India used to have such a good reputation internationally decades ago, that their currency the rupee in Zelda, one of the most well known and beloved video games, as the currency of a mythical and magical kingdom, they had that much social capital, they were seen as detached, enlightened and mysterious people, the chief exemplars of the unfounded myths of the noble savage, ofcourse English colonials and explorers in India had a radically different view of them more related to our own current view, but can you even imagine being them and destroying your own reputation so resoundingly but also being so stupid as to not realise the sheer cultural and political value of that image you once held in the minds of strangers, all because you refused to police your own peoples excesses.