Dr Shashi Tharoor MP - Britain Does Owe Reparations

Regarding British in India, according to [LINK] , there are estimates of 20-50 million people died to famines which happened because of British looting. And from [LINK] , In 1600, when the East India Company was established, Britain was producing just 1.8% of the world’s GDP, while India was generating some 23% (27% by 1700). By 1940, after nearly two centuries of the Raj, Britain accounted for nearly 10% of world GDP, while India had been reduced to a poor “third-world” country, destitute and starving, a global poster child of poverty and famine. The British left a society with 16% literacy, a life expectancy of 27, practically no domestic industry and over 90% living below what today we would call the poverty line. Also, [VIDEO]

There was always unrest, true, though it was no exception for the time considering its size. Either way the colonialists did nothing to help the situation but were focused on milking the cash cow. [VIDEO]

There was a debate about reparations in quite another context - the British colonisation of India. Though not connected with the topic being discussed, the question of reparations for historical wrongs is presented in an interesting manner. [VIDEO]

Shashi Tharoor an Indian politician has written a book about this as well. There is this narrative within India (among many hindus and advocated by hindu nationalist political parties such as the bjp) that the muslim empire of the Mughals harmed India and robbed it of some kind of growth. But people like Tharoor are trying to create this new narrative that the British were much more harmful for India than the 'muslim' rulers of the Mughal empire. here is a talk by Tharoor who has demanded that the British apologize for many of the events that took place during that period: [VIDEO]

If anyone is interested to learn more; the author of this post has debated "Britan does owe reparations" in Oxford Union Society here : [VIDEO] This talk has many facts not even commonly known to Indians.

> The consequence of continuing would have been far worse than abandoning. The fact remains that they were moving to put in place democratic reforms. Prior to the Chinese revolution HK was an economic backwater - most of its population being related to the transhipment port and military presence. Kowloon and New Territories were only added as buffer zone for the port. Growth was nearly all post Chinese revolution. The consequences of continuing will be worse for Britain as they will not be able to milk revenue or profits from Hong Kong. By extending it until 1997 they were able to milk Hong Kong, until the very day when it was about to become a liability and lead to economic expense. All the wealth of Hong Kong in those days from 1980's to 1997 was due to growth of China. Hong Kong has never paid any revenue or money to China, but on the contrary Britain extracted money from Hong Kong since they set foot and continued it for 150 years. On top of it in 1997 moved all the profits to London when they left. These all facts are part of Hong Kong history. Probably Britain should pay reparations to Hong Kong. [1] [1] [VIDEO]

I'll stick this here for anyone wanting to know the real history of EIC and not some fancy, all-so-rosy version presented by EIC apologists. As a constant reminder of the atrocities, plunder, destruction of culture and tradition carried by EIC in the garb of "Industrialization" and establishing "Democracy" for which Britain has never apologized: [VIDEO]

May I know how many years your grandmother was kept as a slave and abused ? Indian experienced it for 200+ years. People (Americans dare I say ?) have no problems accepting blacks are behind whites on most development indices EVEN TODAY because of slavery and oppression, but somehow can't extend the same logic to former colonial countries like India. Recent economic hardships of a particular class has threatened democracy and made a joke of fabled American institutions, despite high levels of education and wealth. But a country which was oppressed for centuries and is still reeling in poverty, for benefit of the Western world, now is in a position to help them with a little bit of help and you still can't extend a helping hand in good faith. Maybe your grandmother would have been a bicycle if she had wheels, but you despite having a brain are a simpleton. REF: [VIDEO]

> That it exists at all, as a democracy, is due to the immense efforts of the British....Indian citizens should be grateful to all of the above groups of people who have given them democracy as it is today What? Are you serious with this line of thought that Indians should be grateful to the British for democracy? I'd like to quote Shashi Tharoor's arguments here from an Oxford Union debate [0] - > It's a bit rich to oppress, enslave, kill, torture, maim people for 200 years and then celebrate the fact that they're democratic at the end of it. We were denied democracy sir! We had to snatch it, seize it from you! With the greatest of reluctance it was conceded. [0] - [VIDEO]

>A lot of people praise British for developing India. A lot of British people praise Britain for developing India. Indians themselves and other ex-colonies (much of the world that was Victorian pink) aren't so convinced: [VIDEO] British railways were basically Roman roads. They served to move the army -- the fact the citzens could use them for trade was a massive incidental benefit.

