The eyes of the world will be on Westminster Abbey for the coronation of Britain's new king.

In a ceremony meant to reflect to reflect the country's modern multicultural society.

Behind the pomp and pageantry, a reminder of Britain's colonial legacy and questions about ushering in a new era of accountability.

A new book, "Empireland" examines Britain's complicated past.

The author, Sathnam Sanghera, joins us.

Thank you for talking with us.

>> Thank you for having me on.

>> I got to my mid 40s and realized I knew nothing about the Empire.

The reason I am here is because some white dudes invaded India in the 17th century.

The importance of the City of London.

It turns out lots of other people felt the same.

I thought I would try to plug in the gaps in my knowledge.

There are some bad debates going on in the United States about slavery and our history but at least it is a debate.

You describe kind of a collective silence about this.

Does that sound right?

It was the biggest empire in human history.

My theory is that the British Empire happened abroad.

We did not have a dark night of the soul when we confronted our history.

It all happened abroad.

It continues and now we are talking about it.

The road is talking about the legacy of slavery and so on.

>> How do you think all this is playing out in the events that are about to unfold with the coronation of King Charles?

Do you feel this kind of reckoning is bubbling under the surface?

>> Yes, the main difference between the coronation is they talked exclusively about the Empire.

The Queen talked about the Country.

She had addressed, but now, all the things to do with Empire, the fact that some of the jewels and crown jewels were looted.

People don't connect it with the fact that we run the biggest Empire in human history.

If we acknowledge that fact, we have to talk about legacies of slavery and reparations.

That is a very difficult conversation.

>> Right from the beginning, one of the first things the royal household did is they said they were not going to use the diamond in the crown jewels.

That is the diamond Indians want back.

I think people always understood that.

It was involved in the early slave trading journeys.

187,000 Africans were shipped across the Atlantic.

When the slaves arrived in places like Barbados, they had them branded there.

I think the British public has been quiet shocked by the details.

It is just one of those things.

>> How are they doing with it in the run up to the coronation?

Are they dealing with this legacy in a meaningful way?

>> King Charles did say something new and unexpected when he said he approved the research being done into how the royal family were involved in slavery.

He also said he wants to learn about slavery.

It feels a bit late given he is 70 years old.

The research he has allowed is not much.

He is going to report in 2026.

Compared to what they are doing, it is not much.

It took an entire committee to look into this history.

They might reveal things about the royal household before the British do.

William III was both a British monarch and a Dutch prince.

It is pretty embarrassing that another country will make revelations about this before we do.

>> It's impressive that your book does not try to wash away the history.

It doesn't try to exonerate people for their behavior but it does not condemn them either.

It describes the facts of life as they were.

What are some of those facts?

>> Too often this is seen through the prism of pride and shame.

We should just try to understand it.

The Empire was so influential.

One of the main reasons we are speaking to each other today is because of the British Empire.

The popularity of cricket, this is largely the result of doing the job tomorrow.

The existence of countries like India, Pakistan and Nigeria is all down to the British Empire.

The chaos in place -- even Palestine can be explained by the British Empire.

If you want to understand the world and world history, you have to understand the British Empire.

It happened over 400 years as well.

>> Why do you think it is that we romanticize this institution?

Particularly the royal family to the point that we do?

Didn't we fight a war over here so we could not care about these people?

We are still obsessed with them.

I am just like, why is that?

Why do you think that is?

>> It is a very complicated history.

It is but hard to get your head around.

It is easier to tell very simplified stories.

It is very contradictory.

At one point, the British were heavily into slavery.

They dominated the slave trade.

Another time, it was OK.

It is a very complicated history.

Much easier to tell some stories, much easier to focus on World War I or World War II.

They have clear narratives, clear beginnings, clear end.

Academics can't agree on when the British Empire began.

Clicks in addition published this year a... specifically for American readers.

Could you just describe the interplay between those two?

Or some of the ways they affected the shaping of the American story?

>> Americans like to see themselves as anti-imperialist.

America itself is a creation of the British Empire.

The way America then expanded to go to the way British colonies like Australia and South Africa expanded with the residential school system, the reserve confinement, the settler colonialism.

Then they are talking about how they admired the way the British Empire dealt with India and how that was a model for the way America could deal with the Philippines and the West Indies.

I think the British Empire and America are intricately linked.

>> Do you think the countries of the United Kingdom are ready to face this history?

>> I think so.

Mainly because of multiculturalism.

The real reason we are a multicultural nation today is because we have a multicultural Empire.

One of the main reasons we have an Asian prime minister is because of them.

This is history we have always struggled to explain.

I grew up with a narrative that brought people came here uninvited and took advantage of British hospitality.

What I did not know is that in the 1940s and '50s, brown people and black people came to Britain as citizens.

As British citizens.

It led to a whole bunch of racist policies.

