The Shashi Tharoor Oxford Union Storm Of 2015 — Transcript

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1. 0:00violence and racism were the reality
2. 0:03of the colonial experience and no wonder
3. 0:06that the sun never set on the british
4. 0:08empire
5. 0:09because even god couldn't trust the
6. 0:11english and the dark by the end of the
7. 0:1219th century
8. 0:14the fact is that india was already
9. 0:15britain's biggest cash cow
10. 0:17the world's biggest purchaser of british
11. 0:19goods and exports
12. 0:21and the source of highly paid employment
13. 0:24for british civil servants
14. 0:25we literally paid for our own oppression
15. 0:28there was reference to democracy and
16. 0:29rule of law
17. 0:30let me say with the greatest possible
18. 0:32respect you can it's a bit rich
19. 0:34to oppress enslave kill torture maim
20. 0:38people
21. 0:38for 200 years and then celebrate the
22. 0:40fact that they're democratic at the end
23. 0:42of it
24. 0:43we
25. 0:48[Applause]
26. 0:50india's share of the world economy when
27. 0:52britain arrived on its shores
28. 0:53was 23 by the time the british left it
29. 0:56was down to below four percent
30. 0:58why simply because india had been
31. 1:01governed for the benefit of britain
32. 1:03in britain's rise for 200 years was
33. 1:05financed by its depredations in india
34. 1:08in fact britain's industrial revolution
35. 1:10was actually premised upon the
36. 1:12deindustrialization
37. 1:13of india the handloom weavers for
38. 1:15example famed across the world
39. 1:17whose products were exported around the
40. 1:19world britain came right in
41. 1:21there were actually these weavers making
42. 1:23fine muslin lightest woven air it was
43. 1:26said
44. 1:26and britain came right in smashed their
45. 1:28thumbs broke their looms
46. 1:30imposed tariffs and duties on their
47. 1:32clothing products
48. 1:33and started of course taking the raw
49. 1:36materials from india
50. 1:37and shipping back manufactured cloth
51. 1:39flooding the world's markets
52. 1:40with what became the products of the
53. 1:42dark and satanic mills
54. 1:44of victorian england that meant that the
55. 1:47weavers in india became beggars
56. 1:49and india went from being a world famous
57. 1:51exporter finished cloth
58. 1:53into an importer went from having 27
59. 1:55percent of world trade
60. 1:57to to less than 2 percent meanwhile
61. 2:00colonialists like robert clive
62. 2:02bought their rotten boroughs in england
63. 2:04on the proceeds of their loot in india
64. 2:06while taking the hindi word loot into
65. 2:09their dictionaries
66. 2:10as well as their habits
67. 2:17and the british had the gall to call him
68. 2:20clive of india as if he belonged to the
69. 2:22country
70. 2:23when all he really did was to ensure
71. 2:24that much of the country belonged to him
72. 2:30by the end of the 19th century the fact
73. 2:32is that
74. 2:33india was already britain's biggest cash
75. 2:35cow the world's biggest purchaser of
76. 2:37british goods
77. 2:38and exports and the source of highly
78. 2:41paid employment
79. 2:42for british civil servants we literally
80. 2:44paid for our own oppression
81. 2:46between 15 and 29 million indians
82. 2:49died of starvation in british induced
83. 2:51famines the most famous example of
84. 2:53course
85. 2:54was the great bengal famine during the
86. 2:55second world war when four million
87. 2:57people died
88. 2:58because winston churchill deliberately
89. 3:00as a matter of written minute policy
90. 3:03proceeded to divert essential supplies
91. 3:05from civilians in bengal
92. 3:06to sturdy tummies and europeans as
93. 3:10reserves stockpiles he said that the
94. 3:12starvation of anywhere underfoot
95. 3:13underfed
96. 3:14bengalis mattered much less than that of
97. 3:17sturdy greeks this is
98. 3:19churchill's actual quote and when
