Viewpoint: Britain must pay reparations to India

'Clive of India'

Lord Clive was an enigmatic figure in the history of the British Empire

Colonialists like Robert Clive bought their "rotten boroughs" in England with the proceeds of their loot in India (loot, by the way, was a Hindi word they took into their dictionaries as well as their habits), while publicly marvelling at their own self-restraint in not stealing even more than they did.

And the British had the gall to call him "Clive of India", as if he belonged to the country, when all he really did was to ensure that much of the country belonged to him.

The Limey PIGS must PAY for their bloody SINS!!!!

Bengal famine

As Britain ruthlessly exploited India, between 15 and 29 million Indians died tragically unnecessary deaths from starvation.

Four million Bengalis died in the Great Bengal Famine of 1943

The last large-scale famine to take place in India was under British rule; none has taken place since, since free democracies don't let their people starve to death.

Some four million Bengalis died in the Great Bengal Famine of 1943 after Winston Churchill deliberately ordered the diversion of food from starving Indian civilians to well-supplied British soldiers and European stockpiles.

"The starvation of anyway underfed Bengalis is less serious than that of sturdy Greeks," he argued.

When officers of conscience pointed out in a telegram to the prime minister the scale of the tragedy caused by his decisions, Mr Churchill's only response was to ask peevishly "Why hasn't Gandhi died yet?"

Myth of 'enlightened despotism'

British imperialism had long justified itself with the pretence that it was enlightened despotism, conducted for the benefit of the governed. Mr Churchill's inhumane conduct in 1943 gave the lie to this myth.

Hundreds of people at a public meeting were shot dead by British troops at the Jallianwala Bagh

But it had been battered for two centuries already: British imperialism had triumphed not just by conquest and deception on a grand scale, but by blowing rebels to bits from the mouths of cannons, massacring unarmed protesters at Jallianwala Bagh and upholding iniquity through institutionalised racism.

No Indian in the colonial era was ever allowed to feel British; he was always a subject, never a citizen.

They already paid. Yuh can thank them for their involvement in curry!

Indian railways

'The railways were intended to help the British get around'

The construction of the Indian Railways is often pointed to as a benefit of British rule, ignoring the obvious fact that many countries have built railways without having to be colonised to do so.

Nor were the railways laid to serve the Indian public. They were intended to help the British get around, and above all to carry Indian raw materials to the ports to be shipped to Britain.

The movement of people was incidental except when it served colonial interests; no effort was made to ensure that supply matched demand for mass transport.

In fact the Indian Railways were a big British colonial scam.

British shareholders made absurd amounts of money by investing in the railways, where the government guaranteed extravagant returns on capital, paid for by Indian taxes.

Thanks to British rapacity, a mile of Indian railways cost double that of a mile in Canada and Australia.

It was a splendid racket for the British, who made all the profits, controlled the technology and supplied all the equipment, which meant once again that the benefits went out of India.

It was a scheme described at the time as "private enterprise at public risk".

Private British enterprise, public Indian risk.

British aid

In recent years, even as the reparations debate has been growing louder, British politicians have in fact been wondering whether countries like India should even receive basic economic aid at the expense of the British taxpayer.

To begin with, the aid received is 0.4%, which is less than half of 1% of India's GDP.

British aid, which is far from the amounts a reparation debate would throw up, is only a fraction of India's fertiliser subsidy to farmers, which may be an appropriate metaphor for this argument.

Britons may see our love of cricket or the English language, or even parliamentary democracy, conjuring up memories of the Raj as in television series like Indian Summers, with Simla, and garden parties, and gentile Indians.

For many Indians, however, it is a history of loot, massacres, bloodshed, of the banishing of the last Mughal emperor on a bullock cart to Burma.

Those stinking PIGS will forever be tormented!!!

Bai, dem gave alyuh curry and indoor toilet. Wha mo yuh want?

Indian soldiers in world wars

More than two million Indian soldiers participated in World War Two

India contributed more soldiers to British forces fighting the First World War than Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa combined.

