Dr Shashi Tharoor MP - Britain Does Owe Reparations

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]

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.

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]

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

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]