99. 3:21conscious stricken british officials
100. 3:22wrote to him
101. 3:23pointing out that people were dying
102. 3:24because of of this decision
103. 3:26he peevishly wrote in the margins of the
104. 3:28file why hasn't gandhi died yet
105. 3:32so all notions that the british were
106. 3:34trying to do
107. 3:35their colonial enterprise out of
108. 3:36enlightened despotism
109. 3:38to try and bring the benefits of
110. 3:40colonialism and civilization
111. 3:42to the midnighted heathen i'm sorry
112. 3:44churchill's conduct in 43 simply one
113. 3:46example of many
114. 3:47that gave a lie to this myth as others
115. 3:50have said and on the proposition
116. 3:52violence and racism were the reality of
117. 3:54the colonial experience
118. 3:56and no wonder that the sun never sets on
119. 3:59the british empire
120. 4:01because even god couldn't trust the
121. 4:02english and the dark
122. 4:07well let me quantify world war one for
123. 4:09you one-sixth of all the british forces
124. 4:11that fought on the war
125. 4:12were indian 54 000 indians
126. 4:16actually lost their lives in that war 65
127. 4:19000 were wounded
128. 4:20another 4 000 remained missing or in
129. 4:22prison
130. 4:23indian taxpayers had to cough up 100
131. 4:25million pounds
132. 4:27in that times money india supplied 70
133. 4:31million rounds of ammunition 600
134. 4:33000 rifles and machine guns 42 million
135. 4:37garments
136. 4:37were stitched and sent out of india and
137. 4:401.3 million indian personnel served in
138. 4:43this war
139. 4:44but not just that india had to supply
140. 4:45173 73
141. 4:47000 animals 370 million tons of supplies
142. 4:52and in the end the total value of
143. 4:54everything that was taken
144. 4:56out of india india and india by the way
145. 4:58suffering from
146. 4:59recession at that time and poverty and
147. 5:01hunger was
148. 5:03in today's money 8 billion pounds
149. 5:06you want quantification it's available
150. 5:09second world
151. 5:10war it was even worse two and a half
152. 5:13million
153. 5:13indians in uniform i won't belabor the
154. 5:15point but of
155. 5:16britain's total war debt of three
156. 5:18billion pounds in 1945 money
157. 5:211.25 billion was owed to india
158. 5:24and never actually paid railways and
159. 5:27roads
160. 5:28were really built to serve british
161. 5:29interests and not those of the local
162. 5:30people
163. 5:31but i might add that many countries have
164. 5:33built railways and roads
165. 5:34without having had to be colonized in
166. 5:36order to do so
167. 5:43they were designed to carry raw
168. 5:44materials from
169. 5:46the hinterland into the ports to be
170. 5:48shipped to britain
171. 5:49and the fact is that the indian or
172. 5:52jamaican or other colonial public
173. 5:54their needs were incidental
174. 5:55transportation there was no attempt made
175. 5:57to match
176. 5:58supply to demand for mass transport none
177. 6:01whatsoever
178. 6:02instead in fact the indian railways were
179. 6:05built
180. 6:06with massive incentives offered by
181. 6:08britain to british investors
182. 6:10guaranteed out of indian taxes paid by
183. 6:13indians
184. 6:13with the result that you actually had
185. 6:16one mile
186. 6:16of indian railway costing twice what it
187. 6:19cost to build the same mile
188. 6:20in canada or australia because there was
189. 6:23so much money being paid in extravagant
190. 6:25returns
191. 6:26britain made all the profits control the
192. 6:28technology supplied all the equipment
193. 6:30and absolutely all these benefits came
194. 6:32as private
195. 6:33enterprise british private enterprise at
196. 6:36public risk
197. 6:37indian public risk that was the the
198. 6:40railways as an accomplishment
199. 6:42we were denied democracy so we had to
200. 6:44snatch it seize it from you
