a century ago

britain ruled over a quarter of the

planet

in this series i will go in search of

britain's imperial past

i have found gold and

uncover its legacies

how did a small island on the edge of

europe

end up dominating the world he

turned a miserable group of accountants

into swashbuckling pirates

from its proudest achievements to its

most shameful

failures we're ripped away from mother

africa

into a strange land and how

has the history of empire transformed

britain

we became the black people of britain on

this journey i uncover

the extraordinary story of the biggest

empire

that the world has ever seen

in this program i'm exploring the jewel

in the crown of

empire the way that britain established

its rule here

would provide a model for the

globalization of today
in india britain's imperial power was

founded upon one of the world's first

great multinational companies unlike

today's corporate giants

it exercised political power directly

with guns

this company went in for a type of

exploitation

that the world has not seen they had a

divine

right to rule it was as simple as that

opportunities to trade and corporate

greed

led britain into entanglements all over

the world

but in india those base motives were

gradually converted

into the pomp grandeur and glory

of the british raj

india has long gripped the british

imagination

a vast and exotic subcontinent home to

ancient civilizations

powerful rulers and untold riches

here britain honed its imperial skills

and possessing india attracted the

grudging aberration of rivals

and added to british power

this is the queen victoria memorial hall

dedicated to the empress of india

the raj was at its pinnacle during her

reign

it was in a way the perfection of the

colonial idea

a moment when britain was totally

committed to the governance

of the queen's 300 million subjects here

and when

india seemed indispensable to britain's

prestige

[Applause]

at the time of queen victoria's death in

1901

britain ruled over a quarter of the

planet

and 400 million people

no other possession competed with the

glamour of

india with its capital at calcutta

british authority did not originate with

the state or military conquest

the father of empire in india the man

responsible for securing british power

was a businessman he was bold

opportunistic

and visionary some would say a greedy

villain

the back wall of these houses must be

the outer wall of the clive house

clues about how robert clive led a

profit-hungry corporation

with its own private army to rule over

millions

lie hidden in these back streets the

fine brick work of the clive house now

forms

one side of that little street clive

completely transformed britain's role in

india

but his former home now lies in ruins

all

but forgotten ah

this filthy rubbish strewn passageway is

now the way

into the house had any was the main

entrance

although there are steps left here and

the place has been taken over by crows

and goodness knows what other creatures

and this must have been a spectacularly

grand room

where there's been some restoration i

think look at these wonderful classical

pillars i imagine before they were

rendered and maybe

made to look like marble clive took over

a mughal villa of a single story

and he added another one and here you

see the uh

two stories robert clive

was the delinquent son of a minor

shropshire landowner

when he was 17 his family bought him a

job

in the east india company it had existed

for more than a century

but this young firebrand would lead it

to become

a superpower i found one of the

present-day inhabitants

beautiful high ceiling here this could

also have been a grand room

and here i think the main entrance

very handsome flight of rounded steps

and the visitor will be confronted with

this set of magnificent arches

very imposing

clive knew how to live the

india that clive stepped into was ruled

by the mughals

at its height their mighty empire

stretched from modern day

afghanistan down the length of the

subcontinent

they built awe-inspiring forts mosques

and mausoleums that express their

immense wealth

and power but in the 18th century the

mughal empire was fracturing

and clive challenged its waning power

with the help

of the east india company's private army

with no military training he deployed

the company's troops against the french

in india

and when the mughals occupied calcutta

he expelled them at the battle of

plassey

in 1757. with actions like that

the company was transformed from a

trading venture

into a military and imperial power

and robert clive became the undisputed

ruler

of bengal

[Music]

the traders of the east india company

had ventured in search of

fortunes for themselves and their

shareholders in britain

at that time india offered a dazzling

concentration of riches

representing well over a fifth of the

world's

wealth

here's what lured the european powers to

india
pepper spices silks cottons

perfumes the appetite for such fineries

was insatiable for 150 years the british

east india company

competed with others to win or force

trading concessions

from the wealthy mughals

[Music]