Despite suffering recession, poverty and an influenza epidemic, India's contributions in cash and materiel amount to £8bn ($12bn) in today's money.

Two and a half million Indians also fought for British forces in the Second World War, by the end of which £1.25bn of Britain's total £3bn war debt was owed to India, which was merely the tip of the iceberg that was colonial exploitation.

It still hasn't been paid.

'Return the Koh-i-Noor diamond'

'Maybe Britain could kindly return the Koh-i-Noor diamond'

What's important is not the quantum of reparations that Britain should pay, but the principle of atonement.

Two hundred years of injustice cannot be compensated for with any specific amount.

I, for one, would be happy to accept a symbolic pound a year for the next two hundred years, as a token of apology.

And maybe Britain could kindly return the Koh-i-Noor diamond to the country it was taken from!

Forgive Royal grandma. She don't have money to pay for reparation. She don't even have grocery in she Castle. 

De poo lady crying.

Those bloody PIGS STOLE from the World and build Castles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After reading this thread, I'm inclined to think the Allied forces should have let Hitler and his Aryan comrades have his way with alyuh madrassis

Note.

De poo lady crying.

The one on left (Phil) pulled his finger, farted, burnt her eyes, voila tears....older fart on right,grins.

Well after this I hope no one will oppose reparations for the former slaves of the British Caribbean colonies.  It is thye wealth made on the sugar plantations of islands like Barbados, St Kitts and Jamaica which provided the initial impetus for the Industrial Revolution, and allowed the development of UK companies strong enough to exploit India.

The UK will regret the day that it established its global empire.

Dem South Indian mathematician and scientist made dem rass tek notice of the millions of years of their civilization. And Rabindranath Tagore dazzled dem with mere words that spoke to the sentiments of the heart and the divine. Gandhi humiliated dem razz too-beyond their capacity to be civil.  

Some of the great infrastructure engineering marvels I saw in India were left over from the British.  If the Indians had continued along the development path left by the UK, India would have been today where China is, then some.

It appears to me that India had the worst of its pre colonial, and colonial eras.  It kept barbaric practises like wife burning and caste, but also an insufferable bureaucracy developed during the colonial era.  This because hundreds of functionaries aimed to cover their rear ends and push basic decisions to higher levels, stifling the ability to get things done.  That plus a devastated rural poor, who to this day still suffer.

BTW there were famines in India up to the 60s.  Maybe not as drastic as in earlier eras, but I remember India and China in the 60s being poster boys for malnutrition, joined by Biafra later on.

The diamond has a curse. Let it stay right there.

Regardless, the diamond and other items should  be returned to India.

"Sathe", wife/widow sacrifice has been banished for over 200 years.  Now, have there been incidence of these barbaric practices, yes, but never sanctioned and the perpetrators were sought for prosecution.

Caste, that's a more difficult issue and cannot be wished away by edict or law.  Baseman is on record criticizing this backward belief however, it's etched in components of the religious interpretation and cultural practice.  Such takes a longer time to extricate.

Forward looking Indians and Govt has taken concrete steps [led by education] to slowly dilute, debase and relegate this control concept.  While we ask why India cannot do more, well just look at Guyana where the belief is alive and actually impacts personal decisions when Guyanese Indians have been removed over 100 years from India and supposedly more "exposed".

Regarding famines in India, China, later Bi-Afra and Ethiopia, etc.  I would not deny these facts.  Large populations in India/China are/were very exposed to a multitude of factors including conflict, weather etc.  Through technology and better storage, much of these have been mitigated in recent years.  The last major famine was due to the Indo-Pakistan war in 1971.  Without conflict, the Africans will be ok.

Anyway, this thread was to do with Indians and Reparation.  Not sure why they seek, the Brits were invited as an anti-Mogul measure.  That was the deal or the entire sub-continent risked being overrun.  The Brits [arguably] saved the day, back in the day.