[video="youtube;f7CW7S0zxv4"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7CW7S0zxv4[/video]
In the Oxford Union, perhaps the world’s most famous debating society, Dr. Shashi Tharoor MP, a Member of Indian parliament explained during a debate recently why Britain owes reparations to her former colonies.
Tharoor began by stating that before the British rule, India’s share of the world economy was 23% but by the time Britain left it was reduced to 4%.
“Britain’s rise was financed by its depredation of India,” says Tharoor. “It’s a bit rich to oppress, enslave, kill, torture, maim people for 200 years and then celebrate the fact that they are democratic at the end of it. We were denied democracy, so we had to snatch it, seize it from you.”
“British aid to India is 0.4 percent of India’s GDP. The government of India actually spends more on fertilizer subsidies, which might be an appropriate metaphor for that argument,” said Tharoor, attracting a round of applause.
Tharoor went onto describe how the British managed to damage India’s cloth trade by destroying local Indian weavers’ business and replacing them with their own ‘dark and satanic Victorian mills’.
He focused much of his speech on the manner in which the British took maximum advantage of India.
He added, “We are not arguing specifically that vast sums of money need to be paid. The proposition before this house is the principle of owing reparations not the amount that is owed and to whom it should be paid. The question is, Is there a debt? Does Britain owe reparations?"
To conclude, he said that the ability to acknowledge the wrong that has been done,to simply say sorry, will go far longer way than some percentage of GDP in some form of aid.
The house concluded that Britain owes reparations to her former colonies.
What’s your stance on this? Do you believe Britain does owe reparations? Or do you believe that British Colonialism was beneficial to the colonies and helped shape the modern world? Or do you feel that there's no need to apologise for what happened hundreds of years ago?
Do watch the video and then let me know what your thoughts are.