It was Queen Victoria who gave patents to explore. They came and plundered our lands and created unrest first in the name of east india company and then the British Empire. We just dont know how the subcontinent would have evolved without their interference - because of their divide and conquer policy we have an extreme distrust between the muslims and the hindus that had resulted in one of the worst (and ridiculus) land partitions in 1947 and created a conflict that will go on for generations. They interfered where they had no business to be in and made a mess of everything. People argue that his hands are clean because all the bad stuff was done by his mother-in-law and the PMs. But he directly benifitted from the gains (as will his decendents) of the genoide and plunderings and won't even acknowledge. The monarch should pay the subcontinent back for the damages they have caused[0, 1]. [0] [VIDEO] [1] [LINK]

This argument is somewhat disingenuous with cherry-picked examples which are highly dependent on Time and Context. Colonialism ruined whole countries leaving them poor, rewrote cultural narratives, uprooted entire social structures and in a word, destroyed peoples histories and a sense of their own independent identity. In the bloody aftermath some flourished and some did not; but this cannot be used as an example of the "superiority" of certain forms of government when the existing forms had been destroyed. A good starting point on further research is the book; Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Acemoglu and Robinson (be sure to read the Critical Reviews section) - [LINK] The following two videos though dealing specifically with India under British Colonialism are equally valid as to what had happened to other countries under the British Empire; 1) W.r.t. what British Colonialism did to India, see Dr. Shashi Tharoor's longer speech Looking Back at the British Raj in India - [LINK] 2) Shorter version of above at Britain Does Owe Reparations [to India] - [VIDEO]

Regarding 'helped unify India as a nation', they are not the first. Referring to [LINK] , India's map looked close to the present day multiple times in the past. Maurya Empire-284 BCE [1:57] Delhi Sultanate (Tughlaq)-1345 [8:45] Mughal Empire-1692 [10:24] As for 'they also brought manufactured goods back', they exported raw materials from India and imported back finished goods, thereby destroying the local industries in India. >By the mid-19th century, the Indian economy had been fully transformed into a colonial trade pattern, where its export consisted mainly of agricultural commodities such as foodgrains, and the home charges were met by exporting such commodities, while the imports consisted of manufactured goods, especially cotton textiles and machinery (Siddiqui, 2015c). After the 1880s, the trade imports became more diversified, due to the growing penetration of foreign manufactured goods such as cotton textiles, capital goods, machinery etc. (Siddiqui, 1996) This in turn further undermined the position of the local producers and hastened the decay of indigenous industries and handicrafts. [LINK] Dr Shashi Tharoor did a nice speech about the British rule in India listing out the damages they did: [VIDEO] . Text version of this speech available here: [LINK] . His book on the same topic: [LINK] Then there is the famines. Famines during british rule is estimated to have killed from 20-50 million Indians: [LINK] . Google image search of 'british india famines' should show

This reminds me of Shashi Tharoor's [0] speech at Oxford Union. It is a bit rich to celebrate UK's democracy as 102 years old when they were practicing colonization and slavery less than a human lifetime ago (75 years), isn't it? [VIDEO]

Mr. Tharoor is a current Member of Parliament of India and previously India's Ambassador to the UN. He is a very eloquent speaker and writer. Here's his famous short speech at the Oxford Union where he made a case for reparations from Britain for its excesses during its reign of the Indian subcontinent. [VIDEO]

The video linked by parent is light on details. This one has more details if anyone's interested (A debate on the empire but many of the things apply to EIC) [VIDEO]

Yeah, but we are talking about India under british empire. Not Rwanda and Haiti. Since you're so oblivious of what the british empire did, here's a 8 minute mini speech of things British empire did in India. India wasn't some poor country, it was actually one of the richest countries in the world before brits came along and stole everything. This was my entire point in the initial post, it's both hilarious and a bit sad how people are so unaware what the british empire did in India. [VIDEO]