{"id":94747,"date":"2019-11-03T16:28:10","date_gmt":"2019-11-03T23:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=94747"},"modified":"2019-11-03T16:28:10","modified_gmt":"2019-11-03T23:28:10","slug":"do-victims-and-descendants-in-former-european-colonies-have-a-legal-right-to-reparatory-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/11\/03\/do-victims-and-descendants-in-former-european-colonies-have-a-legal-right-to-reparatory-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"Do victims and descendants in former European colonies have a legal right to reparatory justice?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Viewpoint by Manish Uprety F.R.A.S. and Jainendra Karn Courtesy quora.com<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

And do those who had committed these crimes, and who have been enriched by the proceeds of these crimes, have a reparatory case to answer?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How Reparations Can Help\nEradicate Poverty and Secure SDGs<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Photo: Mother in shreds of clothing with child begging on the\nstreets of Calcutta during the Bengal famine of 1943 (left), and a family on\nthe sidewalk in Calcutta during the Bengal famine of 1943 (right). Source:\nWikipedia  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEW DELHI (IDN) \u2013 Dealing with numbers can take a toll and might\nmake one seek fulfillment in other spheres. No wonder the most influential poet\nof the last Century penned The Waste Land<\/em> in\n1922 when he was dutifully employed with the foreign transactions department of\nLloyd\u2019s, an austere English bank in London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another case that one can think of is of Peter Bone, an\naccountant by training and Conservative party Member of Parliament in England\nfrom Wellingborough and Rushden who in November 2018 found glee when he made no\nbones about how and where the Republic of India should spend its resources. The\nlatter reminds one of the famous aphorism Par Updesh Kushal Bahutere.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With immense challenges to meet in the sphere of development\nespecially in developing countries, and many policy options and opinions\navailable, one is but tempted to explore the issue a bit more diligently as one\nhas finite resources and limited avenues to generate them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2015, world leaders agreed to the Global Goals for Sustainable Development<\/a>, a set of 17 goals\nfor a better world by 2030. These goals aim to end poverty, fight inequality\nand address the urgency of climate change among others, and seek the\nparticipation of governments, businesses, civil society and the general public\nto work together to build a better future for everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems like the typical case of old wine with a new label.\nFollowing the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000 and the adoption\nof the United Nations Millennium Declaration<\/a>, all 191 United\nNations member states at the time, and at least 22 international organizations,\ncommitted to help achieve the eight UN Millennium Development Goals by the year\n2015. Each goal had specific targets, and dates for achieving those targets but\nunfortunately could not be met.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critics of the MDGs complained of a lack of analysis and\njustification behind the chosen objectives, and the difficulty or lack of\nmeasurements for some goals and uneven progress, among others. Anyway through\nResolution 70\/1 of the United Nations General Assembly on September 25, 2015,\nthat has the 2030 Development Agenda titled “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development<\/a>,”\nthe eight UN MDGs transformed into seventeen SDGs and 169 targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the learning from MDGs experience was also typical in\nmany ways especially in terms of the utilisation of development aid. It is\ninteresting to note that the aid from the developed countries to secure the\nMDGs, more than half went for debt relief, and most of the remainder toward\ndisaster relief and military aid, rather than to further development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the launch of the Human Development Report (HDR) for 2014<\/a> by the United\nNations which for the first time considered the concepts of vulnerability and\nresilience in assessing human development progress, Helen Clarke, Administrator\nof the UNDP had noted that while every society is vulnerable to risk, some\nsuffer far less harm and recover more quickly than others when adversity\nstrikes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A society is all about its experiences. Colonization by the\nEuropean countries had an extremely deleterious effect on societies of Africa\nand Asia. Its pernicious impact can be witnessed even in the contemporary times\nand judged by the development indices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the SDGs were announced in 2015, it was understandable that\nsuccess on global goal no. 1\u2014eradication of extreme poverty\u2014depended on\nAfrica\u2019s performance. However, recent forecasts from the United Nations and the\nWorld Bank suggest that Africa is not going to make it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why has poverty in Africa stayed so stubbornly high despite\nrecord economic growth and what role has its historical experience to play\nwould be an interesting study?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the World Bank report, three main reasons:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(i) less of Africa\u2019s growth translates into poverty reduction\nbecause of high initial poverty, including low asset levels and limited access\nto public services, which prevent households from taking advantage of\nopportunities;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(ii) Africa\u2019s increasing reliance on natural resources for\nincome growth rather than agricultural \u2013 and rural development excludes the 85\npercent of the poor population living in rural areas; and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(iii) Africa\u2019s high fertility and resulting high population\ngrowth mean that even high growth translates into less income per person\u2014a\npoint too often ignored in discussions on the sub-continent and in Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not difficult to infer that high initial poverty and\nreliance on natural resources and lack of agricultural development have a\ndirect