
Indian MP Shashi Tharoor is the author of Inglorious Empire: What the British did to India

When in 2009 Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued an unequivocal apology on behalf of the British government to Alan Turing, the genius who broke Germany's 'unbreakable' Enigma Code but sadly took his own life after being chemically castrated for being gay - PM Brown said he was 'proud, to offer an official apology', in recognition that the attitudes and laws of the era were deeply wrong.

In his new book Indian MP and historian Shashi Tharoor makes the case for a similar gesture from Britain to India, to 'wake up' and move towards moral 'atonement' for what Britain did between the years of 1757 to Indian Independence in 1947.

A great place to start, Tharoor suggests, would be 2019 and the anniversary of the Amritsar massacre, when Colonel Reginald Dyer fired upon a crowd of nonviolent protesters, who had gathered in Punjab on the 13 April 1919 killing 379 unarmed men, women and children.

It was an act that shocked the world. Secretary of State for War Winston Churchill called Dyer's actions 'monstrous', while former Prime Minister Herbert Asquith called it 'one of the worst outrages in our history', and for Tharoor the massacre remains the most obvious, single example of great wrong done for 'King and Country' during 200 years of Britain's time in India.

And it's because the massacre was done in the name of the Crown, Tharoor says that the apology should perhaps come from the Queen herself.

Tharoor's new book, Inglorious Empire, explores many of the murders, myths and misconceptions about Britain's Imperial endeavours in India.

MailOnline India spoke to Tharoor about everything from the Queen's apology, the messy business of foreign aid and what, Tharoor feels, India can teach the British about Winston Churchill.

Tharoor believes an apology for the Amritsar massacre is called for: Queen Elizabeth II taking an elephant ride in the town of Banares 1961, Royal Tour to India

Foreign aid, what a mess

Colonel Reginald Dyer fired upon a crowd of nonviolent protesters, who had gathered in Punjab on the 13 April 1919 killing 379 unarmed men, women and children

With 200 years of Britain in India and nearly 70 years of independence, where to start with Britain and India?

Perhaps right in the here-and-now and the messy issue of Britain, India and foreign aid.

There remains a particularly popular belief that foreign aid payments bankroll the frivolous spending of Indian governments. But how fair is this?

Not very. According to Tharoor, who calls foreign aid, 'a colossal nonsense'.

But he does agree that the money isn't wanted, it shouldn't be sent, the economies of Britain and India are roughly the same size; and more importantly - foreign aid doesn't account for even a fraction of what India has provided for Britain over the years.

Using the the First World War as an example, Tharoor says, 'what India did for Britain during the First World War has been calculated in today's money as £80 billion, which is obviously far, far more than the entirety of foreign aid given to India during the 70-years of its Independence'.

Adding, 'during the First World War India provided 1,000,000 men to fight, pack animals, food, medicine, and even rail lines were ripped out of the ground in India and sent to the front.

'Britain doesn't really appreciate what the Indian taxpayer has already done for Britain over the years.'

Greed or the greater good?

According to Tharoor, 'when Britain arrived in India in the 1700s India accounted for 27% of global GDP - it was the richest country in the world.

'Britain accounted for just 1.8%.

'Through a combination of superior military technique, better guns and also the disunity of India's ruling establishment, this smaller country was able to conquer the larger one, and hold it.'

General Sir Charles James Napier, the British Army's Commander-in-Chief in India

It would seem that Britain arrived for the money and stayed in India for the profit, but how did a small, grey island take control of the world's richest country?

'The simple answer often trotted out is, ''well you chaps just missed the bus for the industrial revolution - we had the technology and you didn't that's why we grew and you didn't'', Tharoor says.

Adding, 'But that's far too simplistic an explanation. If India missed the bus it's because Britain threw us under its wheels.

'As a prosperous economy India could have bought any technology - do you think that the leaders of industry didn't have the resources to go out and buy what they wanted?

'The colonial enterprise interrupted any prospect of India's natural development.'

But, ok. Forget about the money. What about the great moral effort of Empire? The idea that Britain arrived to 'civilise' India.

