A lot has been written & said about Shashi Tharoor's speech in Oxford. This subject is dear to me & some common misunderstanding needs to be cleared as it looks that some educated people don't have much clue of India & world's history. Surprising that people still believe in history written by victors (in India's case-British) & their Indian Sepoy. History that is taught in our school needs to be updated too so that people don't make comments without knowing the full details. Under Nehru's instruction, India's history was written by Marxist historians, who have a simplistic view & one size fits all kind of treatment for history. To propagate ideal living world via communism, Marxist historians twist history to suit their agenda. Our history books are written by well known Hinduism haters & Marxist historians likes of Romila Thapar. I have studied history from many sources as it used to be one of the subject of my interest in school days as well as now too. Below are some points that you should consider and do your own independent reading;
1) The "World War" as all refer them were actually European Wars. Whole world got dragged into it because of colonialism. If there was no first European War in 1914 then there would have been no bigger scale second European War or most probably the Nazi holocaust. Britain & other colonial powers were anyways doing or did similar holocaust all around the world.
2) Lot of people say & think that it was only after arrival of British, India became a country. Just to simplify whole point please check word "India". India the word & so the country is much more ancient than any of Britain's known history. Greeks & Roman's fantasized about coming to India & were doing trade with India long before early British were roaming around in caves. When attackers, traders or travelers came, they came looking for "India" & not any modern state of India. Without British interference & horrific colonization too, India would have achieved its modern political unity just like other countries in world & we would have been a much more richer & prosperous country that we are today. India is as much or more old civilization & country as Egypt.
3) India was never a poor country. Muslim invaders who came before British, were absorbed in India. Muslim invaders rarely took wealth out of India's traditional boundaries. But it were British looters who looted & moved money away from India's shores. This resulted in poverty stricken India that world sees today.
4) Due to Muslim rule & attack (as easy target after attack used to be women and children) many unfortunate social evils became a norm. Practices such a child marriage, ghoonghat, burning of widowed woman on husband's pyre, keeping women indoor, differentiating between male & girl child etc were result of local population trying to save their children, women & honor from evil eyes of foreign invaders. India is the culture which worships Shri Radha & Shri Krishna together & they were not married!
5) Social evils like Castism or Classism & Sati were outcome of greed of Hindu ruling classes. You will be surprised to know that there is no sanction to castism as its known today in Vedas or Bhagwat Geeta. Infact Magasthenese's Indica mentions 7 castes. Castes system was manipulated by Hindu priestly, ruling & trading classes to sustain their interest in modern times. Caste's were not supposed to decided on basis of your birth but it used to denote the profession that you are involved in. This is clearly mentioned by Lord Krishna in Bhagwat Geeta. Much like modern times, a person doing one work would have easily changed & would have done another work. West too had its classes like a blacksmith's son would have carried on his father's profession so as the farmer's son. I agree that the greatest fault of Hindu priestly class, ruling & trading class was denying people change of profession on their own free will & unfortunate that it had to happen via legislation. But 17th , 18th, 19th, 20th & early 21st century world was having these inequalities in place. Europeans were doing slave trade & did not consider women as equal to men & they had to enact legislation to abolish it all too.
6) Long before Greeks knew of democracy, some Indian Kingdoms like Vaishali were already practicing democratic form of governance. So for having democracy & being a modern nation state, Indians didn't need to be colonized by looters like British. Modern world & nation states are recent & out come of last 400-500 years & there is lot of addition & subtraction in territory. India would have gone through these changes as natural outcome of new political thoughts.
7) As Tharoor indicated, railroads when they were being laid in India costed twice the amount of their cost in US & elsewhere. British companies made huge money & that money was paid by Indian blood & sweat.Again a civilization which built so many remarkable temples, forts & other suitable infra of its time, didn't need to be colonized to build any infrastructure. Whole world got this modern infrastructure after Industrial revolution starting in late 18th century.
8) Today the total world economy is around 78 Trillion USD & India's share in world GDP is around 2%. Before British came & looted us, India's share was around 30%. It drastically came down because British looters destroyed & drained us economically. Hypothetically even if we consider this modern day GDP share to be around 20% so in today's term Indian Economy would have been 16 Trillion USD. Imagine loss of 14 Trillion USD annually to Colonization!
