of the British ruling class,
28:44who made fortunes in the colonies,
28:46and about whom we know an enormous amount.
28:51They are epitomised by the family of Robert Clive,
28:54known as Clive of India,
28:56a man both admired and reviled in his lifetime.
29:00As military general of the East India Company,
29:03a forerunner of the modern multinational corporation,
29:06Clive invaded the Indian subcontinent
29:08and used brutal force to plunder its vast wealth
29:12and natural resources.
29:14His conquests paved the way for the British Raj
29:17and netted him a fortune of over 700 million pounds
29:20in today's money.
29:22His son became the first Earl of Paris.
29:33I'm meeting John Herbert, the present-day Earl of Paris,
29:36beside a statue of his controversial ancestor in Shrewsbury.
29:41He's someone who's had to grapple
29:43with the darker aspects of empire,
29:45and I'm wondering how he's managed it
29:48and what he says about who he is.
29:51Hello, Lord Powis.
29:53Hello.
29:53Nice to meet you.
29:56So, John, I can ask you to list your actual titles.
29:59Ah, yes. I can't do all of them.
30:01Do some of them.
30:02Viscount Clive, and that relates to this chap,
30:06and the main one is the Earl of Powis.
30:10This statue of Clive is one of dozens of statues and memorials
30:14that have been removed or contested in the last year,
30:17part of the struggle to make sense of our imperial history.
30:21So, what was it like during the Black Lives Matter protest?
30:24There was very much a request to bring it down,
30:27and there were quite strong feelings,
30:29and I think they resolved in the end,
30:32the council resolved to keep it,
30:33but to put a plaque on it that will tell us more.
30:37But they haven't put the plaque on it yet.
30:39Oh, really?
30:39No.
30:39They haven't put the plaque on.
30:41I've often wondered if it ought to come down.
30:43It's very imperial,
30:45and I've never been very comfortable with it.
30:48I've always just wished it wasn't here, put it that way.
30:51Right.
30:52I find it very interesting that you have this.
30:53I thought you'd be very defensive about it,
30:55because it's your family history, right?
30:57Would you say that your politics are anti-imperial?
31:00Yes.
31:00And when did that feeling arise in you?
31:04Well, I think probably when I was about 14 or 15,
31:07sort of teenage time.
31:09And what happened?
31:10I don't know.
31:10I got thrown out of school.
31:12Which school were you at?
31:13Ah.
31:14I went to Wellington College.
31:16Oh, a very imperial college.
31:18Very imperial college.
31:19You specialised in creating officers...
31:21Yes.
31:21..of Clive's kind.
31:23Yeah.
31:23What was it like for you going there?
31:25It was horrible.
31:27I mean, it really was horrible.
31:29One of the reasons this debate has become so poisonous
31:32is that people have such emotional connections to the history.
31:35Like, someone like me is a descendant of the colonised.
31:38Someone like you is a descendant of the colonisers.
31:41But you're breaking that pattern.
31:43I do think it's because I'm a little bit detached time-wise.
31:48But, yeah, I just don't like that kind of stuff.
31:56I love meeting Lord Paris.
31:58I think, beyond the fact that he looks like Santa Claus
32:01and is very kind and intelligent,
32:03I mean, he's got a direct link to the colonisers.
32:06And yet, he's able to think about what happened
32:09in an independent way.
32:12I wouldn't mind if that statue of Clive came down
32:15because statues aren't history, they're propaganda.
32:18But I think we should put more effort into putting up statues,
32:22maybe of the black and Asian figures from Empire
32:24who have been forgotten,
32:26and we should put up more plaques
32:27so that we can actually understand the statues that we do have
32:31and finally come to terms with this really difficult history.
32:42It's a nice castle, isn't it?
32:43It's quite a short castle.
32:44It's not Dudley Castle, though, is it?
32:47Nothing tops Dudley Castle.
32:48No.
32:50I've brought my nieces Jaswine and Simran
32:52to visit Powys Castle in Wales,
32:55once owned by the Clive family
32:56and bequeathed through the National Trust
32:58by Lord Powys' great-uncle.
33:01It's one of nearly 100 properties
33:03that the Trust had recently identified
33:05which were built or furnished
33:07from the lucrative proceeds from Empire.
33:11Lord Powys has rejected Empire.
33:15I'm curious to find out how the Trust is going to integrate it
33:18into the story of his family's former property.
33:21It's a controversial subject.
33:23The Trust report into its colonial links
33:26provoked a furious backlash,
33:28with many accusing it of political correctness.
33:31One of the authors even received death threats.
33:35Hello, Raj.
33:35Hey, guys.
33:36Hey, Satram.
