There is a lot more to it than that. If we can stop caucasian-washing history for a second, britain did not simply arrive in india, and leave peacefully either. They lied about their motive as a trade company (the east india company). They used religion (Christianity) To scout the local population and worked with priests/nuns to see if the land as able to be invaded. And when they left they split the country into two, not really considering the implications of dividing a country in half based on their whims. (spoiler alert it caused a massive civil war and had a major historical figure killed). Trusting Britain, and not inventing the machine gun was the biggest mistake India could have done.
Britain literally employed slave labour on the local population, implemented a class based system which destroyed the local population, and murdered anyone who tried to rise up against their tyranny. Sad our history books conveniently ignore the evils of the empire's and the destructive effects of colonization we feel to this day.
During Britain's colonization period of india other channels of foreign trade with India like the French, the Dutch, the Portuguese and the Americans were driven out by vicissitudes of war. Solely the British now controlled the Indian trade with rest of the world.
You can imagine what happens when a foreign invader like Britain can do when they control a soil-rich country such as India.
Britain changed local laws and allowed the new Capital holders’ to own
land in India. The British bought lands for plantations, which were manned by Indian slave labour. Thus even the agricultural export profits benefited only the British plantation owners, and not the starving labourers.
Britain resold Indian produced goods onto the global market for massive profits.
Indians were put into debt by the British during their rule and while they had the engineers to build their own cheaper alternative railways, they were forced to import British railroads and had to pay for it, as their exports were funneled from their home country to various parts of britain to be exported.
There is a lot more i could go into on this topic, but this isn't some sort of "woke police", this is pretty established history. Britain did invade India, this was a thing that happened, it was pretty horrible, sad we don't teach our children about the horrors of colonization.
And yet if you asked Indians today whether they'd remove this from history alongside English and Cricket being removed, they'd still choose to be speaking English and playing Cricket, in part due to the huge economic advantage given to the subcontinent by the British "invading"
Years ago I library-surfed a fun finance tome of papers on the financing of WWII. What struck me most, was the massive wealth transfer from GB to the US. With GB disgorging her wealth of empire, and going unrepayably into debt. The "debt", because US politics required framing further goods transfer, despite no hope of repayment, as "loans", which were then creatively discounted away. I've never seen US industrialization stories which quantify Empire funding, so I've wondered since how large a role it played. Or in the context of TFA, to what extent was US mid-century industrialization built on wealth extracted from India?
"This is a straightforward case for reparations" - and there you have it.
This whole idea of reparations for things done by previous generations is absurd. Where do you draw the line - 1900? 1800? 1700? Ridiculous. It's the same with conversations about slavery - apparently the only relevant slavery is post 1700 African slavery which also ignores that Africans were participating slave traders - enough arbitrary constraints? How about domestic bloodbaths - English vs Scots, chattel slavery in middle ages Britain, ... what an absurd can of worms.
> This whole idea of reparations for things done by previous generations is absurd. Where do you draw the line - 1900? 1800? 1700?
I’m interested where you draw the line in the other direction. 1900? 1950? 1980?
In 1980, most people alive today had not yet been born. Suppose a country took out a loan in 1980 and have made minimum payments since then. Can a young new leader of that country validly refuse to pay the remainder of the debt because they shouldn’t owe anything for a previous generation’s actions?
Suppose a country confiscated land from some people in the 1950s, and those people fled the country. In 2022 is it too late to demand the land back?
Suppose that two nations declared a treaty of alliance in 1900. In 2022, one of the nations is attacked. Can the other party to the treaty claim that they are not bound to any agreement made by their long-dead ancestors?
> This whole idea of reparations for things done by previous generations is absurd.
What about confiscated land, taken in the last 100-200 years?
New Zealand is grappling with it and it’s not without friction. However leaving it unaddressed seems completely unrealistic, you just allow the theft and profit at the expense of one race and profit for another?
Here is a recent story on a small part of the grim saga.
Does the same state that legalized and profited from US slavery still exist? Yes.
Since the damages can be quantified, the descendants are illegible to sue for them. Same goes for Indians and the Chinese where the UK and US is concerned.
>How about domestic bloodbaths - English vs Scots, chattel slavery in middle ages Britain, ...
Go ahead and pursue damages if you are affected and the liable state still exists. The Chinese, Indians, Africans Americans, and Native aren't going to do the work for you.
There are many companies that have been in continuous operation and directly benefited from slavery. An example is Aetna in the US. These organizations are legally people, so they absolutely should be responsible for reparations based on their past activities.
This juvenile argument is always brought up when it comes to the subject of Reparations owed by The British, but unfortunately for its proponents, holds no water. This is simply an attempt to avoid taking responsibility for gutting the Colonized Countries in all dimensions viz. Economically, Socially and Culturally.
1) W. Arthur Lewis, a Nobel Prize-winning economist from St. Lucia, had argued since the 1930s that colonialism had gutted the economies of colonized societies for generations to come, making the debt one of not just repayment but also of reconstitution.
