Untouchable Standards

Since the dismantling of the first British Empire with almost no casualties worth speaking of, many of the lesser breeds have undergone reversion to their former barbarism and, by regrettable contrast to the mainland, have succumbed to spurious and corrupt leadership by the childlike, the authoritarian and the uppity. Fortunately, the Raj seems as far as ever from renouncing British values, among the more glorious of which are a rigid caste system, a penchant for Muslim-baiting and a pragmatically buccaneering attitude to red tape. Under the god-bothering régime of Narendra Modi, the mere preservation of the world as a habitable environment has been left in the capable hands of the probably nonexistent, where it is unlikely to inconvenience anyone important. Accordingly, multinational companies are not putting themselves to the expense of undergoing safety checks, and the Indian authorities are not putting themselves to the trouble of forcing the issue. Although full Britishness can never be truly attained by brown people with funny names and hilarious modes of speech, an occasional mini-Bhopal is surely a price well worth paying for such commendable proximity.