link to European colonization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding Asia, the famed British economic historian Angus\nMaddison had calculated that in 1600, of the world GDP (GDP being computed in\n1990 dollars and in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms) total share of China\nand India was 51.4%, with China accounting for 29% and India 22.4% of world\nGDP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A hundred years later, China\u2019s GDP had fallen but India\u2019s went\nup to 24.4% of world output. By 1820, however, India\u2019s share had fallen to\n16.1%. By 1870, it further went down to 12.2%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Noted economist Utsa Patnaik has calculated that over roughly\n200 years, the East India Company and the British Raj siphoned out at least GBP\n9.2 Trillion (or USD 44.6 Trillion; since the exchange rate was USD 4.8 per GBP\nsterling during much of the colonial period) from India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the colonial era, most of India\u2019s sizeable foreign exchange\nearnings went straight to London\u2014severely hampering the country\u2019s ability to\nimport machinery and technology in order to embark on a modernisation path\nsimilar to what Japan did in the 1870s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harvard educated renowned statistician-economist and Indian\nMember of Parliament Dr. Subarmanian Swamy who has worked with Nobel laureates\nlike Simon Kuznets and Paul Samuelson calculates the amount looted by the\nBritish from India to be USD 71 Trillion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the British Raj, India suffered countless famines. The\nworst hit was Bengal in 1770, followed by severe ones in 1783, 1866, 1873,\n1892, 1897 and lastly 1943-44. Earlier when famines had hit the country,\nindigenous rulers were quick with useful responses to avert major disasters.\nBut not only a ruthless economic agenda but also a total lack of empathy for\nnative citizens was a prominent trait of the European colonization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The famine of 1770 alone killed approximately 10 million people,\nmillions more than the Jewish holocaust during the Second World War or the\nBelgian genocide in the Congo. It wiped out one-third the population of Bengal.\nJohn Fiske, in his book The Unseen World,<\/em> wrote\nthat the famine of 1770 in Bengal was far deadlier than the Black Plague that\nterrorised Europe in the fourteenth century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We should all be concerned, but what can be done? The recent\nWorld Bank study, Accelerating Poverty Reduction in Africa<\/a><\/em>,\noffers governments and stakeholders both new suggestions as well as new takes\non old recommendations. It should also have considered reparations to the\ncolonized countries by the European colonizers, and the important role\nreparations can play to accelerate the process of development and secure the UN\nGlobal Goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2013 Caribbean Heads of Governments established the Caricom Reparations Commission (CRC)<\/a> with\na mandate to prepare the case for reparatory justice for the region\u2019s\nindigenous and African descendant communities who are the victims of Crimes\nagainst Humanity (CAH) in the forms of genocide, slavery, slave trading, and\nracial apartheid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CRC asserts that victims and descendants of these CAH have a\nlegal right to reparatory justice, and that those who committed these crimes,\nand who have been enriched by the proceeds of these crimes, have a reparatory\ncase to answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One can only speculate what a developing country like India\ncurrently ranked at number 130 in HDI with its 46.6 million children who are\nstunted because of malnutrition can achieve if it manages to secure USD 71\nTrillion from Britain as reparation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monetary inputs have the capability to initiate virtuous\neconomic and development processes in a society. A good example of it is the\n1948 Marshall Plan or the European Recovery Program. More than USD 13 billion\nunder the Marshall Plan helped to facilitate the recovery of Europe\u2019s national\neconomies and helped build a \u2018new Europe\u2019 with a political economy that was\nbased on open markets and free trade, rather than protectionism and\nself-interest. It was a stimulus that set off a chain of events leading to a\nrange of accomplishments.  However, aid is always conditional where terms\nare dictated by the donor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore the CRC sets a wonderful precedent to establish the\nmoral, ethical and legal case for the payment of Reparations by the Governments\nof all the former colonial powers and the relevant institutions of those\ncountries, to the nations that were colonized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, it is far a better alternative than the same old\nclarion call to mobilize resources for the poor\u201d made to the Asian and African\ngovernments to raise taxes as a share of GDP or the strings that come attached\nwith overseas aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s November 2019. Would Right Honourable Peter Bone and others\nincluding international institutions help set a continuing historical wrong\nright, and kindly pay heed to make reparations play a mainstreamed role to\neradicate poverty and secure UN Global Goals, and pave way for a more just and\nhumane world?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*\nManish Uprety F.R.A.S. is an ex-diplomat and Jainendra Karn is a senior leader\nof the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP).<\/em> [IDN-InDepthNews \u2013 01\nNovember 2019]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo: Mother in shreds of clothing with child begging on the\nstreets of Calcutta during the Bengal famine of 1943 (left), and a family on\nthe sidewalk in Calcutta during the Bengal famine of 1943  (right).\nSource: Wikipedia<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IDN is flagship agency of the International Press\nSyndicate<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Viewpoint by Manish Uprety F.R.A.S. and Jainendra Karn Courtesy quora.com And do those who had committed these crimes, and who have been enriched by the proceeds of these crimes, have a reparatory case to answer? How Reparations Can Help Eradicate Poverty and Secure SDGs Photo: Mother in shreds of clothing with child begging on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}