2) India wasn’t “developed” under British rule – it was de-developed. And not just in terms of social welfare. British policy was designed to destroy India’s domestic industries by imposing asymmetrical tariffs, by dismantling the institutions that trained up producers, and in some cases even by maiming skilled artisans – all to create captive markets for British goods. During the course of British rule, India’s share of the global economy shrank from 27% to 3%.
3) Frantz Fanon had it right when he wrote, in Wretched of the Earth, that “Colonialism and imperialism have not settled their debt to us once they have withdrawn from our territories. The wealth of the imperialist nations is also our wealth. Europe is literally the creation of the Third World.”
4) “The sequel to that history of repression and disavowal has been poverty and uneven progress. So calls for reparations consider this wide story and its micro-level consequences in their activism,” Smith said.
5) “There’s no real ownership of responsibility. So there is recognition that what happened in the past was bad, but we’re not responsible now,” said Moffet. “It’s a way of sort of separating the monarchy or British government from the past.”
6) And then it strikes you…. Then it strikes you that there is not enough money in all of Britain to compensate for these injustices. And you realize, that if Britain paid reparations – real, honest, courageous reparations – there would be nothing left. Britain would not exist.
And that is exactly what people find so terrifying about the question of reparations. It’s not that they fear the actual prospect of paying. It is that even just thinking about what is owed reveals the hard truth: that what is owed, is everything.
>Between 1880 to 1920, British colonial policies in India claimed more lives than all famines in the Soviet Union, Maoist China and North Korea combined.
This subtitle tells all the value this opinion piece has.
Why? If 169m were born during that period and 100m lost their lives because of British policy, then it still means that 100m lives were lost unnecessarily.
Ehhh that's a lot more complicated than that. But sure. How many would die naturally in the same given period due to things such as disease and natural outcomes, I prefer facts to biased and somewhat radical sources. We already know the constant population during certain periods so why not extrapolate how many died to famine rather than claim it as a glob that it is not? It worsens the claims that these people are trying to portray and actually makes the Indian government look much worse. As if demanding the money and reparations rather than a conversation. It's not hard to see why nobody is taking it seriously.
So you’re positing that roughly 60% of the incremental population growth was lost to British rule? Didn’t happen. Just as shark migration patterns were not changed by slavery. Nor any of the other absurdities promulgated by the media and politicians today.
Really poor argument, "oh biased source". Invading a country and colonizing their people. Can really destroy a local population. Ask Native Americans. Ask Kenyans. Ask the Phillipines. Britiain truly commited some upseakable horrors to the countries they invaded, and really push their idea of caucasian supremacy. Deny the truth all you want, the unmarked graves of native american children remain. The evil of the british empire is something we should condemn, but we conveniently ignore.
Do we exempt the Portuguese, the Egyptians, the Mongols, the Japanese, and so forth? The belief that colonialism is a manifestation of white supremacy is historically uninformed. Did Native Americans suffer at the hands of the European expansion. Certainly, but recognize that the Spanish and the Portuguese both preceded the British. Were the Native Americans peaceful, pastoral peoples prior to the Europeans? Not a chance. History is replete with all nationalities and races subjugating and enslaving others. It is not a British thing or a white thing. That’s simply a modern argument to promote a political agenda.
This article is suspicious because it is very opinionated. It feels like a study that would benefit China in attempting to create a gap between India and western powers. They would need a left wing Marxist type social justice argument about why India should feel like a victim.
This study seems to provide exactly this type of wedge. Down the language used.
India did not have an industrial base before Britain arrived there. England was the first to industrialize so any industrialization in India could only have come from Britain.
This study feels deeply biased and strongly suspect it is a Chinese influence operation. I would like to know who funded this.
Thanks for the pointer; another one for my "to read" list.
However i have read about the Economist Utsa Patnaik's works on the same subject where she makes the argument that Colonialism/Imperialism gave rise to and sustained today's Capitalism. There is a direct correlation which is well supported by available facts. Whether we want to face it or nor is another matter.
Readit News
British colonisers established a system of legal plunder, known to contemporaries as the “drain of wealth.” Britain taxed the Indian population
(that seems to be all)
Britain literally employed slave labour on the local population, implemented a class based system which destroyed the local population, and murdered anyone who tried to rise up against their tyranny. Sad our history books conveniently ignore the evils of the empire's and the destructive effects of colonization we feel to this day.
During Britain's colonization period of india other channels of foreign trade with India like the French, the Dutch, the Portuguese and the Americans were driven out by vicissitudes of war. Solely the British now controlled the Indian trade with rest of the world.
You can imagine what happens when a foreign invader like Britain can do when they control a soil-rich country such as India.
Britain changed local laws and allowed the new Capital holders’ to own land in India. The British bought lands for plantations, which were manned by Indian slave labour. Thus even the agricultural export profits benefited only the British plantation owners, and not the starving labourers.
Britain resold Indian produced goods onto the global market for massive profits.
Indians were put into debt by the British during their rule and while they had the engineers to build their own cheaper alternative railways, they were forced to import British railroads and had to pay for it, as their exports were funneled from their home country to various parts of britain to be exported.
