Team being abused at the airport last night. You really have to ask

[Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult]

Yes, one in the plus column for liberal imperialism there.

There's actually shed loads in the plus column of British Imperialism. Check out the annexation of Benin in 1897 when we spent blood and treasure to stop the king, who owned all his subjects as slaves, selling them to Arab traders or nailing them up in human sacrifical crucifixion.

In India, we also stopped Brahmins murdering untouchables if their shadow fell on them.

Calcutta Uni let in women a decade before Oxbridge.

But the slave trade, Jamaican plantation system, the 15m dead in the 1877-8 famine in India or even the Amritsar massacre just after they'd helped us win WW1 do let the side down a bit.

[Ash]

Do you have a link?

It's an ancient custom called Sati (or suttee) that the Britishers banned.

Sati was the first wife of Shiva who burned herself to death cos her daddy didn't like Shiva. (But it's all right cos she reincarnated as Parvati and married him again.)

So for 2,000+ years, Hindu widows would throw themselves on their husband's funeral pyre, so they could both reincarnate together. (But not men on their wife's if she died first.)

So let me guess. Under the Hindu Nationalist Modi and the BJP, it's making a come back despite being banned by Queen Vic's Royal decree of 1861. Now why doesn't that suprise me? He really is turning that country into the Saffron Saudi Arabia.

Conversely, I've always said that if my beloved dies before me, I'll OD quickly (after sorting out what needs to be sorted out) so we can be cremated together.

I was just watching a prog about the East India Company and it was mentioned. So it was a voluntary thing?

[SWv2]

Ah, Ganps. Small threadjack: What's this about Hindu women being burned alive onto their dead husband's funeral pyre?

Thank you A.

[Sir C]

There's actually shed loads in the plus column of British Imperialism. Check out the annexation of Benin in 1897 when we spent blood and treasure to stop the king, who owned all his subjects as slaves, selling them to Arab traders or nailing them up in human sacrifical crucifixion.

In India, we also stopped Brahmins murdering untouchables if their shadow fell on them.

Calcutta Uni let in women a decade before Oxbridge.

But the slave trade, Jamaican plantation system, the 15m dead in the 1877-8 famine in India or even the Amritsar massacre just after they'd helped us win WW1 do let the side down a bit.

Suppression of the cult of Thuggee?

How was the Cafe Klein?

[Burney]

I was just watching a prog about the East India Company and it was mentioned. So it was a voluntary thing?

Not really, no. It was about as 'voluntary' as female circumcision, the hijab and most other forms of male cultural oppression of females.

The poor women were generally drugged beforehand in order to avoid embarrassing struggling, screaming, etc.

[Burney]

Suppression of the cult of Thuggee?

How was the Cafe Klein?

Yes. Although I think there are suspicions that chap might have made quite a lot of that up.

[Burney]

There's actually shed loads in the plus column of British Imperialism. Check out the annexation of Benin in 1897 when we spent blood and treasure to stop the king, who owned all his subjects as slaves, selling them to Arab traders or nailing them up in human sacrifical crucifixion.

In India, we also stopped Brahmins murdering untouchables if their shadow fell on them.

Calcutta Uni let in women a decade before Oxbridge.

But the slave trade, Jamaican plantation system, the 15m dead in the 1877-8 famine in India or even the Amritsar massacre just after they'd helped us win WW1 do let the side down a bit.

To be fair, we did also end the slave trade voluntarily - and enforced that ban on other nations. No other power in human history can claim to have done anything even remotely comparable in terms of ending an evil that has bedevilled mankind as long as we've had civilisation. That's a pretty big tick in the plus column imo.

Oh, and then there's the willing sacrifice of our imperial power in order to defeat vastly worse powers in the first half of the 20th Century. That buys us a fair amount of credit, I'd say.

[Sir C]

Yes. Although I think there are suspicions that chap might have made quite a lot of that up.

Nonsense. I read about it in a book. It must be true.

[Sir C]

To be fair, we did also end the slave trade voluntarily - and enforced that ban on other nations. No other power in human history can claim to have done anything even remotely comparable in terms of ending an evil that has bedevilled mankind as long as we've had civilisation. That's a pretty big tick in the plus column imo.

We also, to our enormous credit, gave back our empire without engaging in a brutal war against the indigenous population first.

No other nation on earth would have given India away without a fight.

[SWv2]

We also, to our enormous credit, gave back our empire without engaging in a brutal war against the indigenous population first.

No other nation on earth would have given India away without a fight.

** cough **

For some the war goes on.