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Dr Shashi Tharoor MP - Britain Does Owe Reparations

ah, shashi tharoor of the old hair-style... i was constantly distracted from his speech by the pretty lady to his left, who turned out to be henna dattani whose fine speech i post below.

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i am glad that henna made mention of european powers' other colonies, namely kenya and libya... i agree with shashi tharoor and henna that reparations need not be money of a large sum at all but are really acceptance that the former colonial power did wrongs... wrongs like the bengal famine of 1943 ( which i read of more fully a few days ago ).

while some post-colonial countries like egypt, libya and sri lanka built progressive/socialist societies of varying degree, india didn't... how is churchill to blame for farmer/student suicides and "honor killings" in india in 2015... @Abotani presented what post-1947 indian government ( independent india ) did in what is now called the "north east of india"... his representation cannot be ignored or laughed away.

yet, if britain makes reparation to india, it can be a instrument for retrospection by indians themselves to bring revolution of the sort that real freedom fighters like bhagat singh spoke of.

@levina @The_Showstopper @jbgt90 @Juggernautjatt @magudi @Blue_Eyes

"Dr" Shashi Tharoor should have some dignity instead of looking to other countries for handouts.
 
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Sigh
Air attacks in Mizoram, 1966 - our dirty, little secret - timesofindia-economictimes

By March 2, the MNA had overrun the Aizawl treasury and armoury and was at the headquarters of theAssam Rifles. It had also captured several smaller towns south of Aizawl. The military tried to ferry troops and weapons by helicopter, but was driven away by MNA snipers.

So, at 11:30 am on March 5, the air force attacked Aizawl with heavy machine gun fire. On March 6, the attack intensified, and incendiary bombs were dropped. This killed innocents and completely destroyed the four largest areas of the city: Republic Veng, Hmeichche Veng, Dawrpui Veng and Chhinga Veng.

Locals left their homes and fled into the hills in panic. The MNA melted away into surrounding gorges, forests and hills, to camps in Burma and the then East Pakistan. The air force strafed Aizawl and other areas till March 13. One local told a human rights committee set up by Khasi legislators GG Swell and Rev Nichols Roy that, "There were two types of planes which flew over Aizawl — good planes and angry planes. The good planes were those which flew comparatively slowly and did not spit out fire or smoke; the angry planes were those which escaped to a distance before the sound of their coming could be heard and who spat out smoke and fire."

This was the first— and only — time that the air force has been used to attack Indians in India. It cleared Aizawl and other cities of the MNA, but did not finish off the insurgency, which would last for another 20 years. Till the 1980s, the Indian military stoutly denied the use of air attacks in Mizoram in 1966.

By 1967, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act was in force in the area that is now Mizoram. That year, the eastern military brass, led by the then Lt General Maneckshaw, and government decided to implement the second terrible thing it did in Mizoram. This was called 'regrouping of villages.'

At the that time, there was one road coming south from Silchar in Assam, that traveled all the way down to where the state's limits ended. To the east and west of this road were vast tracts of forests, hills and ravines, dotted with hundreds of villages.The military plan was to gather villagers from all over, and cluster them along the side of this road. These new, so-called Protected and Progressive Villages (PPVs), were nothing but concentration camps, minus gas chambers. The movement was supposed to be voluntary — people in some far off hamlet were supposed to jump with joy when told to give up their land, crops and homes to trek hundreds of miles and live behind barbed wire. Actually, the military told villagers to take what they could carry on their backs, and burn everything else down. Elders signed 'consent' papers at gunpoint.

In every case, villagers refused to move. When they were coerced to march, they would refuse to burn down their properties. Then, the military officer and his men would torch the whole place down. They would march in a column guarded by the military, to their designated PPV.

Life here was tough: each resident was numbered and tagged, going and coming was strictly regulated and rations were meagre. In the PPVs' confines, tribal conventions broke down. In the scramble for scarce resources, theft, murder and alcoholism became widespread.

The regrouping destroyed the Mizos' practice of jhum, or shifting cultivation. There was little land inside the PPVs and their original jhum areas had been left far behind in the interiors. Farm output fell off a cliff. Mizoram suffered from near-famine conditions, supplemented by what little the military could provide, for the next three years.

