Sahil Mahtani

When the Taleban took power in Afghanistan, they embarked on a cultural agenda that we in the West mocked. As it turns out, they appreciated sensitivities that we did not recognise at the time: the threat that cultural history poses to the present. At a time of natural disaster and general upheaval, when out-of-touch elites

Restorative justice for the victims of colonialism is an idea whose time has come. A few years ago, the Indian diplomat Shashi Tharoor suggested Britain pay India compensation to atone for centuries of colonial rule. ‘I’d be quite happy if it was one pound a year for the next two hundred years,’ he said. In