33:37Nice to meet you.
33:38Raj Pal is a historian
33:39who's been exploring the castle's relationship
33:42with Clive and Empire.
33:44It's very Game of Thrones, isn't it?
33:46Let me in.
33:47No-one's going to open the door.
33:49I have the key, though.
33:49So the front is very Game of Thrones
33:51and this is kind of almost Disney.
33:54It is, it is, yeah.
33:55I think this is the first time
33:56Indians have outnumbered white people
33:58in a National Trust property.
34:00Ever.
34:01So this is a portrait of Robert Clive,
34:04Lord Clive of India, as we came to know.
34:07He's not a good-looking guy, is he?
34:08He was stubby, fat,
34:10but look, you know, I mean,
34:13the guy had loads and loads of money.
34:17Clive was hardly alone.
34:20Going to work in India
34:21was the 18th-century equivalent
34:23of becoming a banker
34:24or getting a top job at Google.
34:27But no-one made as much money as Clive.
34:34Clive, at that time,
34:35was the richest self-made man,
34:38not just in Britain,
34:38but in the whole of Europe.
34:40He went to India three times.
34:41Each time he came back loaded with money
34:43and what Clive didn't have,
34:45despite all his money,
34:46was social status.
34:48This is the place
34:49which really buys you status.
34:50Yes, we are now part
34:51of the English aristocracy.
34:53We are now part
34:54of the English upper class.
34:56This is a beautiful house.
34:57Just think about
34:58where the money actually comes from.
35:00Yeah.
35:01A lot of it came from taxing
35:02ordinary Indians, right?
35:03And then this cash is used
35:05to elevate some people in Britain.
35:08The East India Company
35:09absolutely went on a spree
35:10of not just taxing,
35:12but actually almost
35:14kind of destroying industries.
35:17And it bankrupted Bengal.
35:18So when famine came,
35:19almost one-third
35:21of Bengal's population perished.
35:27It becomes clear
35:28how important it is
35:29to show and explain
35:31the castle's links to empire
35:32when Ra shows us
35:34the tiger-head finial,
35:35the most valuable object
35:37in the collection.
35:39It was one of four
35:40torn from the throne
35:41of the Muslim ruler
35:42of the kingdom of Mysore
35:44after it was invaded
35:45by the East India Company.
35:49It says here,
35:50presented to Lady Henrietta Herbert.
35:53The word presented
35:54says a lot, doesn't it?
35:55It's the idea
35:56that it was just given
35:57and actually is probably
35:59torn off the throne, right?
36:00Yeah, yeah.
36:01It makes you actually realise
36:02the importance of words
36:04and the choice of words.
36:05You read presented here,
36:07so you admire this thing
36:08that was almost like a gift.
36:10And then again,
36:11it doesn't present
36:12the true history
36:13of what actually happened.
36:14So we've already then
36:16got a blind spot
36:17on history.
36:18I think we can use
36:20these objects
36:20to actually develop
36:22a new narrative
36:23which is aimed
36:24not just as tourists,
36:26not just at Indians
36:27or anybody else,
36:27but which is actually aimed
36:29at all of us
36:30who are British.
36:31These objects
36:31have the potential
36:32to help us develop
36:34a new sense
36:35of a common shared history.
36:38Good night, you guys.
36:39One of these bodies
36:40of the ivory.
36:41There have been calls
36:42for the Trust
36:43to return colonial artefacts
36:44to their countries of origin.
36:47But the Trust
36:48has decided
36:49to keep the objects
36:50and use them to educate.
36:54I can understand why.
36:55As Raj argues,
36:57the tiger head finial
36:58is as relevant
36:59to my nieces and me
37:00as it is
37:01to the present-day
37:02Lord Powers.
37:04But is simply
37:05learning about artefacts
37:06enough to get us
37:08to really own
37:09our imperial past?
37:27I saw this ad
37:29as a 12-year-old boy
37:30in 1988.
37:33I still remember
37:34the effect he had on me.
37:39It's a weird thing
37:40when you never see
37:40people like yourself
37:41in the books you read,
37:43in the TV you watch,
37:44in the music you listen to.
37:45None of them.
37:46You just don't exist.
37:47And finally,
37:48even if it's a small advert
37:49for a crisp brand,
37:51finally you feel seen.
37:52And you have the possibility
37:55that you're part of British culture
37:56and you're part of British culture
37:58on an equal footing.
38:02At the time,
38:03I ran through our house
38:04excitedly yelling
38:05that we were on the TV.
38:08But looking back at it now,
38:09I feel sad for the little boy
38:11who felt so invisible.
