Social media hit: Shashi Tharoor demands reparation payments from UK for

Former Union minister Shashi Tharoor’s spirited call at the Oxford University for reparations for losses to the Indian economy due to 200 years of British colonial rule went viral online on Wednesday and stood in sharp contrast to the July 2005 speech at the same institution of the then PM Manmohan Singh who had extolled British rule in India.

Britain’s rise for 200 years was financed by this depredation, he said, adding that “personally I would even be happy if the United Kingdom pays a pound a year for the next 100 years”. Simply due to the fact India was governed for Britain’s benefit.

Although Tharoor didn’t provide attribution for his statistics in the speech, some historical economic research backs up his account – although his opponents in the debate argued that India benefited overall from British rule. The 15-minute video of his speech has been shared thousands of times, and is already the fifth most popular video on the Union’s YouTube channel despite only being a week old.

Shashi Tharoor-a politician, human rights activist, refugee worker, bestselling author and a regular has often courted controversy for all the wrong reason.

“A lot of truth has been exposed about colonialism”, one viewer said.

The comments on social media forums were dominated by young Indians, and Tharoor’s name was among the top trends on Facebook in India for several days. “A fine speech – Reparations, well yes”.

Tharoor had earlier said that in the Prime Minister “we are all seeing a master communicator at work”.

“Other thing we should acknowledge that he has done something in which I had criticized Indian governments in the past enough of leveraging our soft power rather than almost take it for granted, ” the Congress MP said, citing instances like the global Yoga Day. Why a nuclear-armed nation with a space programme and a booming economy should still get British aid has been questioned in some quarters, says the report. Overseas aid is one of four United Kingdom departmental areas being protected from big budget cuts as part of Conservative plans to reduce debt.

But while insightful points such as these formed the crux of Tharoor’s eloquent speech, it was his rapier barbs that had the esteemed audience (and netizens alike) crowing. Prior to his parliamentary career he served as a United Nations official, and ran a close second to Ban Ki-moon in the UN’s secretary-general selection process in 2006.

It was a spiritied debate over a controversial issue, but in the end Dr Tharoor’s side, which also included Jamaican High Comissioner Ndombet Assamba and Ghanaian economist Dr George Ayittey, won the debate with 185 votes to 56.

A video of a female police officer slapping a man and giving him electric shocks in a Cairo cinema has elicited both praise and condemnation online.