Take one example. Sati, a Hindu funeral custom where a widow sets fire to herself on her husband's pyre that dates back to the 4th century BC and ran until the British banned it in 1829.

During an age when very young women would marry much older men, Sati was violent social spectacle, and now one oft-used example of Britain's moral imperative in India.

General Sir Charles James Napier in reply to a Hindu priest complaining that Sati was his customary religious rite, and that the customs of a nation should be respected, is famous for saying, '(if) This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property.'

However Tharoor finds this claim insincere and says, 'Yes, Sati was abolished under the British, but whether it was abolished because the British had a fit of zeal I doubt very much. They did not interfere in social customs in the fear of stirring up trouble.

'There was also a major campaign by Ram Mohan Roy - yes the British abolished it but the British controlled the Government so obviously they passed the laws - but they would not have done it by themselves if they weren't convinced by active Indian participation.'

Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh at a civic ceremony in New Delhi during the Royal Tour of India,1961

But what about cricket, language, tea and the railways?

This idea that one hand takes while the other gives is a constant theme in Britain's treatment towards its Empire.

It's quite common to hear in Britain a statement that begins with, 'but didn't we give you…'.

However, Tharoor is pre-prepared to argue against each of these claims.

The idea that India owes Britain its political unity and democracy is denied; Tharoor says that the so-called 'rule of law' that was gifted to India had a very self-serving agenda; he argues that the railways were built merely to better transport British goods (and that railways were built in plenty of independent countries).

Queen Elizabeth II as head of the Commonwealth with the Commonwealth Prime Ministers at Buckingham Palace 1955

He further argues that the gift of the English language was really only for a small administrative workforce to sit between the ruled and the rulers, and even the keystone of national identity, the humble cup of tea was reluctantly sold to the Indians after the market collapsed.

And finally cricket, even Britain's claim to have exported cricket to India is considered merely circumstantial with Tharoor building on Ashis Nandy's claim that 'cricket is an Indian game accidentally discovered by the British!'

This opinion on cricket, one feels, might not stand up so well against the scrutiny of lifelong members of a Yorkshire cricket club, sipping bitter in the clubhouse during a rainy Saturday in April.

Shashi Tharoor is an Indian politician and a former diplomat who is currently serving as Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala

But in the gaudy Bollywoodisation of the IPL; the allegedly corrupt nexus of officials from Lalit Modi to Srinivasan; the BCCI's commercial desire to shrink international cricket and rid it of the associate nations like Afghanistan and Ireland; the domination of cricket (until recently) by the BJP government, and India's politically motivated refusal to engage with Pakistan in bilateral series - then I suppose Tharoor's claim that cricket is an Indian game is entirely accurate!

But cricket aside, the idea that the hand that took also gave in return is an idea that Tharoor believes needs much more deep, careful, critical thought is needed from those at school in Britain.

He adds, 'I'm just trying to spark a bit of a national conversation. What is really needed is moral atonement. And that can only come in two ways, and that is first through teaching the truth to students - you can go all the way through A-levels in this country without reading about Britain in India.

'The second thing that needs to be done is to seriously examine the case for an apology.'

Famine, or Holocaust?

When Tharoor argues that 'the death toll from the colonial holocausts is right up there with some of the most harrowing examples of man's inhumanity to man in modern times' we finally arrive at the end of Britain's 'moral' argument and justification for the Empire.

Tharoor says that while Britain was in India, the total death toll from famine is 'well over 35 million'.

The most infamous famine in India being the Bengal Famine 1943 when between 1.5 and 4 million people died of starvation as food was dispersed around the world for the war effort, but the people of Bengal were overlooked.

Tharoor says that while Britain was in India, the total death toll from famine is 'well over 35 million'. (Pictured - a victim of the Bengal famine 1943)

Tharoor himself refers to the famines as a 'failure of the British to fulfill their promise of good governance', but is it fair to use a term like the holocaust?

Does Britain's 'failure of governance' imply the malice aforethought - in the case of Nazi Germany the 'Final Solution' - rather than merely criminally poor bureaucracy?

Tharoor says, 'There is a certain amount of 'malice' in taking the position that you will not help those who are dying of starvation.

