@Heidentweet
I'm not really in the mood for a 2 hour recap of the British retreat, but the flip side of the question is that empires aren't natural units of humanity, either. Nationalism is bad history, but imperialism is a pragmatic mess at best.

Secular democracy with universal citizenship and strong rights protections is the best outcome, and for a while it seemed like modern India was moving in the right direction, but chauvinism is too easy to sell.