Because the modern western world just loves to self-flagellate and declare all western countries, especially the European and North American ones, as pure evil incarnate, British colonialism has, unsurprisingly, got a really bad reputation and is considered one of the biggest crimes against humanity, perhaps only surpassed by American slavery (and even that just barely).
It's curious that only the UK gets that widespread reputation even though Portugal, France, Spain and Italy were also huge colonizers in that same era (and in many aspects in fact even worse, when it comes to the treatment of natives.) Especially Portugal was really prolific on that department, even rivaling Great Britain in terms of the size of their territory and their control over it. Thus, it's a bit odd that only the UK is being mostly maligned on this front.
(Spain and France get a bad rep for colonizing North America, but that came later.)
But one has to ask: Was British colonialism actually such a horrendous crime against humanity, and would the world actually be better if they had never done it?
Consider what most of Africa was like at that time, compared to Europe.
Europe had gigantic million-citizen cities, huge multi-storey buildings, cathedrals, absolutely gigantic castles and palaces, enormous centers of commerce, and enormous sea ports with the infrastructure to engage in massive amounts of international sea-based commerce. And on that front, Europe had developed sea ships capable of traversing across oceans (all the way around Africa to the far East) and transporting enormous amounts of cargo. Europe had invented the printing press. Europe had developed massive and lavish concert halls where elaborate music compositions were being played by massive orchestras using instruments that have nothing to be ashamed of musical instruments of today. Europe also had developed firearms, cannons and other tools of war, making it far superior in terms of warfare to other countries. Europe engaged in massive amounts of agriculture that produced massive amounts of food for millions of people.
Meanwhile in the vast majority of central and south Africa, most people lived in small tribes in small villages consisting of straw or mud huts, whose only sustenance was going hunting almost every day, using spears, rocks and sometimes very primitive bows. They had no agriculture, pretty much no technology, and not even so much as multi-storey buildings. Most of them had not developed even a writing system, and even their musical instruments, if they had any, consisted of some drums and, in very rare places, perhaps some primitive wood flutes. The vast majority of them had not developed the technology to process and use any kinds of metals. They were literally still living in the Early Stone Age, where every piece of primitive technology was made of wood and stone, and who didn't even have a writing system (several other peoples in other parts of the world in the actual Stone Age had developed quite advanced writing systems.)
North Africa, especially Egypt, was an exception to this, as they were significantly more advanced, but a big part of this was because of contact with the Roman Empire (and later the Byzantine Empire.) Although Egypt had already developed significantly more advanced architecture and even their own writing system before being influenced by the Romans.
Note what the British (and the Portuguese and French) brought to central and south Africa. They were not just colonizing and conquering. They brought their technology and knowledge with them, and helped bring most of Africa from literally the Early Stone Age to the Modern Era in less than a century.
Was there abuse? Was there exploitation of the people, the land and its resources? Were there forced conversions of locals? Sure, to some extent. However, any serious knowledgeable historian will tell you that the picture is not that simple nor one-sided. In fact, in many cases there was a surprising amount of respect by the British towards the native people, and this is something that modern politics just doesn't want to admit. Sometimes the colonizers did abuse and exploit the locals, but that wasn't even nearly always the case. Sometimes the British actually showed a surprising amount of respect towards them.
The British (and the Portuguese and French) built infrastructure, railroads, buildings, water wells, irrigation systems and so on and so forth. They brought their writing system and the printing press with them. Often they actually taught the locals to read and write, and even taught them how to make buildings and roads. They brought modern medicine (of the time) and built hospitals, improving the life quality of locals in addition to their own.
In fact, towards the end of the colonialism era, towards the end of the 1800's, give or take, a lot of places in Africa and South Asia looked almost European, full of modern (at the time) buildings and infrastructure, international commerce, transport systems, modern agriculture, and so on.
Then, Britain, Portugal and France started allowing country after country to gain their independence, and stopped governing them, and left them for the most part to the native people.
And what has happened since then, over the last hundred years, with no more British government in those countries?
A devolution back towards the Stone Age. That's what. Buildings, infrastructure, railways, roads, agricultural lands... all becoming more and more unmaintained and more and more decrepit every passing decade. Once glorious palaces and governmental buildings have become abandoned and decrepit. Infrastructure has decayed and stopped working, railroads have become unusable, and where Europeans have stopped cultivating the land, famine.
There are striking pictures comparing many African and South Asian countries from just 50 years ago to what the same places look now. Where 50 years ago they looked like modern cities of the 1960's, today most of them are decrepit, decayed, and full of filth and trash. Agricultural fields that were lush and fertile 50 years ago are today dry wastelands that produce absolutely nothing.
Without European management and influence these places are indeed slowly but surely going back to the Stone age. Only the staggering amounts of money and resources that western countries are dumping onto the continent are keeping it from devolving further, keeping a modicum of modern technology alive.
So I have to ask: Was British colonialism really as bad as modern politics wants to depict it as?
(Also note who were the people who forcefully ended the trans-Atlantic slave trade via military force? It was the British. They literally blockaded the Atlantic to forcefully stop the slave ships from crossing it, killing American slavery by essentially starving it from new slaves. The British also largely banned slavery in Africa and South Asia.)
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