BRITISH AND EFFECTS OF COLONIALISM : HALF A CENTURY LATER

A mini-documentary looking at what today’s generation feels regarding British colonialism and its former colonies.

Half a century on, commonwealth countries have continued to progress in the right direction, but how badly has colonization affected the country even today?

The case for reparations is becoming a global conversation to which every nation that systematically enriched itself by stealing black people’s very humanity – not to mention unquantifiable torture and cultural destruction – now finds itself exposed.

British imperialism had long justified itself with the pretense that it was enlightened despotism, conducted for the benefit of the governed. Mr. Churchill's inhumane conduct in 1943 gave the lie to this myth. British aid, which is far from the amounts a reparation debate would throw up, is only a fraction of India's fertilizer subsidy to farmers, which may be an appropriate metaphor for this argument.

Two hundred years of injustice cannot be compensated for with any specific amount.

But what do you think is the current attitude of Britain towards the Empire?

The British gave the railways, the printing press and the English language helped unite the country but was that their only motive?

Are they largely responsible for the kind of racism that exists even today?

Should we be proud of the British Raj?

Do the British owe reparations to their former colonies?

Interviews completed and documentary produced and scripted by Manasa Raghavendran as a University Project.

Clips from The Big Question and The Oxford Union debate. Thanks to the BBC and The Oxford Union.

Doc Radio.mp4

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