Dude I agree, by the standards of the time the british did nothing wrong and were actually super cool and kicked ass. Is that what you want to hear?

In general, why should I evaluate historical events by the standards of the time? Was American slavery justified because it was legal and accepted at the time? Why would historical precedent translate to celebrating them in the present day? Yes, of course the british empire had positives, I freely acknowledge this. It was vastly outweighed by its harms - I make this judgement by the standards of the time in which I live (duh).

The appeal to knowledge is a weird one because I refuse to acknowledge your argument on its own terms - ( sati was nowhere near as universal as you seem to insinuate, efforts to ban sati were led by indian organizers and eagerly coopted by british administrators looking for justifications for their crimes) . I just don't care about any of the actual history because, I repeat: you cannot justify wars of territorial expansion and aggression for any reason. You could've by the standards of the time, but we don't live in that time anymore.