Memories of an Empire

– The first generation of South Asians to settle in Britain were deeply nostalgic for imperialism. You know the British gave us railways, democracy, cricket and blah blah blah… But I never heard anyone in my generation show such contempt for such atrocities, says Satnam Shankera, a writer who grew up in Great Britain. Immigrant parents from Punjab, India.

I meet him at this year’s edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival and he brings the book Empireland – How Imperialism Shaped Modern Britain, which was praised by critics, but it created a bad mood among the British. Satnam Shankera’s interest in writing about the colonial legacy was fueled by a combination Black Lives Matter and the British refusal to return stolen artifacts such as the Benin bronzes and the world-famous Kohinoor diamond.

In Wolverhampton, where Sangera grew up, there were pubs that did not allow Asian guests until 1984 and houses that only sold to white British people. Although the social climate has changed since then, the fact that an Indo-Hindu Prime Minister now lives at 10 Downing Street is not a sign that what happened should not be forgotten, Sangera believes. Apart from art thefts, the Sikh soldiers who sacrificed their lives in the British army and the millions of Indian indentured laborers sent to work as slaves in Fiji, Zanzibar, Mauritius and the Caribbean after slavery was abolished in 1834. – Conditions in plantations etc.

Keeping memories of injustice alive is a recurring theme in many current books by Indian writers both in the homeland and in diaspora in the West.

Palagummi Sainath, present with The Last Heroes – The Foot Soldiers of Indian Independence At a literary festival he stands up as he trumpets:

– Never forget, talk to your grandparents and relive your history.

Indian-American bestselling author Chitra Banerjee Diwakaruni follows the same path with her new novel. Independence About three sisters who are separated from each other during the partition of British India in 1947. Focusing on the role of women during major political events, she interweaves the fate of the family with the nation and “wants to free herself from man. Look at history”. The joy of freedom, he says, is a necessary return to the turbulent times darkened by grief after the bloody partition.

– If we forget what happened, we will repeat all the mistakes.

But as Sangera says, you have to hold two different thoughts in your head at the same time: Churchill as a racist and a defender of European liberal democracy. English was the language of the oppressors and gave writers from former colonies access to a global readership.

In the hustle and bustle of the festival, I meet Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Qurna, who grew up in Zanzibar with Yemeni-Arab parents but has long lived in Canterbury:

– For me it is not a choice, he says. English was the language in which I could express myself in writing. Against the odds, one who writes in Swahili, my mother tongue, runs the risk of censure in the authoritarian regimes that ruled East Africa. English gave freedom.