In this article and others Gary Breecher (a pseudonym) accuse the british of commiting numerous atrocities during the height of their empire, and then forgetting or glossing over them later. Is this true?
At the height of the British Empire, there were indeed many cases of atrocities that had been committed. Some of the most prominent having been in Africa, China, and British India.
Africa. During the Boer War and in the campaigns of British colonisation of Africa, there were instances of forced detention of natives in concentration camps, with some death toll estimates being at around 29,000 "innocent women and children" in South Africa alone.^[1] Policies almost in the vain of scorched earth warfare were conducted, with villages and settlements being pillaged and burned and livestock being taken away to slaughter, preventing the natives from obtaining food.^[2]
China. The most famous here of course being the "opium wars." This was effectively the conquest of China through an influx of opium in its markets, causing disease to spread and the Chinese people falling destitute to addiction. To Britain, the economic and colonial gain was massive, but to the Qing dynasty and the Chinese people it spelled disaster. This conflict developed into a full-scale war, with Britain effectively trying to defend its selling of opiates en masse with military force. Some of the agreements on the treat at the end of this war included indemnities to Britain and France and the legalisation of the opium trade in China.^[3]
British India. Oh lord- where do I begin? First and foremost, the British colonial monopoly in India was established primarily through the East India Company, a trading enterprise initially, but it developed over time to rule large areas in India through privately contracted armies, exercising military control and assuming administrative functions.^[4] The government did not have any word in the affairs of this company initially, but gradually adopted parliamentary control over the company after increasingly brutal responses to the actions of the disgusted Indian people, seeking to stabilise the situation but maintain the trade and business relations.^[5] As the British Empire in India developed, the Indians were frequently treated merely as slaves, forced into servitude and submission to the new ruling power: the Crown; or, as it was called in India, the Raj. The next most significant atrocity I would argue is the Jallianwala Bagh massacre- or, as it is also known, the "Amritsar tragedy"- which was the killing of around 400 people and the injuring of around 1,100 more.^[6] The opening of fire by British troops upon Indians in an enclosed sacred ground was a response to their gathering in the first place, which had been banned by General Dyer in the process of imposing martial law on the surrounding areas shortly before.^[7] However, it is absolutely imperative to common morality to remember that those slaughtered were unarmed and peaceful in their protest- they posed no threat other than meeting to discuss and express their distaste for heavy war taxes and forced conscription. Finally, there is a handy timeline of major famines which happened in India during British rule.^[8]
In terms of these things being brushed under the carpet and buried... well, what can I say? The full scale of the Empire's atrocities certainly isn't common knowledge. I would attribute this to two factors: (1) many people simply aren't interested in history, or, if they are, not that particular area, and (2) the sheer depth and expanse of the Empire makes it a lot of information to soak in (hence why I tried to make my answer as concise as possible). Parliamentary websites and government documents do indeed detail the British Empire, but not so much in terms of its atrocities but rather just a summary of what happened in time. What should also be borne in mind is that information and statistics regarding death tolls and atrocities resulting from British colonial policy isn't censored or banned, either; if the government were truly that desperate to conceal their tracks, censorship- despite being an affront to liberty (this is a different topic, but it must be said)- certainly wouldn't have been out of the question.
I hope I have answered your questions to some satisfaction. If not, please let me know why and I'll try to rectify the situation. I have just finished an entire unit on British rule in India, hence how I was able to supply the most information about that area. However, please make note that I am trying to compress as much information as possible in a short, readable answer, as most aren't particularly enthusiastic about sitting down and reading through a wall of text. Also, some other potential problems include my use of Wikipedia and general websites as sources. I am fully aware of how problematic this can be, but I found the information was there in a handy and concise manner and relevant to this topic, so I used it. I must confess, I am better researched in other areas, but this isn't something alien to me so I felt I should answer.
Footnotes:
Yes. With an empire that stretched around the world, it would be hard not to have some skeletons in the closet. The British had holdings on every inhabited continent, and they used a range of methods to suppress locals that would qualify for modern definitions of atrocities.
The Irish Famine, commonly referred to as a genocide(and this is debated upon still), was directly caused by British state policy. It resulted in the deaths of around a million Irish citizens. Earlier than this, the Cromwellian campaigns in Ireland resulted in many civilian deaths due to famine and war, and Cromwell utilised torture as a tactic of intimidation.
In Australia and New Zealand, the colonisers were responsible for a number of events that are glossed over. In New Zealand, the most well known one is Parihaka. Parihaka was a Maori settlement on land that had been seized by the New Zealand government in the 1860s, and was 'needed' for European settlers. Maori frustrated government attempts to survey the land by removing pegs and boundary markers. It was an early form of passive resistance, very similar to what Gandhi would use in the next century in India. The government response to this resistance was to invade the village and remove people by force, transporting men out of the region and imprisoning them around the country, as well as evicting the remaining 1,600 residents from the settlement. The settlement itself was looted and burned, and utterly destroyed. The NZ government at this point still retained an identity closely related to Britain and colonial intentions - in their views they were most definitely one and the same.
George Monbiot talks in this article and this one about atrocities in Kenya and India.
If you look further, there are events in the history of every colony which are similar.
To add to the other comments, when Britain took over control of Iraq from the Ottomans, the British government decided to run the mandate on the cheap. So the administration hunkered down in Baghdad, and just bombed any rural resistance into submission. A similar method was used in Aden and by the Italians in Libya.
Airplanes and bombs were certainly cheaper than sending out soldiers to pacify a region, but today bombing of civilian populations is considered among the worst atrocities. Peter Sluglett's Britain in Iraq is the definitive history of the British Mandate in Iraq.