9) Europeans & North Americans who now have issues with immigrants coming to Europe/America (concerns related to non value adding immigrants are justified), don't realize that their ancestors have created mayhem in whole world. Off-course present day generation is not responsible for what happened in past but people should be aware of what happened in past. Europeans migrated & killed native populations in Australia, New Zealand, South & North America to a very large extent. Europeans couldn't kill majority in densely populated Asia & Africa so they invented new tools to sustain their rule. Divide & rule, making natives fight with each other & promoting institutionalized corruption were some preferred ways. Corrupt native ruling class also became their collaborators & the fact is natives on payroll of colonial powers were the main executioner of the plan. Just like for Jaliawallah Bagh massacre, orders were given by General Dyre but actual firing was by Indians only. These Sepoy & some modern day pen wielding colonial apologists like Aakar Patel still continue the old legacy. By seeing writings of Aakar Patel (who is now Amnesty India head-does it sound familiar how Sepoy were paid?), it becomes clear why nations actually becomes slave. Well once these colonial powers were forced out & countries got independence, colonialist divided countries like Pizza slices without caring for local culture & sensitivities. This is root cause of majority conflicts in Africa, Middle East.
10) Britain's colonial Genocides were just overshadowed because of Nazi horrors. In India's freedom off-course Gandhi & Congress had their role but India got its freedom because Britain became weak after second European war & feared that like Subhash Chandra Bose's INA, large number of Indian army will revolt. Finally sepoys were awakening to modern thoughts. Britain promised to give freedom after first world war but backtracked on its promise. Bigger reason was after 200 years of bloodsucking, India was financially becoming a burden than being cash cow as it used to be.
11) Some Europeans & Americans demonize Nazis, communists (justifiably so) but still think that they were/are civilizing & democratizing the whole world. Well wake up now please. Your democracy & civilization movements have killed more than what history's biggest barbarians ever could.
Considering above points, do I want monetary reparations from Britain? No- We can again create wealth if we have self respect & trust in skills. But what hurts most is, British & many colonized mind Indian Sepoy claim that India wouldn't have been a country & wouldn't have had railroads or modern infrastructure if British did not enslave India. India & its princely states were not some, completely out of touch South American remote land. Perhaps Indians & Chinese would have contributed greatly to Industrial revolution if they had more money at their disposal than thinking about hunger & torture all the time. Indians & Chinese were the prime drivers of world economy before British came & destroyed us both. We will get to our rightful place again. All former colonies need from colonizing country is that they get off from their high horse of civilizing the heathens & acknowledge their past mistakes. No one needs to be colonized, looted, maimed, raped & killed because you want to teach your good democracy to them or build them few railroads. All I want from Britain is genuine apology of horrors that White Man's burden has inflicted upon India & elsewhere. Also if Britain can take back Aakar Patel type remaining Sepoys & never allow them to write trash it would be great icing on the cake. An appeal to all Indians- forgive as it allows you to move on but never forget as it allows the history to repeat itself.
1) The "World War" as all refer them were actually European Wars. Whole world got dragged into it because of colonialism. If there was no first European War in 1914 then there would have been no bigger scale second European War or most probably the Nazi holocaust. Britain & other colonial powers were anyways doing or did similar holocaust all around the world.
2) Lot of people say & think that it was only after arrival of British, India became a country. Just to simplify whole point please check word "India". India the word & so the country is much more ancient than any of Britain's known history. Greeks & Roman's fantasized about coming to India & were doing trade with India long before early British were roaming around in caves. When attackers, traders or travelers came, they came looking for "India" & not any modern state of India. Without British interference & horrific colonization too, India would have achieved its modern political unity just like other countries in world & we would have been a much more richer & prosperous country that we are today. India is as much or more old civilization & country as Egypt.
3) India was never a poor country. Muslim invaders who came before British, were absorbed in India. Muslim invaders rarely took wealth out of India's traditional boundaries. But it were British looters who looted & moved money away from India's shores. This resulted in poverty stricken India that world sees today.
4) Due to Muslim rule & attack (as easy target after attack used to be women and children) many unfortunate social evils became a norm. Practices such a child marriage, ghoonghat, burning of widowed woman on husband's pyre, keeping women indoor, differentiating between male & girl child etc were result of local population trying to save their children, women & honor from evil eyes of foreign invaders. India is the culture which worships Shri Radha & Shri Krishna together & they were not married!
