Dr Shashi Tharoor MP - Britain Does Owe Reparations

What Hacker News said

Recommends astatine · 2018-05 · on “The Last Slave Ship Survivor Gave an Interview in the 1930s”

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. [this video]

Recommends rainhacker · 2019-02 · on “The Rest of Us Always Knew Churchill Was a Villain”

If anyone is interested to learn more; the author of this post has debated "Britan does owe reparations" in Oxford Union Society here : [this video] This talk has many facts not even commonly known to Indians.

Recommends shripadk · 2019-09 · on “Before the East India Company”

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: [this video]

Recommends rramadass · 2021-11 · on “Shooting an Elephant (1936)”

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 sect

Recommends nonamechicken · 2021-11 · on “Indian Railways Works Manual (2000) [pdf]”

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 consi

Recommends vivegi · 2022-09 · on “Some things to learn from the British East India Company's growth and demise”

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. [this video]

Recommends hawk_ · 2022-10 · on “Exploring the richness and variety of letters sent to the East India Company”

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) [this video]

Recommends parthdesai · 2023-01 · on “UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF”

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. [this video]