That is the level of the agreement.

I think people have had enough.

I think young people are going to school and saying to their teachers, Teach me about colonialism and about how it shapes our modern world.

Regardless of what is allowed in the national curriculum.

>> Is there the same resentment we are seeing in the United States?

As you probably know, there has been this tremendous backlash against teaching African-American history, against the accurate teaching of the horrors of slavery, is there a similar backlash?

>> I am afraid the exact same thing is happening in Britain.

We are even having book burning.

People going there saying why are you stocking this workbook.

It is reflected in government policy.

You had the politicians getting involved in this and you have a culture war where our leading politicians have got involved in Imperial history and say things like if you are proud of being British, you should be proud of their history.

It is such an inane thing to say.

History is long and complicated.

Yet politicians are putting forward berries and plastic views.

We even had Rishi Sunak say that he was going to report people who did Britain down in history to prevent the antiterrorism agency.

We have the unhappy scene where imperial immigrants themselves are getting involved in this culture war.

What happens in America eventually happens over and vice versa.

>> How do you understand Rishi's view of this?

How he is playing this?

>> He is a conservative Prime Minister.

Conservative politicians have to say certain things.

The British cabinet is very ethnically diverse.

They all say things that are anti-immigration, anti-woke and antiracist if that makes sense.

It seems like you can make it to the top in Britain as a Brown person by person but you have to agree to leave things as they are when it comes to race.

I think that is a very depressing state of affairs.

I get the feeling that if you are conservative, you are not allowed to bring your full self to the cabinet table.

>> Is there an argument that says, This does not contribute to national unity?

Is there something that says it is dangerous to national unity?

>> If we understand history, it brings us closer together.

My understanding has made me realize that people of color have been here since the days of Henry VII.

A profound part of our national story is World War I and World War II.

No one taught me in school that millions of soldiers from India and fought for the British Empire.

I sat through dozens, probably hundreds of ceremonies about World War II at school and no one mentioned that people like me were there.

Deleting this history, that is the thing that divides people.

Knowing it and knowledge brings us together.

>> You were saying that a British education encouraged you to view your Indian heritage through patronizing Western eyes.

Could you say a little bit more about that?

Because one of the mantles of British imperialism was education.

Even today, a lot more world leaders have a British education.

That enforces certain ideas about Britain, certain ideas about the West.

I was definitely subjected to those.

I had supposedly one of the best educations in the world.

I did not study a single brown writer until my final term at University.

It was a very selective education.

Looking back, it was a form of colorization if that makes sense.

>> Let's look back to this weekend because of the coronation.

Will this history in any way be visible in these ceremonies?

>> I think it is a very multicultural ceremony.

It has to be.

As a king, he is the head of a multicultural country.

Also, a collection of 56 former imperial states.

The monarch has to...this international association of countries and one of the things they really want to talk about is the legacy of slavery and the legacy of empire.

It is something the government does not necessarily want to talk about.

I think you will see a very multicultural and inclusive ceremony.

The Lord's Prayer said in multiple languages, there are people from the Commonwealth.

I think it will be reflecting the Empire.

But you won't hear the word "Empire."

>> Can I just go back to the Prince Harry/Meghan Markle situation?

It seemed that her acceptance into the family signaled something.

Like a willingness to live in the world as is.

And that does not seem to have happened at all.

What is your take on that?

>> It says a lot about the state of affairs when it comes to race.

Finally, the royal family a person of color as part of the family which reflected multicultural Britain.

This was an amazing thing for so many people of color in Britain and I can't help noticing it went very wrong and she is not even coming.

I travel around the former Empire this year and there is a view that this is reflective of the racism of the royal family.

There is much less support in multicultural Britain through monarchy then 30% of ethnic people in Britain.

I think this is a real problem for the royal family because they also historically are tied up in the racism of the British Empire.

Black and Asian immigrant staff were banned from working in clerical roles until the late 1960s.

Even now, Buckingham Palace is excluded.

>> I have the understanding that you are not a royal whisperer.

Do you have any sense of what the royal family writ large cares about with any of this?

>> Prince Charles really cared about it.

He did loads of work with the black mini, black businesses.

He has spoken in defense of Islam.

He has called himself a defender of the faiths.

He is pretty woke.

I think the establishment dislikes him for that.

It will be interesting to see how he plays it.

Because now he is the ultimate establishment.

There is a tension between what he believes and what he needs to do.

I don't know how that will play out.

A request before I let you go, have there been efforts to ban your book?

>> My publisher gave out 15,000 copies to British school so that has been nice but yes I've had a massive backlash in terms of racism and racist abuse.

It also makes me realize I am doing important work.

Whenever people do shout at me, I have so many people buying the book and then trying to engage with me to make up for that.

I think I need to focus more on the positive.

>> Thank you for talking with us.

>> Thank you.