Shashi Tharoor is one of the most learned politicians that we have and the best part is that he is an immaculate speaker who can convey his thoughts and opinion in a very clear manner to the audiences.
Just recently, during an interview on Sky News, he lashed out at the interviewer and also educated him on the subject of what Indians have contributed to the British Empire. The interviewer put up a question regarding “trickle down of the repatriation of the funds to the UK”. In answer to this question, the Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram told him that it was “not just a trickle” and a huge amount of money was sent to the UK. He also made it clear that he was more interested in talking about the “moral case” rather than the “monetary case”. He said, “What really matters is for Britain to look within and to recognise that there is something to be apologetic about.”
He also talked about the apology made by the current PM of Canada, Justin Trudeau, in relation to the incident which took place 100 years ago in which a ship of Indian migrants who were running away from the British was turned away by Canada and this resulted in the death of those migrants. However, “Canadians didn’t kill anybody themselves”. Tharoor said,
“To my mind, I think, just taking collective responsibility is a moral step that the British have simply not contemplated even after 200 years of profiting from their empire.”
Shashi, who has worked for 29 years at UN, spoke aggressively,
“Do you know that a million Indians fought unarmed for the British side? Do you know that it was largely Indian soldiers who stopped the German advance in Ypres in the beginning of the war? Do you know India supplied pack animals, food, clothing, rations and rail lines ripped out of the ground in India and sent off to aid the war effort? And that the total contribution of Indians in cash and kind is estimated, in today’s money, at about £80 billion. I am quite sure you don’t know that. Because the British don’t tell you that.”
Shashi has also written a book entitled “Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India” in which he has reassessed the colonial era in India in a bold manner. He is widely praised by not only Indians but also foreigners for speaking the harsh truth during the interview.
Watch The Video Of The Interview:
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