jawa sierka is a noted historian

and a former secretary of india's

ministry of culture

how did it happen that a man who's

bought his position as a clerk

becomes a military leader he came into

the clerk and pushed his pen for two

dull years

didn't excite him much but then when the

battle started

he showed an extraordinary courage he

had an inbuilt suicidal

streak and that earned him

more and more pips on his shoulder and

he rose very fast

what change do you think robert clyde

brought about in the east india company

no one before him or after him was such

a buccaneer

without his bravado without his

excesses without his stratagem his

cunning his
ruthlessness in getting things done

which are most

untrader-like he turned

a miserable group of

accountants into swashbuckling pirates

he turned the east india company into

a power to reckon with battlefield

success

and backroom deals gave clive the

leverage to force

an extraordinary concession from the

mughals

the right to collect bengals taxes

a company of traders answerable to no

one but its shareholders

now has the power of empress

and that unleashed an era of rapacious

corporate greed clive made a lot of

money

he would never have made that in short

share

or they would not make it anywhere

it was mind-boggling for the east india

company

profit was king as long as the

corporation made money

employees were free to line their own

pockets too

clive now one of britain's wealthiest

men bought up grand houses back home

and stuff them with priceless indian

treasures

company men like him also use their

plundered riches

to acquire political power in britain

putting mps on the payroll

and buying elections to parliament here

in bengal

the greed went unchecked it had

disastrous consequences

one-third of the population of this

province

which was 30 million one-third that's

almost 10

million people died and the brits

are held responsible even till today

they died how starvation starvation he

started tampering around with natural

lines of supply

storage taxing over taxing so

the peasants fled their farms

it's so very much part of the psyche

that we had what this called this great

man-made famine

the east india company after robert

clive the way he develops it

can you compare it to anything in our

modern life this company went in for a

type of exploitation
that the world has not seen the

convergence

of profit with state power

with military power is the prototype

of all transnational exploitative

company that you've seen

the actions of the east india company

caused scandal in britain

with parliamentarians condemning the

rampant greed

and corruption the east india company's

mismanagement in bengal sent its shares

crashing but as in the recent banking

crisis

it was deemed too big to fail it was

bailed out by the government

which acquired influence over how it was

run

in a sort of public private partnership

within a year robert clive was dead in

mysterious circumstances

samuel johnson said he'd acquired his

fortunes by such

crimes that his consciousness of them

impelled him

to cut his own throat others have

suggested that he overdosed

on the highly addictive drug that would

become the east india company's most

profitable

commodity its trade would turn the

company

backed by the british state into

history's biggest

narcotics dealer

by the 1770s the traders of the east

india company

had laid the foundations of britain's

empire in india

calcutta was at its heart and its

arteries of international trade

reached across the globe

[Music]

from the west coast of africa british

ships carried enslaved people

to the caribbean to grow sugar for the

british market

from china east india company ships

brought the tea

on which the british were hooked but to

quench britain's growing

thirst the company needed to sell

chinese people

a product they wanted to buy the answer

was a highly addictive drug grown here

in britain's

indian territories in the

opium agency of the east india company

two thousand five hundred clerks in a

hundred offices

toiled to control the cultivation of the

narcotic

by indian farmers its quality and its

transport

to warehouses like this the highly

profitable

export of a few thousand tonnes per year

kept a swathe of china's population

addicted

and when their government objected

britain fought two wars

rather than give up the trade all that

was about buying china tea so that the

british empire could enjoy

a lovely cuppa

at the end of the 18th century britain

appointed a governor general

with a grand imperial plan richard

wellesley

was a close ally of the prime minister

william pitt

he'd been politically ambitious at home

and in india

was attracted more by power than profit

under his governorship the east india

company's private armies

marched across india conquering vast

territories
and installing puppet princes

[Music]