Why were the villagers herded into the PPVs? The military reckoned that keeping villagers under their eyes would keep them from sheltering insurgents or joining the MNA. The original villages, crops and granaries were destroyed to deny wandering insurgents shelter and food.

These ideas were picked up by our officers from the colonial British playbook. The British had regrouped villages during the Boer war in the early 20th century, in Malaya, where they interned Chinese in special camps and in Kenya where villages were uprooted to crush the Mau Mau revolt.

The British could get away with all this because they were inflicting pain on a subject population. The Indian establishment had no such fig leaf: it was giving grief to its own citizens.

The scale of the Mizoram regrouping was awesome. Out of 764 villages, 516 were evacuated and squeezed into 110 PPVs. Only 138 villages were left untouched. In the Aizawl area, about 95% of the rural population was herded into PPVs. No Russian gulag or German concentration camp had hosted such a large chunk of the local population.

The first PPVs were dismantled in 1971, but the last ones continued for another eight years. The MNA revolt ended in 1986. No government has expressed regret for the bombing and regrouping.

Of course everyone knows how Indians behave with women.They could put the ISIS to shame.

Never heard this before. But surely you agree that it was long time ago. Even during emergency lot of atrocities took place. Past is past.


Do these villages still dot the road?? Have these villages gone back to their villages?? How is general life of people in these villages??
 
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Never heard this before. But surely you agree that it was long time ago. Even during emergency lot of atrocities took place. Past is past.


Do these villages still dot the road?? Have these villages gone back to their villages?? How is general life of people in these villages??
Preach that to your over enthusiastic brothers.7 decades later and still blame the whities and yellows and everyone under the sun for their self made issues.
We don't need the apologies.They change nothing.You can't forgive an ongoing slow genocide with "Sorry"
 
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Preach that to your over enthusiastic brothers.7 decades later and still blame the whities and yellows and everyone under the sun for their self made issues.
We don't need the apologies.They change nothing.You can't forgive an ongoing slow genocide with "Sorry"

We are not blaming anyone. When was the last time you heard anyone mention white man for our issues. This is just a debate about Britain's highhandedness in the colonies and nothing more. Nothing is going come out of it.
 
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We are not blaming anyone. When was the last time you heard anyone mention white man for our issues. This is just a debate about Britain's highhandedness in the colonies and nothing more. Nothing is going come out of it.
Sure.A discussion on atrocities without proportioning blame to concerned parties.Talk about exercises in futility.

If that is what Indians are doing at all.On the half a dozen threads here,most are downright hatred of modern day Brits.
 
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Sure.A discussion on atrocities without proportioning blame to concerned parties.Talk about exercises in futility.

If that is what Indians are doing at all.On the half a dozen threads here,most are downright hatred of modern day Brits.

I said nothing may come out of it but it does not mean it should not be discussed. If you want apportion blame for Indian army atrocities in Manipur, you have every right to do so. It is just that these kind of public debates and online forums serve to sway the public opinion and change their collective thinking one person at a time.
 
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I said nothing may come out of it but it does not mean it should not be discussed. If you want apportion blame for Indian army atrocities in Manipur, you have every right to do so. It is just that these kind of public debates and online forums serve to sway the public opinion and change their collective thinking one person at a time.
It's an exercise in futility and mostly serves as a "naach na jaane angaan terah" for Indians who wish to lay the blames on everybody but themselves.My original point still remains and is more relevant now-that Indians have no right to complain when they are doing far worse RIGHT NOW
 
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It's an exercise in futility and mostly serves as a "naach na jaane angaan terah" for Indians who wish to lay the blames on everybody but themselves.My original point still remains and is more relevant now-that Indians have no right to complain when they are doing far worse RIGHT NOW

You mentioned something that happened in 1966 and now you saying "right now". Is the atrocities still going on??
 
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You mentioned something that happened in 1966 and now you saying "right now". Is the atrocities still going on??
Well, just a few days ago some primary school kids were KIA'ed by Indians.
Army harassed women everywhere. Just ordinary something that Indians do everyday.Nothing to worry about
 
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Well, just a few days ago some primary school kids were KIA'ed by Indians.
Army harassed women everywhere. Just ordinary something that Indians do everyday.Nothing to worry about

I just googled it I don't find any news items. Can you provide the links.
 
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