38:17So when the National Trust
38:19says it's keeping
38:20its colonial artefacts
38:21so people like me
38:22can see ourselves
38:23in British history,
38:24I'm encouraged.
38:28But should we always
38:29keep everything?
38:32Like some National Trust properties,
38:34our museums are full of loot,
38:36objects pillaged
38:37from our colonial conquests.
38:40The term loot
38:41itself comes from
38:42from the Hindi word
38:43Lutalan,
38:43meaning to rob.
38:47If we're truly
38:48to face up to empire,
38:49don't we need
38:50to grapple
38:51with the moral dimension
38:52of how artefacts
38:53were acquired
38:55and then decide
38:56what to do with them?
39:02Hello, Neil.
39:03Hello.
39:03Pleased to meet you.
39:04Nice to meet you.
39:05Yep.
39:06I've come to see
39:06Neil Curtis,
39:07the head of museums
39:08and collections
39:09at the University
39:10of Aberdeen.
39:12The University
39:13is taking a bold approach
39:14with their stash
39:15of thousands
39:16of imperial artefacts.
39:19So this is our main store.
39:23They've published a list
39:24detailing every item
39:25and are open to returning
39:26anything culturally significant
39:28to its country of origin.
39:31It's an approach
39:32at odds
39:32with our larger
39:33taxpayer-funded museums.
39:35They're prevented
39:36by law
39:36and the government
39:37from sending
39:38most things back.
39:41It's very poignant
39:42seeing these shields
39:43because these would have been
39:45the shields
39:45that native populations
39:48used to defend themselves
39:49against the imperialists,
39:51this is all they had
39:52against sometimes
39:53machine guns.
39:56Every object
39:57needs to be assessed
39:58on a case-by-case basis
40:00because not everything
40:01in the collection
40:02has been stolen.
40:03So in this area
40:05there's quite a bit
40:05of material from Fiji.
40:07These are really
40:08high-status important objects.
40:09They're whale's teeth.
40:10Wow.
40:11And these were given
40:12intentionally to people
40:14as a high-status gift
40:15in exchange for,
40:17you know,
40:17authority and power
40:18and status.
40:19Indigenous people
40:20very actively
40:21sometimes gave things
40:23and I think we've got
40:23to be careful
40:24giving people agency
40:26and allowing them
40:27to be the ones
40:28who decided
40:28what they were doing.
40:29They weren't just victims.
40:32An item they have decided
40:34on a new home for
40:35is also the most valuable
40:36in the collection.
40:38This is the Benin bronze
40:40that the university
40:41is returning.
40:43Oh my God,
40:43that's heavy.
40:45Ah, you know what?
40:46I don't think
40:46I've got the upper arm strength
40:47to keep this up.
40:50In 1897,
40:51British troops
40:52looted thousands
40:53of artworks
40:54that held deep
40:55cultural significance
40:56to the African kingdom
40:57of Benin.
40:58They were sold off
40:59to museums
41:00and private collections.
41:03And there's no ambiguity
41:05about the fact
41:06that these were stolen
41:08in violent circumstances.
41:10No, I mean,
41:10it's very clear.
41:11I mean,
41:11these were looted,
41:12there was destruction,
41:13there was killing.
41:13The university recently
41:15decided that this
41:16should be returned.
41:17that it was something
41:18that although
41:19we had the legal title
41:20to it,
41:20morally we didn't
41:21have title.
41:25But the collection
41:26goes beyond
41:27material objects.
41:29Before I leave Aberdeen,
41:31Neil has one last thing
41:32he wants to show me.
41:34In a way,
41:35you look at it
41:36and it doesn't mean much,
41:37but what is astonishing
41:39is what it comes with.
41:41So we have a photograph
41:42of somebody holding it.
41:44It was taken by a doctor
41:46Robb,
41:46a Scottish doctor
41:47who cared for the patient.
41:49He wrote a note
41:50to accompany the image.
41:52Admitted into hospital,
41:53extremely emaciated
41:54and in dying condition.
41:56Right arm grasping,
41:57a bit of glass sphere.
42:00This Hindu holy man
42:01had been challenged
42:02to hold the glass sphere
42:03for 12 years
42:04in order to obtain
42:05a beneficial afterlife.
42:07He only managed eight.
42:10Death relaxed the grasp
42:12and the cherished treasure
42:13dropped away from the fingers
42:15which had closed over it
42:16with the grip of a vice,
42:18Dr Robb.
42:21Hindus believe cremation
42:23will ensure passage
42:24to future lives
42:25after death.
42:26But the Scottish doctor
42:27decided to keep
42:28his human remains.
42:31Subsequently,
42:32we discovered
42:32that in the anatomical
42:34collection of human skulls
42:36we have his skull.