with wellesley at the helm this great

multinational company

was creating empire

richard wellesley was the elder brother

of the man who would become

the duke of wellington he was

responsible not only for

government house in calcutta but also

this more

personal villa of the caesars out here

at barrett poor

the british in india ruled over regional

royalty

and aristocracy leaders of great

wealth who dressed flamboyantly and

built palaces of extraordinary

ostentation

and wellesley believed that the imperial

power should not be outdone

in display

in 1801 wellesley started building

this palatial country retreat for the

governor general

15 miles upriver from calcutta

a magnificent entrance you might say but

in fact this is

simply the back door to the garden

the principal approach which would have

been experienced by visitors

lies on the other side where at the

moment major works are underway

wellesley was imitating mughal splendor

but he expressed it in an unmistakably

british style

huh the first thing the scale of it

superb proportions

wonderful tall ceilings

marbled floor this is just the rear

veranda

and into the ballroom and although from

the outside

it really could pass as a british

stately home

i think not so inside there are an

almost uncountable number

of double doors because the point was

that air

should flow i should have arrived

under the portico protected from the

typhoon

and then it would have come up one of

these twin staircases

and then i should have arrived here in

the entrance

lobby this is the proper way to enter

the house

these days baratpoi is home to the

bengali police

training academy and is being

painstakingly restored

by its director general sherman mitra

sherman during wellesley's tenure what

happened to the british empire was it

expanding the empire wasn't established

during the time it was part of the east

india company

but he had a vision towards that he

acquired a lot of land

he also fought a lot of wars and i would

say

while doing this he realized if one has

to control india

one has to be like a raja or a king or a

maharaja

and that's how he built these grand

palaces and mansions and how do you view

that now because in a way he was

foreseeing

the future of the british empire indeed

he was creating the future of the

british empire

yes this is one of the important markers

establishing

big mansions big houses uh

government houses so that people

they have come to rule are awestruck

what did the east india company think of

that oh

they were horrified they rebuked him

they called him back in 1805 and said

that

we have sent you to for trade this is

not what you should be doing

you are a free nation you are a republic

why why do you want to restore colonial

history

uh i'm not talking about whether

colonialism was good or bad or whatever

but certainly it was uh a part of our

shared history

and this particular building was built

with the hard work of our craftsmen

indian craftsmen true might be designed

by

britishers but it's part of our shared

global architecture

so how can i deny our past

when richard wellesley left india there

was no mistaking

that the british had assumed control but

in the subsequent decades

influential voices at home argued that

it wasn't enough

for the company to rule india their view

was that the british

had to civilize it too despite company

resistance

parliament was convinced to allow

christian missionaries

into india it would lead to tensions

especially amongst the troops on which

british rule depended

[Music]

the east india company's armies

consisted mainly of

indian soldiers known as sepoys

the company behaved insensitively

toppling local rulers

arbitrarily and greedily trampling on

local hierarchies and customs

whilst the sepoys feared that christian

missionaries

were out to destroy their religions

these issues were emotive

explosively so less than a mile from the

governor general's barrackpore retreat

one sea pi was pushed to the point of

insurrection

the british introduced the enfield rifle

to load it

the sepai was required to bite off the

end of the cartridge

which might have been greased with

either pig or cow fat

one was repugnant to muslims and the

other two hindus

on the 29th march 1857

a devout upper caste hindu sepoy

called mango pandi in disgust

urged his fellow soldiers to rise up in

revolt and he

himself attacked two officers

legend has it that he was hanged by the

british from a banyan tree

it was an incident at the start of the

year

of the indian rebellion an event which

will prove extremely bloodthirsty

and of great political significance

rebellion in the army swiftly spread to

the civilians

of north and central india for the

british the uprising of an

indigenous population who greatly

outnumbered them

was the stuff of nightmares murderous

attacks on europeans

were met with brutal reprisals to

understand why company rule broke down

in such a shockingly violent way i'm

meeting historian professor

rudrangshu mukherjee what do you think

mango pandit's reasons for going on his

rampage

there was the persistent

and very deep fear among the sepoys

that there was a full-blown conspiracy

on the part of the british government

to spoil the caste and the religion of

the seaports

the british government was seen to be

interfering

with the way people lived their lives

and the way

society had been held together had been

made to function

for generations and centuries this list

of insensitivities who's to blame for

this who is insensitive the british

government the east india company

the individual where does it come from

these

are administrators who are coming out to

india and they find a society that is

completely

alien to them and they think that

this is an inferior civilization because

they don't

match up to our european standards

therefore

it is our duty to change and civilize

these people of india

so does that mean that these people with

attitudes that we now regard as

appalling yes so condescending so

contemptuous

does it mean that nonetheless they could

themselves have been

conscientious and well-meaning yes but

they were totally insensitive to

what impact their policies would have on

the people who were being affected

by those policies there's a mismatch

there complete divorce between

intention and consequence

the number of people killed during the

rebellion and its aftermath

is almost unimaginable 800

000 people died the great majority of

them

indians when the news reached britain

there was outrage at the scale of the

violence out of this horror

a reformed empire would emerge

personified by an

empress who claimed to rule india's

teeming millions

with the affection of a mother

[Music]