5) Social evils like Castism or Classism & Sati were outcome of greed of Hindu ruling classes. You will be surprised to know that there is no sanction to castism as its known today in Vedas or Bhagwat Geeta. Infact Magasthenese's Indica mentions 7 castes. Castes system was manipulated by Hindu priestly, ruling & trading classes to sustain their interest in modern times. Caste's were not supposed to decided on basis of your birth but it used to denote the profession that you are involved in. This is clearly mentioned by Lord Krishna in Bhagwat Geeta. Much like modern times, a person doing one work would have easily changed & would have done another work. West too had its classes like a blacksmith's son would have carried on his father's profession so as the farmer's son. I agree that the greatest fault of Hindu priestly class, ruling & trading class was denying people change of profession on their own free will & unfortunate that it had to happen via legislation. But 17th , 18th, 19th, 20th & early 21st century world was having these inequalities in place. Europeans were doing slave trade & did not consider women as equal to men & they had to enact legislation to abolish it all too.
6) Long before Greeks knew of democracy, some Indian Kingdoms like Vaishali were already practicing democratic form of governance. So for having democracy & being a modern nation state, Indians didn't need to be colonized by looters like British. Modern world & nation states are recent & out come of last 400-500 years & there is lot of addition & subtraction in territory. India would have gone through these changes as natural outcome of new political thoughts.
7) As Tharoor indicated, railroads when they were being laid in India costed twice the amount of their cost in US & elsewhere. British companies made huge money & that money was paid by Indian blood & sweat.Again a civilization which built so many remarkable temples, forts & other suitable infra of its time, didn't need to be colonized to build any infrastructure. Whole world got this modern infrastructure after Industrial revolution starting in late 18th century.
8) Today the total world economy is around 78 Trillion USD & India's share in world GDP is around 2%. Before British came & looted us, India's share was around 30%. It drastically came down because British looters destroyed & drained us economically. Hypothetically even if we consider this modern day GDP share to be around 20% so in today's term Indian Economy would have been 16 Trillion USD. Imagine loss of 14 Trillion USD annually to Colonization!
9) Europeans & North Americans who now have issues with immigrants coming to Europe/America (concerns related to non value adding immigrants are justified), don't realize that their ancestors have created mayhem in whole world. Off-course present day generation is not responsible for what happened in past but people should be aware of what happened in past. Europeans migrated & killed native populations in Australia, New Zealand, South & North America to a very large extent. Europeans couldn't kill majority in densely populated Asia & Africa so they invented new tools to sustain their rule. Divide & rule, making natives fight with each other & promoting institutionalized corruption were some preferred ways. Corrupt native ruling class also became their collaborators & the fact is natives on payroll of colonial powers were the main executioner of the plan. Just like for Jaliawallah Bagh massacre, orders were given by General Dyre but actual firing was by Indians only. These Sepoy & some modern day pen wielding colonial apologists like Aakar Patel still continue the old legacy. By seeing writings of Aakar Patel (who is now Amnesty India head-does it sound familiar how Sepoy were paid?), it becomes clear why nations actually becomes slave. Well once these colonial powers were forced out & countries got independence, colonialist divided countries like Pizza slices without caring for local culture & sensitivities. This is root cause of majority conflicts in Africa, Middle East.
10) Britain's colonial Genocides were just overshadowed because of Nazi horrors. In India's freedom off-course Gandhi & Congress had their role but India got its freedom because Britain became weak after second European war & feared that like Subhash Chandra Bose's INA, large number of Indian army will revolt. Finally sepoys were awakening to modern thoughts. Britain promised to give freedom after first world war but backtracked on its promise. Bigger reason was after 200 years of bloodsucking, India was financially becoming a burden than being cash cow as it used to be.
11) Some Europeans & Americans demonize Nazis, communists (justifiably so) but still think that they were/are civilizing & democratizing the whole world. Well wake up now please. Your democracy & civilization movements have killed more than what history's biggest barbarians ever could.
Considering above points, do I want monetary reparations from Britain? No- We can again create wealth if we have self respect & trust in skills. But what hurts most is, British & many colonized mind Indian Sepoy claim that India wouldn't have been a country & wouldn't have had railroads or modern infrastructure if British did not enslave India. India & its princely states were not some, completely out of touch South American remote land. Perhaps Indians & Chinese would have contributed greatly to Industrial revolution if they had more money at their disposal than thinking about hunger & torture all the time. Indians & Chinese were the prime drivers of world economy before British came & destroyed us both. We will get to our rightful place again. All former colonies need from colonizing country is that they get off from their high horse of civilizing the heathens & acknowledge their past mistakes. No one needs to be colonized, looted, maimed, raped & killed because you want to teach your good democracy to them or build them few railroads. All I want from Britain is genuine apology of horrors that White Man's burden has inflicted upon India & elsewhere. Also if Britain can take back Aakar Patel type remaining Sepoys & never allow them to write trash it would be great icing on the cake. An appeal to all Indians- forgive as it allows you to move on but never forget as it allows the history to repeat itself.
