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The Need for a museum on British colonisation of India

Tharoor, Shashi
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/03/museum-british-colonisation-india-170312082632399.html

Publisher:  Al Jazeera
Date Written:  12/03/2017
Year Published:  2017  
Resource Type:  Article

To support the establishment of a museum in India displaying the negative side to British colonialism, Tharoor brings to light various atrocities committed by Britian to India during the colonial period that have been given very little attention by both countries in the present day.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

It is curious that there is, neither in India nor in Britain, any museum to the colonial experience. London is dotted with museums that reflect its imperial conquests, from the Imperial War Museum to the India collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum itself.

But none says anything about the colonial experience itself, the destruction of India's textile industry and the depopulation of the great weaving centres of Bengal, the systematic collapse of shipbuilding, or the extinction of India's fabled "wootz" steel.

Nor is there any memorial to the massacres of the Raj, from Delhi in 1857 to Amritsar in 1919, the deaths of 35 million Indians in totally unnecessary famines caused by British policy, or the "divide and rule" policy that culminated in the horrors of Partition in 1947 when the British made their shambolic and tragic Brexit from the subcontinent. The lack of such a museum is striking.

Surprisingly, large sections of both Indians and British still remain unaware of the extent of these imperial crimes against humanity.

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