the shocking violence of the indian

rebellion

shook british rule in india to its core

after a year of bloodshed control was

restored
but the british government could no

longer allow the company

to rule the government removed the east

india company

from control its corruption had long

been an embarrassment

and formalized rule by the crown queen

victoria would become the empress of

india

commencing the high point of the british

raj

queen victoria would be portrayed as

mother

to her subjects in india the company's

monumental buildings were repurposed

and sumptuous new ones were built

creating a capital city worthy of

india's status as the jewel in the crown

of the british empire this

magnificent dome born aloft by 28

corinthian columns

is the old post office and a metaphor

for british colonial rule

staff mainly by indians the postal

service spread out

across the country bringing letter

deliveries

to all after the rebellion just 20

000 british officials and soldiers were

required
to run indian civil servants and troops

who administered a subcontinent of 300

million

to understand how the empire now claimed

legitimacy and distance

itself from the east india company i'm

speaking to anthony khachaturian

a kolkata historian and writer so after

1857

what would you say about the british

rebooting of its empire here in india

they had to truly start governing it

couldn't just be

hoarding chess full of diamonds from

from the minds of hyderabad

queen victoria's proclamation says we

are here to provide you with equal

governance and fair play and trade

for everybody everybody will be treated

equally we will not impose religion on

you

but the giveaway is right at the end

there are two three words along the

lines of

but don't forget we are here to rule you

because you are our subjects how do you

think it's possible

that only about 20 000 british officials

and soldiers
are able to administer india all of

india

going across from from what we now call

pakistan right the way across

bangladesh was chopped up into 250 yard

districts

and they broke it down so every district

had a

indian civil services officer and a

police superintendent

and these were the two left and right

hands of the empire they were the be-all

and end-all for those districts

it strikes me that the british took

their imperial duties

seriously in the sense that for example

the second sons

of important families in britain would

come out here for decades they'd bring

up their families here

and they would in a way be committed to

india they had a supreme belief that

they were sent out here by

the queen herself and god above her they

had a divine right to rule

it was as simple as that

[Music]

[Applause]