'Britain believed in three things, number one you can't interfere in the laws of the market and free trade. Second, the malthusian principle must apply - that is the land can't sustain the population trying to live off it, and people must die. And third, the Victorian principle of not spending money you haven't budgeted for.

'These three principles governed British policy on famines. They did the same to the Irish.

'A lot of people died unnecessary deaths because the government chose not to help them.

'If you don't want to call that a holocaust then don't, but it seems to me that when you're talking about 35 million lives lost which exceeds both Stalin's and Mao's worst campaigns, and when you hailing yourself as an apostle of democracy and freedom like Winston Churchill did, it becomes impossible to escape the charge'.

Brexit and Empire

Just a few days after the publication of Tharoor's book, Brexit campaigner Dr Liam Fox MP Tweeted that 'the United Kingdom is one of the few countries in the European Union that does not need to bury its 20th century history'.

Fox offers a clear example of Britain's national position on its Empire - it's not that he denies it, but rather he simply doesn't know enough.

Tharoor's latest book, published by Hurst

As such, Fox cites the defeat of the Nazis, but is this really the only marker on Britain's barometer of right-or-wrongdoing during the 20th century? The fact is, Britain in India is not taught in schools.

Other leading historians, most notably William Dalrymple, when asked should David Cameron have apologised for the wrongdoings of colonialism during his visit in 2013, writes, that while it makes sense for politicians to apologise for their own mistakes, it is surely pointless for them to apologise for the mistakes of others committed long before they were born.

Adding that, 'for politicians to make apologies for events long in the past can anyway be counterproductive, often looking more like political expediency than genuine contrition'.

'This is particularly the case if you are coming to a country with a delegation from British Aerospace and Rolls-Royce to boost trade, as Cameron was doing to India.'

With Brexit on the horizon and trade deals with those often described as, 'our friends' from the Commonwealth, Tharoor's book stands as a good starting point for ending thoroughly unwanted foreign aid, and starting upon the path to a better understanding of Britain's years in India.

After Brexit, The Mail Today's editor wrote that Britain is at its best when we're being selfish.

Perhaps, apology, or no apology, 'holocaust' or famine - it might well be in our own selfish best interest to learn more about Britain and India, as we might be needing to argue our case more coherently than Dr Liam Fox in the years to come.

British PM Theresa May and Indian PM Narendra Modi pose for a photo ahead of the India-UK 'Tech Summit'

Shashi Tharoor on Winston Churchill Shashi Tharoor: 'Winston Churchill has blood on his hands and I'm appalled by the willingness of the British to completely overlook his disgraceful record. 'Essentially, the British have to realise that they are praising a man simply because of five-years' of inspiration speech-making in the Second World War, a war he won in the end only because the Americans came in on his side. 'People should read the assessments of Churchill in the British newspapers of the 1930s - he was not taken seriously or regarded very well. 'As he rather cynically put it, 'history will look kindly on me because I will write it' and he proceeded to do just that, which put him up on the pedestal he now occupies in the British popular imagination. 'It is extremely difficult to excuse his conduct in India. 'The overt racism of many of this statements - I spoke to the historian Roy Jenkins (author of Churchill: A Biography) and gave him many examples he said that, yes Churchill was 'racialist', but those were the times. 'But I disagree. There were plenty of decent, non racialist people around back then. It's not like people in 1930s Britain were incapable of thinking humanely about people of other colours and races. 'But people like Churchill and Rudyard Kipling were incapable, and the fact that they have now been deified in this country does not speak well of Britain despite his odious racism and deeply unpleasant language about India, Indians and Hindus. 'It was his decision that grain would be exported from Bengal during the famine, it was his decision that Australian ships laden with wheat calling on the port of Calcutta would not be allowed to disembark their goods but would sail on to England. 'And when conscious stricken officials in India wrote to London pointing out to Churchill that his decisions were costing a huge number of human lives, all Churchill could do was write peevishly in the margin - ''why hasn't Gandhi died yet''. 'This is the man we're expected to applaud as the saviour of freedom and democracy?' Advertisement



