Shashi Tharoor's Oxford Union speech

The Oxford Union debate in the 'Debating Chamber'[7] was held on 28 May 2015 at 8:30 p.m.[8] The motion of the house was, "This house believes Britain owes reparations to her former colonies", and the premise was[9][8]

We have recently seen former colonies demanding reparations for centuries of abuse: from the Mau Mau survivors in Kenya to descendants of slaves in the Caribbean. David Cameron made controversial remarks on the issue in Amritsar; William Hague said outright that there should be no post-colonial guilt; and Ken Livingstone gave a heartfelt apology for London's role in the slave trade. Do British politicians owe more than just their words?

— Trinity 2015 Termbook, pg 16[8]

The team speaking for the proposition included Jamaican High Commissioner Aloun Ndombet-Assamba, Ghanaian economist Dr George Ayittey and Indian politician Shashi Tharoor.[9][3] The opposition included British politician Sir Richard Ottaway, British historian John MacKenzie and American historian William Roger Louis.[8][10] Shashi Tharoor was the seventh speaker on his team and was allotted eight minutes to speak.[3][9]

Video

Dr Shashi Tharoor MP – Britain Does Owe Reparations Oxford Union video speech (14 July 2015)

Shashi Tharoor's speech was called "witty" and "passionate" among other things.[11][12] The Time magazine wrote that apart from the insight, it was Tharoor's "rapier barbs" that got everyone's attention, such as the line "No wonder that the sun never set on the British Empire because even God couldn't trust the English in the dark".[3] Shashi Tharoor opened up with an analogy to Henry VIII's the last wife: [13]

[...] now finding myself the seventh speaker out of eight in what must already seem a rather long evening to you, I rather feel like Henry the VIII's last wife. I more or less know what's expected of me but I am not sure how to do it any differently.[14]

— Shashi Tharoor

While Tharoor himself did not provide attribution to his speech, some columnists have tried to verify the facts he cited.[11][15] The speech itself gave insight into the impact of colonial rule on the economy of India, how India contributed to the world wars and how it impacted India, and how the British never cared about the starving in India, directly mentioning Churchill and the Bengal famine as example.[2][16][14] Tharoor took the examples of Robert Clive as a colonialist who looted India, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, and the mutilation of weavers by the British, and concluded that the infrastructure built by the British in India (such as the railways) was not a "gift" to India but a means to loot India even more.[17] Shashi Tharoor focused on the principle of owing reparation rather than how much was owed:[14]

The proposition before this house is the principle of owing reparations, not the fine points of how much is owed, to whom it should be paid. The question is, is there a debt, does Britain owe reparations? As far as I am concerned, the ability to acknowledge your wrong that has been done, to simply say sorry will go a far far far longer way than some percentage of GDP in the form of aid. What is required it seems to me is accepting the principle that reparations are owed.[14]

— Shashi Tharoor

In the end, Tharoor was on the winning side of the debate, taking 185 votes to 56.[9]

Within a week of the speech, the video became Oxford Union's fifth most-watched YouTube video.[9] The video has over 7.5 million views on YouTube (as of December 2019),[4] and is Oxford Union's most watched debate.[5] It was a trending topic in India for a number of days, being shared on a number of platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Whatsapp.[9][18] Rebuttals were being written and published by media houses.[18] A review in India's Livemint commented, "Tharoor's speech at Oxford was neither great nor entirely original; however, it was an articulate, well-reasoned, witty and, at times, passionate criticism of the British Raj."[12] An article in The Week backed up a number of statements that Tharoor had made with research from British economists Angus Maddison and Colin Clark, British writer William Digby and American historian Will Durant.[15] WSJ asked over 2000 of their India Real Times readers "whether Britain should pay reparations to India and its other former colonies" and a large majority said yes.[19] Some Indians around the world showed sudden anger to British colonialism in various articles and social media posts.[12] There were calls for the return of the Kohinoor started by British Indian MP Keith Vaz.[18][20]

The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, at an event in the Parliament of India in July 2015, responded to the debate by saying that "what he [Tharoor] spoke there reflected the sentiments of the citizens of India" and that the debate "shows the importance of saying the right thing at the right time".[21][22] The Telegraph also reported on the speech, saying that India's Prime Minister 'endorses the call for reparations'.[23] The headline in The Guardian was "Narendra Modi endorses Britain paying damages to India for colonial rule", adding that the Prime Minister had praised an "opposition MP".[22] Modi's praise was rare as he and Tharoor belong to rival parties.[24] However, the Congress Party chief, the party to which Tharoor belongs, 'rebuked' him for the speech.[25]

Following the response to the speech, Shashi Tharoor transformed the speech into a book, titled An Era of Darkness: the British Empire in India, and later published in the United Kingdom and United States as "Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India".[4][26][27] Tharoor went on to win a Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award in 2017 for the book as well as a Sahitya Akademi Award in 2019.[28][29] In 2016 Tharoor had written in an article that "the book is not intended to have any bearing on today's Indo-British relationship. That is now between two sovereign and equal nations, not between an imperial overlord and oppressed subjects."[30]

John MacKenzie, a professor of history, countered Shashi Tharoor in a BBC piece on 28 July 2015.[31] He stated that Tharoor "overstated the case" and that "Britain does not owe reparations to India". With regard to the British plundering of India, MacKenzie stated that even before the British came, India was ruled for the benefit of the rulers. He took the example of the famines and deaths during the period of the Mughal Empire, even during the construction of the Taj Mahal.[31] MacKenzie countered various other points put forward by Tharoor in his speech.[31] Jonathan Foreman also wrote a similar statement in his commentary in Politico, "Oddly enough you never hear calls for reparations for Moghul rule."[32] Tharoor responded in an interview by noting that "the Muslim rulers were unlike the British, because they stayed and assimilated here, married into Indian society and made this country their home [...] The fourth Mughal was seven-eighths of Indian blood [...] whereas the British drained our resources for the benefit of their faraway homeland."[18] During his rebuttal, Sir Richard Ottaway maintained that "to ask today’s tax payers to finance reparations to the free citizens of independent states merely assuages at 21st century guilt."[33]

British historian Patrick French also countered Tharoor in an article titled "Sorry, Shashi Tharoor, but Britain doesn't owe India any reparations". He noted that while the speech was "witty and entertaining", Tharoor's points were built on "insecure foundations".[21] British politicians like Gordon Brown and more recently Nigel Farage have advised not "apologizing for Britain's colonial past and concentrate on delivering a better future".[34][9] William Dalrymple said that the debate was "the first time I've ever heard the word reparations ever used" between the two countries, but pointed out that it was not an official speech. Dalrymple said that reparations are not the answer, instead urging education of the British on both the good and bad things in their history. He further noted that "there's hardly a single reference to the British empire as a whole in the English education curriculum."[24]

• The King and Country debate

• FULL SPEECH (International Business Times), FULL SPEECH (News18)
• Henderson, Barney (2015). "India's prime minister endorses call for Britain to pay reparations for colonial rule". ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2020-05-16. (subscription required)
• John Hemmings (5/11/2017). Reparations & Justice: Re-Appraising Imperialism. London School of Economics and Political Science. Retrieved 2020-05-16.
• Rothin Datta (14 May 2018). What Shashi Tharoor Doesn't Understand About Colonialism. The Wire
• Jaby Koay and Achara Kirk (2016) Dr Shashi Tharoor MP – Britain Does Owe Reparations, Reaction Video. YouTube