towards the end of queen victoria's

reign a man took

charge determined to exhibit the

splendors of the raj

george nathaniel kirsten came from an

old aristocratic family

and in india he would perfect the

empire's display

in the most grandiose way

this footage from 1911 shows the scale

of the delhi durbars

a spectacular imperial pageant pioneered

by him

in 1903. it's a huge huge statement

turzon is trying to put across that the

age of rapacity of loot

have now ended now it is about the king

emperor

ruling india it's about governance this

is the grand statement

that all of you kings and maharaja's

from across the country

come down here on bended knee and accept

the

the right of the king emperor to rule

across the country in harmony

kerzen would also give an old company

institution

a new lease of life a barrackpore

the viceroys and their families could

take their leisure

in an exclusive british enclave

calcutta was then the capital of

british india that meant an immense

area including even present-day burma

and so from here was ruled

an enormous number of human beings and

to this place

came people from all over the empire

so would i be right in thinking this is

the ballroom yes it is

it is a ballroom with as you can see a

sprung flow

historian manabi mitra has researched

the rarefied world

of bharatpaw when it was home to the

empire's leaders

at play it was probably one of the most

celebrated ballrooms of british india

because

everybody who was somebody and was close

enough

to marriage the viceroy's attention came

here

we have people like randolph churchill

winston churchill

george v as well as royalty and nobility

from all across europe and here's a

rather surprising item

a fireplace would you need such a thing

here
barrackpore was an approximation of home

it was a grafting of a piece of little

england

on an indian territory so i suppose the

fireplace was used

as a reminder that here was a little

slice of england

these photographs captured the british

in india when they were off duty

they show a world of characteristically

british pursuits

the lifestyle of britain's upper classes

transplanted to asia

but how did the raj's rulers relate to

the india

all around them so what we have here

is a typical round of tiffin

which would have the usual fish dish in

the meat dish

but done in a little different way this

is roast lamb as you can see

should i serve you oh thank you very

much

oh and this looks delicious what is this

yes this is maligotoni soup

it's soup made with lentils and chicken

broth

delightful all right today i'm being

served
a tiffin lunch the kind of food that

would have been enjoyed by the raj's top

brass

and their guests i'm gonna try the

malaga tony

in their social life did the british

ever invite

indians here the thing about government

house bharapur was that it was

a kind of a sacred inviolable zone where

only friends would be invited but waited

upon

hand and foot by indians i assume yes

in all the photographs that we have seen

of dining under the banyan tree we

see an army of boba cheese and kit mud

cars and

servers standing behind in full regalia

but always to wait upon the sahebs what

about the indians that were on the

outside who

probably couldn't even see in what did

what did they feel about this way of

life

in this spark there are two portions one

is the private portion and the public

portion

and in the public portion people were

allowed so

they were allowed to have a glimpse of

the park they could

come and gape at the imperial markers

and they could look at them approvingly

[Music]

the british in india were always a tiny

minority

the imperial institutions that they

created

allowed them to rule over a vast

population

but a challenge to british supremacy was

brewing

within one of the institutions that have

made the raj

a success

trans started running in calcutta in

1901

the british famously covered india in

railway tracks

built for their own purposes of course

but nonetheless a useful legacy

of infrastructure the colonists also

decided that they needed

a broad class of indian educated

to be the administrators of the empire

but of course such educated civil

servants

would form the nucleus of those looking

for self-government
and later demanding independence

then in 1905 kerzen made a controversial

decision

with long-lasting consequences for the

empire in

india bengal was india's largest

province

with a population of 85 million people

kerzen decided it would be easier for

the british to rule

if it was split into two he partitioned

it

along religious lines with the western

province being majority hindu

and the eastern being majority muslim

[Music]

the british decision to partition bengal

was met

with massive anger from these

riverbanks the writer rabindranath

tagore led

a great procession declaring a day of

national mourning

india was set on the path of peaceful

but

wounding protest

this song played the key role in the

partition of bengal

around 1905 the nobel laureate tagore

he composed this song because this song

was written as a poem

in the mid-19th century musicians

surendra malik

and sumyajit das come from old kolkata

[Music]

families

[Music]

