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| STRAIGHT TALK: Prime Minister David Cameron at a press conference in Islamabad |
British means never having to say sorry
Oh dear. There are people in Britain who have been angered by David Cameron’s apology in Pakistan last week for the sins of the Empire.
Asked by a student in Islamabad whether Britain could help end the row over Kashmir, the Prime Minister replied: “I don’t want to insert Britain in some leading role where, as with so many of the world’s problems, we are responsible for the issue in the first place.”
This has gone down badly with, among others, Max Hastings, the military historian and former Daily Telegraph editor, who takes Cameron to task for his “historically illiterate claim that traduces the Empire and diminishes him”.
He berates the Prime Minister’s “casual acceptance of blame for something that happened 64 years ago, on the far side of the world”.
Hastings does say: “To be sure, in the last years before 1947 and especially during World War II, the British ruled with considerable harshness. The 1943 Bengal famine, in which at least one million and perhaps three million people died, remains a lasting blot on the imperial record.”
“But a fundamental reality persists: we did better than anyone else,” insists Hastings. “As an Englishman, I feel a pride in the achievements of the Empire not much diminished by knowing that we got some things wrong.”
Hastings did write a positive review of Madhusree Mukherjee’s Churchill’s Secret War but the latter is on Cameron’s side.
“In Ireland, India, and Palestine, the British supported minorities (Protestants, Muslims and Jews, respectively), in part to undermine the majorities who were unhappy with imperial rule,” Madhusree points out. “They stoked insecurities and fomented hatreds that resulted in partitions and generations of bloodshed.”
The historian goes on: “Far worse in terms of lives lost (to malnutrition and attendant disease) is the extreme economic polarisation between East and West that resulted from centuries of colonial rule. True, hunger persists in almost all former colonies; but that is partly because the systems of exploitation that were put in place in colonial times have proved so useful to elites, both in the ex-colonies and in imperial centres, old and new. Cameron’s remarks are a tentative first step toward acknowledging and, one hopes, accepting responsibility for his homeland’s dark legacy. It’s about time.”
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| VOICE OF KENYA: Kenyans protest outside the High Court in London |
Killing Kenyans
The position taken by historians like Max Hastings is undermined by the three elderly Kenyan men and one woman who went to the High Court in London last week, claiming compensation for being allegedly tortured during Britain’s brutal suppression of the nationalist Mau Mau movement in Kenya.
The British government says it is “not legally responsible” for what happened a long time ago.
But what about morally?
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Sayeeda vs Sadiq
So who is the first ever Muslim to have been a member of the British Cabinet — Baroness Sayeeda Warsi or Sadiq Khan?
Sayeeda, 40, is the co-chairman of the Conservative Party and “minister without portfolio”, while Sadiq, also 40, the Labour MP for Tooting in south London, was the minister of state for transport in Gordon Brown’s government.
In Islamabad last week, David Cameron held up Sayeeda as “the first-ever Muslim in the British Cabinet”.
“The story of how her father came to Britain 50 years ago, and how she now sits in the House of Lords and in the Cabinet isn’t just a story of the links between our two countries, it’s a story of opportunity, of hope, and it should inspire each and every one of us,” enthused the Prime Minister.
But Sadiq, one of the rising stars of the Labour Party, describes himself — as does the BBC frequently — as the first Muslim to have attended Cabinet.
On his website, Sadiq, currently the Shadow Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, says: “In June 2009, Sadiq was appointed to the Privy Council and asked to attend Cabinet meetings. He was both the first Asian and the first Muslim to attend Cabinet.”
But I have now resolved the apparent mystery.
A spokesman for Sadiq graciously concedes: “Cameron is strictly correct. Sadiq was the first Muslim to attend Cabinet (he wasn’t a member of Cabinet, but attended in his role as minister of state). Baroness Warsi is a member of the Cabinet.”
Tagore talk
To mark Rabindranath Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary, Amartya Sen will be delivering a talk, “What difference does Tagore make?” at the British Museum on May 6, thereby continuing the institution’s close engagement with India.
The lecture is a joint venture with the Indian High Commission. The museum’s director, Neil MacGregor, who himself gave a lecture at the Indian Museum in Calcutta in February this year, “is close to Amartya Sen”, a source tells me.
“Amartya Sen has recently been appointed a trustee of the British Museum,” said a museum spokeswoman, explaining that the institution is governed by a board of 25 trustees.
Among the Brits, there is a great desire to see the Indian Museum in Calcutta given a drastic overhaul, with blocked colonnades opened up to fresh air and light, for a start.
“It needs a tyrannical director,” rages a well-wisher. “The job is not filled.”
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English spring
The expression, “God’s own country”, has been patented by Kerala, but in spring sunshine, it can just as easily be claimed by England. The riot of cherry blossom in the back garden, under which two of our much loved cats lie buried, marks the passing of time.
“Let’s go for a drive,” my wife said.
“Where?”
“Anywhere, what about Greenwich Park?”
In Greenwich Park, which boasts the old Royal Observatory and the Prime Meridian Line marking Greenwich Mean Time, the daffodils are almost past their best, but the magnolias are in full bloom, the trees are sprouting buds, and the hyacinths smells sweet.
I noticed Indian parents taking photographs of their little children posing against the backdrop of English flowers, possibly to send to relatives back home.
Bliss it is to go for a walk in the spring sunshine — until I returned to my car to find I had got a £80 parking fine. This is the new Britain of maximising the profit line — parking is not free even on a Sunday.
Tittle tattle
Khushwant Singh will be pleased — one of his favourite authors, Fatima Bhutto, has made it into Tatler, normally the preserve of English aristocracy.
In My book tour hell, she recalls “60 journeys by plane, train and long car” all over the world promoting Songs of Blood and Sword, which was published 13 months ago. There are another six months of hectic travelling left.
I suppose it’s easy to understand the fascination with a beautiful young woman who claims her dad, Murtaza Bhutto, was bumped off on the orders of her aunt, Benazir Bhutto (and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari). Fatima suggests that the BBC’s HARDtalk should be renamed Badly Researched Talk because the veteran interrogator Stephen Sackur “hadn’t had time to read my book”.
At the Hay-on-Wye literary festival in Wales, she narrowly missed fellow countryman General Pervez Musharraf who spoke on the day before her.
“Dictators run in very unusual circles these days,” she observes wryly.