201. 6:46with the greatest reluctance it was
202. 6:48conceded in india's case
203. 6:49after 150 years of british rule and that
204. 6:51too with limited franchise
205. 6:53the british aid to india is about 0.4
206. 6:56of india's gdp the government of india
207. 6:58actually spends more
208. 7:00on fertilizer subsidies which might be
209. 7:02an appropriate metaphor for that
210. 7:04argument
211. 7:04it's been pointed out for example the
212. 7:06dehumanization of africans in the
213. 7:08caribbean
214. 7:09the massive psychological damage that
215. 7:11has been done the undermining of social
216. 7:13traditions
217. 7:14of property rights of the authority
218. 7:16structures
219. 7:17of these societies all in the interests
220. 7:19of of british colonialism
221. 7:21and the fact remains that many of
222. 7:24today's problems in these countries
223. 7:26including the persistence in some cases
224. 7:29the creation
225. 7:30of racial and ethnic and religious
226. 7:32tensions were the direct result of the
227. 7:34colonial experience
228. 7:35so there is a moral debt that needs to
229. 7:38be paid
230. 7:39someone challenged uh reparations
231. 7:41elsewhere well i'm sorry germany doesn't
232. 7:42just give reparations
233. 7:44to israel it also gave reparations to
234. 7:46poland perhaps some of the speakers here
235. 7:48are too young
236. 7:49to remember the dramatic picture of
237. 7:51chancellor willie brunt
238. 7:52on his knees in the warsaw ghetto in
239. 7:541970.
240. 7:55and there are other examples there is
241. 7:57italy's reparations to libya
242. 7:59there's japan's to korea even britain
243. 8:02has paid reparations
244. 8:03to the new zealand maoris so it's not as
245. 8:06if this is something
246. 8:07unprecedented around heidel that's going
247. 8:09to somehow open some sort of nasty
248. 8:11pandora's box
249. 8:12the fact is very simply sir that we are
250. 8:15not
251. 8:16talking about reparations as a tool
252. 8:19to empower anybody they're a tool for
253. 8:22you to atone
254. 8:23for the wrongs that have been done and i
255. 8:29i am quite prepared to accept the
256. 8:32proposition
257. 8:32that you can't evaluate put a monetary
258. 8:36sum
259. 8:36on the kinds of horrors people have
260. 8:38suffered certainly no
261. 8:40amount of money can expiate the loss of
262. 8:42a loved one as
263. 8:43somebody pointed out there uh you're not
264. 8:45going to be able to figure out an exact
265. 8:46amount
266. 8:47but the principle is what matters the
267. 8:50fact is that
268. 8:50to speak blithely of sacrifices on both
269. 8:53sides
270. 8:54as an analogy was used here a burglar
271. 8:58comes into your house
272. 8:59ransacks the place stubs his toe and you
273. 9:01say well there was a sacrifice on both
274. 9:03sides
275. 9:04that i'm sorry to say is not
276. 9:06unacceptable is not an acceptable
277. 9:08argument
278. 9:09the truth is that we are not
279. 9:13arguing specifically that vast sums of
280. 9:15money need to be paid
281. 9:17the proposition before this house is the
282. 9:20principle of
283. 9:21owing reparations not the fine points of
284. 9:25how much is owed to whom it should be
285. 9:27paid
286. 9:28the question is is there a debt does
287. 9:30britain owe reparations
288. 9:32as far as i'm concerned the ability to
289. 9:36acknowledge a wrong that has been done
290. 9:38to simply say sorry will go a far far
291. 9:42far
292. 9:42longer way than some percentage of gdp
293. 9:46in in in form in the form of of
294. 9:49what is required it seems to me is
295. 9:51accepting the principle
296. 9:53that reparations are owed personally i'd
297. 9:56be quite happy if it was one pound a
298. 9:58year
299. 9:58for the next 200 years after the last
300. 10:00200 years
301. 10:01of britain and india thank you very much
302. 10:03madam president
303. 10:19[Music]
304. 10:30you