what he was saying was that you can't

have your mother split into two

the country should not be split into two

it was a song which brought hindus

muslims

everyone together on the streets and

gave them the power to fight

thank you so much for the beautiful

voice you haven't how well you play

how did you both feel performing that

it has a lot of bloodshed involved in it

passion of people to get their

motherland

for them so it's not just a song for us

it gives a big goosebump whenever we

perform this

what was tagore's view of the british

raj

i think from 1905 and the partition of

bengal because he quite

understood the political game that was

happening of
not only splitting the land of india but

splitting

the major religion uh of india

you know the muslims that way and the

hindus that sway and

in a way dividing them to rule them

british people would probably think um

the struggle for indian independence

gandhi but all of the things we've been

talking about well most of them

are while gandhi is still in south

africa so

for you is tagore as bigger figure maybe

a bigger figure

in the movement as gandhi yes the

partition had hurt bangladesh and india

the two parts of bengal so

these were the places which created the

platform for the nehru's gandhis and the

faces of the

movement to stand where they are today

the british reversed their decision and

reunited bengal in 1911

but their insensitivity had launched

india's independence movement

when the empire was drawn into the great

war indians offered their support

but demanded new freedoms

for centuries mughal india was one of

the world's great

powers it controlled a fifth of the

world's wealth

but that changed when the british came

i went to the factory that sounds like

the 19th century

and looks like a renaissance painting

these beautiful

shafts of light which are illuminating

the dust

which is everywhere in the air

in 19th century india factories like

this were rare

at that time britain was the workshop of

the world

and india's once thriving economy had

been reduced to a supplier

of raw materials for british factories

for robert clive cotton was one of the

great riches of

india but then jute a versatile and

cheap crop which had been used for

millennia

was found to have new uses for rope

for sacking and as a backing for

linoleum

during the first world war britain

needed india to

ramp up its manufacturing output bengali

jute production went into

overdrive for sandbags and tarpaulins

in the trenches and 1.4 million

indians answered britain's call to arms

india's tremendous sacrifice for empire

emboldened it to make demands

when britain went to war in 1914 it

summoned forces from across the empire

hugely boosting the numbers that could

be deployed

indians fought tenaciously for empire

but also with future freedom in mind

for why should not india gain as its

reward

the same self-government by then enjoyed

by australia

and canada

in the great war britain promised india

self-government

but in its aftermath those promises were

broken

then a terrible massacre occurred in

amritsar

in this place called the jallianwala

bark

british troops opened fire on unarmed

civilians

gathered in peaceful protest

the slaughter was a turning point for

many indians

convincing them that they must break

free

well how did indians feel when in 1939

yet again the british empire asked them

to go and fight

in 1939 the situation was much more

complex

kashic roy is a professor of military

history the political class

they are more clever that it should not

be in 1919 again

then that's why the congress said that

britain must declare a debt for

independence

otherwise congress would not give

support what is the view towards the

first world war of mohandas gandhi

and what is his view towards the second

world war between first world war and

second world war gandhi's view

completely you know transformed

he said don't believe the british the

british will again go back to their

promises as they have done

after first world war nobody could

really trust

britain in world war ii britain once

again mobilized the empire

despite resistance from indian leaders

indian troops would play a crucial role

in the allies victory

but even as indian soldiers fought in

theaters of war

across the globe here in bengal a

catastrophic famine

brought death to millions

how important is the bengal famine of

1943

in the story of india it is our

holocaust

i mean everybody knows about the jewish

holocaust but very few in the world

knows about the bengal holocaust

engineered by the british

so much that's your view that it was

engineered by the british

yeah it was structural because whatever

food was there in bengal bengali tend to

be

sucked out to feed the army

remember imperialism mostly dependent

not nearly on brute force but also on

confidence

moral legitimacy so that completely

washed away

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with the broken promise to india over

home rule

and the massacre ageland wallabag and

later
with the famine during the war time in

bengal

british trustworthiness legitimacy

and prestige bled away and indian

non-violence became unstoppably

victorious

britain partitioned india from pakistan

and gave them both independence in 1947.

in the seven decades since india has

rediscovered its power

and has become a global economic force

once more

but how does it deal with its history of

subjugation

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when you look back at the british in

indian history the fact that

indians were not allowed at the top

table the massacre at

amritsar the famine in bengal are these

still things that really

wrankle they do wrangle in some minds

especially in people who are directly

affected by these things

jayanta sengupta is curator of the

victoria memorial hall

the most visited monument in kolkata and

the most visible relic of its british

past
but by and large i think we have come to

terms with that

and the british rule notwithstanding how

exploitative and how brutal the empire

was

uh is part of our beach is part of our

soul

and we carry it with acceptance and

tolerance

how do the british in their long time in

india change

india if you look at the economic impact

of how the british ruled india

the industries the artisanal industries

declined

it was reduced to a raw material

producing country geared to the british

colonial interests

those who want to put the best loss on

british rule

talk about good administration railways

justice education a single language

what do you make of those things these

things were created in order to serve

the interests of the empire

but if it was not a part of

good governance in the colonial period

it has given us a legacy which we have

shaped to our best interests

over the long run the indians took it on

and then

made it into an expression of india's

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democracy

britain came to india to exploit it

the east india company looted its wealth

and toppled its rulers

the indian lived as a second-class

citizen in his own country

but british colonial rule brought

together

2 000 ethnic groups in a single country

and gave it a unifying language and

infrastructure and government and

systems of law

and education the india of today

the world's largest democracy one of its

largest economies

is inevitably the product of the

relationship

between india and britain

a number of india's industries have

boomed and become multinationals

heavily invested in the british economy

today as india's wealth grows it's

easier to understand

that this subcontinent was once a

repository of riches

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in the next program i discover how

britain's empire was built by

pirates they were given permission from

the king of england to plunder

and plunder they did how millions were

ripped from their homelands

and stripped off their identities i

cannot say exactly where i'm from

i just can't trace that back

and michael's empire journey continues

next friday at 9.

and when empirical shareholders got

their dividends they spent it on some

serious stuff 10 ways the victorians

changed britain

new tomorrow at 7 50. next tonight they

may hate our songs but we

love the show especially when eurovision

goes

horribly wrong in just a tick

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