42:38Wow.
42:39And that so completely
42:39changed my feeling
42:40about Dr Robb
42:41that he was able to
42:42be so sensitive
42:43in the one hand
42:44and yet turn this person
42:46into an anatomical object.
42:48The doctor must have
42:49decapitated the corpse
42:50and boiled the head.
42:52I presume so.
42:53That's what I assume.
42:55That's incredibly grim,
42:56isn't it?
42:56Yeah.
42:58Is that his head?
42:59That is, yeah.
42:59Let's have a look.
43:00Oh.
43:02Gosh.
43:03That's him.
43:04Amazing.
43:06And awful
43:07at the same time,
43:09isn't it?
43:10It feels really invasive
43:12for me to be looking at it.
43:14I think it's probably
43:14quite right
43:15that we're not showing
43:16the images on TV.
43:18They're cremated,
43:19aren't they, Hindus?
43:20And he hasn't been cremated.
43:21So the doctor
43:23has broken
43:23the funeral rites.
43:26Yeah.
43:26That's profoundly offensive,
43:27isn't it?
43:28And here we are
43:29in the 21st century
43:30and we still haven't
43:32really put this person
43:33to rest.
43:33No, no.
43:34God, that's terrible,
43:35isn't it?
43:39I'm really impressed
43:40by the way in which
43:41Neil and Aberdeen
43:42University are dealing
43:43with their colonial
43:44artefacts.
43:45They're looking at each
43:45one case by case
43:47and wrestling with
43:48the moral complexity
43:49of each.
43:49That's incredible.
43:51So often when it
43:52comes to museums,
43:53the debate is between
43:54people who say,
43:55we should give
43:55everything back
43:56and those who say,
43:57we should keep
43:57everything.
43:58but Aberdeen
43:58University are showing
44:00there's a more
44:00nuanced way forward.
44:04I think when you
44:05return at Benin
44:06Bronze, you're making
44:06a very positive
44:07statement about
44:09your self-confidence
44:09as an institution
44:10and as a nation.
44:12You're saying,
44:12look, we did a
44:13terrible thing in
44:14the past, but now
44:16we're really owning
44:17this imperial story.
44:25Guys, please have
44:26some chicken wings.
44:27They're quite good.
44:28The chicken wings are
44:28good.
44:31Owning the imperial
44:32story is what we all
44:33need to do.
44:34And that means facing
44:36up to it and really
44:37understanding its
44:38complexity.
44:40It's what I'm in the
44:40process of doing
44:41myself.
44:43I spent quite a long
44:44time now thinking
44:45about British Empire
44:46and I actually think
44:47I'm going to continue
44:47because it explains so
44:49much about who I am,
44:50why my family came
44:51here, the racism that
44:52they faced when they
44:53arrived.
44:55I realized that
44:56Punjabi history and
44:57Indian history and
44:58imperial history is a
45:00shared history, but
45:01I've probably neglected
45:02the Punjabi bit.
45:03And I want to get in
45:04touch with my roots
45:05because I realize now
45:06that my dual British
45:07Indian identity doesn't
45:09need to be in conflict.
45:10It's reflected in the
45:11national story.
45:13Three parts.
45:14That was more dangerous
45:16than the local.
45:17I have less faith in
45:18jazz than the far right.
45:21I'm just one empire
45:23story.
45:24There are millions of
45:25them.
45:26Stories of different
45:27peoples at different
45:29times in different
45:30countries.
45:31Some good, some bad,
45:35and everything in
45:36between.
45:40At an uncertain time
45:41when we find ourselves
45:42questioning who we are,
45:45we need to really
45:46accept empire in all
45:48its dimensions.
45:50There's a view that
45:51facing up to empire is a
45:53negative thing, that it's
45:54all about tearing down
45:55statues and white guilt,
45:57and I really don't believe
45:58that.
45:58I think it can be
45:59positive and constructive.
46:01It's messy, but I think
46:03if you try to understand
46:05imperial history rather than
46:06try to feel shame or pride
46:08about it, you get a step
46:09closer to working out who
46:11you are, and as the saying
46:12goes, the truth can set you
46:14free.
46:14Once you've done that, I
46:16think you'll properly claim
46:17to be a great country.
46:37When a kickabout down the park
46:39goes horribly wrong, young
46:40person plus severe fracture
46:42equals a need to pay to the
46:43trauma team 24 hours in A&E,
46:45Thursday at nine.
46:46Next, tonight, the one that
46:48won all the awards in the
46:49network premiere of Parasite.
46:51Parasite.
46:56Parasite.
47:00Parasite.
47:02Parasite.
47:03Parasite.
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