There is a lot more i could go into on this topic, but this isn't some sort of "woke police", this is pretty established history. Britain did invade India, this was a thing that happened, it was pretty horrible, sad we don't teach our children about the horrors of colonization.
http://www.srimatham.com/uploads/5/5/4/9/5549439/how_the_bri...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_jGPf764d0&ab_channel=VICE
https://qz.com/india/290497/the-forgotten-story-of-indias-co...
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2756302
Did the British even make it to India before the Reformation? There aren't a whole lot of Anglican nuns.
Deleted Comment
Dead Comment
See the talks/works of economist Utsa Patnaik in particular.
I’m interested where you draw the line in the other direction. 1900? 1950? 1980?
In 1980, most people alive today had not yet been born. Suppose a country took out a loan in 1980 and have made minimum payments since then. Can a young new leader of that country validly refuse to pay the remainder of the debt because they shouldn’t owe anything for a previous generation’s actions?
Suppose a country confiscated land from some people in the 1950s, and those people fled the country. In 2022 is it too late to demand the land back?
Suppose that two nations declared a treaty of alliance in 1900. In 2022, one of the nations is attacked. Can the other party to the treaty claim that they are not bound to any agreement made by their long-dead ancestors?
What about confiscated land, taken in the last 100-200 years?
New Zealand is grappling with it and it’s not without friction. However leaving it unaddressed seems completely unrealistic, you just allow the theft and profit at the expense of one race and profit for another?
Here is a recent story on a small part of the grim saga.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/ldr/477765/ngati-maru-apology-hig...
Mind you, that's for capitalist slave owners denied of "their chattels" .. not as compensation to those affected.
> the British government spent £20 million, a staggering 40% of its budget in 1833, to buy freedom for slaves.
> That’s equivalent to approximately £20bn today, making it one of the biggest ever government bailouts.
> The cost was so high, the vast loans the government took out to fund it were only just paid off in 2015. [1]
No slaves were apologied to, returned home, back paid, trained for future employment, etc.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200205-how-britain-is-...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/12/treasu...
Since the damages can be quantified, the descendants are illegible to sue for them. Same goes for Indians and the Chinese where the UK and US is concerned.
>How about domestic bloodbaths - English vs Scots, chattel slavery in middle ages Britain, ...
Go ahead and pursue damages if you are affected and the liable state still exists. The Chinese, Indians, Africans Americans, and Native aren't going to do the work for you.
Here is Jason Hickel (one of the authors of the posted article) on The Case for Reparations - https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2018/10/13/the-case-for-rep...
In particular; read his rebuttal to the five commonly used arguments (including yours) in the latter half of the above article.
Some more articles for your edification;
1) https://qz.com/1911783/what-the-uk-owes-in-reparations
2) https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/what-to-know-about-calls-...
3) https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/27/world/americas/colonial-r...
Some excerpts from all of the above links:
1) W. Arthur Lewis, a Nobel Prize-winning economist from St. Lucia, had argued since the 1930s that colonialism had gutted the economies of colonized societies for generations to come, making the debt one of not just repayment but also of reconstitution.
2) India wasn’t “developed” under British rule – it was de-developed. And not just in terms of social welfare. British policy was designed to destroy India’s domestic industries by imposing asymmetrical tariffs, by dismantling the institutions that trained up producers, and in some cases even by maiming skilled artisans – all to create captive markets for British goods. During the course of British rule, India’s share of the global economy shrank from 27% to 3%.
3) Frantz Fanon had it right when he wrote, in Wretched of the Earth, that “Colonialism and imperialism have not settled their debt to us once they have withdrawn from our territories. The wealth of the imperialist nations is also our wealth. Europe is literally the creation of the Third World.”
4) “The sequel to that history of repression and disavowal has been poverty and uneven progress. So calls for reparations consider this wide story and its micro-level consequences in their activism,” Smith said.
5) “There’s no real ownership of responsibility. So there is recognition that what happened in the past was bad, but we’re not responsible now,” said Moffet. “It’s a way of sort of separating the monarchy or British government from the past.”
6) And then it strikes you…. Then it strikes you that there is not enough money in all of Britain to compensate for these injustices. And you realize, that if Britain paid reparations – real, honest, courageous reparations – there would be nothing left. Britain would not exist.
And that is exactly what people find so terrifying about the question of reparations. It’s not that they fear the actual prospect of paying. It is that even just thinking about what is owed reveals the hard truth: that what is owed, is everything.
This subtitle tells all the value this opinion piece has.
Empire in Asia, How we came by it : A Book of Confessions by W. M. Torrens - https://archive.org/details/dli.ministry.01877/page/n5/mode/...
More at - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33979856
This study seems to provide exactly this type of wedge. Down the language used.
India did not have an industrial base before Britain arrived there. England was the first to industrialize so any industrialization in India could only have come from Britain.
This study feels deeply biased and strongly suspect it is a Chinese influence operation. I would like to know who funded this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Victorian_Holocausts
However i have read about the Economist Utsa Patnaik's works on the same subject where she makes the argument that Colonialism/Imperialism gave rise to and sustained today's Capitalism. There is a direct correlation which is well supported by available facts. Whether we want to face it or nor is another matter.
Some of her works can be accessed from my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33979856