A glorified rehash of the Raj

Book review of Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain

The problem with writing about the British Raj, especially by a self-confessed non-specialist, is that there is already a virtual cottage industry of scholarly works on the subject, both in its defence and against it. Producing another door-stopper, unless it has something profoundly new to add, seems like a vanity project. Indeed, the author himself acknowledges it would have been “impossible to write [this book] without the number of history books and articles I consulted”. So many, in fact, that he hopes “I have not slipped at any stage into plagiarism”.

“The empire has inspired so many books — mention you’re about empire and people will invariably recommend a couple which they insist are essential,” he writes.

Yet, he clearly fancied he had things to say that had not been said before. But, alas, after ploughing through 300-odd pages — a rambling mix of history, personal biography, and potted sociology — I struggled to find anything original. From the staggering size of the empire and the brutalities perpetrated in its name (Jallianwala Bagh massacre, the Irish Potato famine, the atrocities committed against Mau-Mau rebels), to its impact on the lives of both the colonised people and back home in Britain, the natives’ contribution to British wars, the Raj’s lingering legacy, and the polarised debate around it  — it has all been done before. Sathnam Sanghera simply pulls it all together with a dash of personal history, and some formulaic suggestions such as “balanced and compulsory study of British empire in British schools”.

To dismiss the book as a cut-and-paste job might sound extreme. And I wish I could be more generous if only because I count myself as a member of his fan club, and enjoy reading his  Times column, particularly his delightfully self-deprecating musings on Punjabi cultural mores and eccentricities. But as for this book, despite its good intentions — to promote a dispassionate understanding of the Raj and its legacy — it seldom rises above the level of a glorified rehash. 

It may be argued that most books on historical events are based on existing sources. But what distinguishes a good book from a pedestrian one is that it uses extant material to advance a new big argument. Mr Sanghera does seem to be on to something when he explores how the colonised start with imitating their colonial masters and then find themselves attempting to decolonise themselves — a “journey”, he says, he himself seems to have embarked upon. But he doesn’t pursue it further.

Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain

Author: Sathnam Sanghera

Publisher: Penguin/Viking

Pages: 306; Price: Rs 999

Mr Sanghera is among a few high-profile mainstream Asian journalists in Britain’s overwhelmingly white mainstream media, large sections of which remain deeply suspicious of those they see as “outsiders”, including immigrants’ home-grown descendants such as Mr Sanghera. He is at the heart of the metaphorical intersection of modern British society where a broadly tolerant multiculturalism comes tinged with lingering strains of racism and xenophobia. 

Mr Sanghera’s own life has been shaped by both: The joys of living in a culturally diverse and liberal country, and the agonies of being a person of colour in a white country.  Son of an immigrant Sikh family from rural Punjab, Mr Sanghera was born and brought up in Britain, growing up under the “shadow of ‘Paki-bashing’ “ of the 1970s and 1980s. His local MP was Enoch Powell who infamously warned that “rivers of blood” would flow if further immigration from South Asia was not stopped. Mr Sanghera has frequently written about his brushes with racism. 

His central argument here is that there is very little or no understanding of the “profound effect (of the empire) on modern Britain” despite the fact that its legacy is felt in every area of life and defines every Briton. 

“The reason I am sitting here, as a person of colour in Britain, talking about this country as my home, is because several hundred years ago some Britons decided to take control of parts of the Asian subcontinent,” he writes.

Symbols of Britain’s imperial past (its glories as well as scars) are evident “everywhere”—from the nature of its racism to the idea of British exceptionalism that has influenced the government’s erratic response to the Covid-19 crisis. Street names, statues of colonial warriors, taste for gin and tonic (he cites a joke that “the empire was built on G&T — gin to fight the boredom of exile, and quinine tonic to fight malaria), and what Salman Rusdhie hailed as “chutney-fication” of English characterised by words of Indian origin are daily reminders of the Raj.

Yet, like a dirty family secret it is sought to be kept “hidden” from view, Mr Sanghera argues. It is discussed only selectively in a polarised debate that portrays the empire in starkly black-and-white terms — either all good, or all evil — allowing no room for perspective. This book is an appeal for a more nuanced understanding of British imperialism as a common heritage of all Britons (native whites, and immigrants of colour alike) and a source of unity than division. 

It is a well-meaning endeavour but undone by a lack of focus and originality.  

The reviewer is based in London