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"Does Britain owe reparations to her former colonies?"

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India should very adamantly and very vocally demand that Britain should fully atone and completely acknowledge, including in their textbooks, the horrors of British colonialism in India. Britain should follow Germany's example in its atonement for Nazi Germany, and acknowledge that the British were every bit as cruel in India as the Nazis, and that Churchill was a racist mass murderer who must stop being revered. India should be as adamant about this as Korea is about Japan, without making the same mistakes Korea has.

Original post by Fango_Jett

The benefit was marginal at best for the general populace. High taxes, and elimination of business competition by the EITC made sure that only the relatively upper class or educated we able to use or afford them. They are certainly nothing like the railway system that India has today.

If you want an example of a successful colony, look at Hong Kong, which had billions put into it for it's own gain and development, and not as a money milking machine as both a trading and finance hub.

I never said we that we should be paying reparations at all. There are two separate questions. 1) Does Britain owe reparations to it's colonies? and 2) Should we actually pay reparations?

It's stupid to pay actual reparations now, and I doubt Britain could actually afford it, and since people directly affected by it are probably long dead. Hell, India is the second or third biggest investor in the UK. They neither want nor need reparations as it's far too late, but there's no doubt India would have been much better off with reparations. Whether Britain could actually have afforded to pay reparations after a costly WW2 is another point altogether.

If you want a success story about colonial reparations, look at Korea which got massive support from Japan in the forms of monetary gains and subsidized infrastructure and soft loans, and invested it heavily in their economy, making them one of the most developed and rich nations in the world today.

Even the speaker in the OP said that actual reparations was not needed. He merely wanted a formal apology.