In May 2015, the Oxford Union renewed the debate on whether or not Britain owes India
reparations.
For nearly a century, the British Empire exploited Indian labor, natural resources, and military
strength, in order to benefit themselves at India’s expense.
Yet India has never been compensated for the significant loss of life, money, and culture,
despite many calling for reparations.
So, what exactly are reparations?
Well, reparations were originally intended to pay for injuries and damages sustained
during a war, paid by the losing side to the victor.
However, in modern times, reparations are paid to victims of human rights violations,
usually by offending countries.
While the United Nations establishes the rights of reparations seekers, it is usually up to
individuals to go through local or international courts to seek payment.
Alternately, offending countries sometimes agree to reparations as a response to cultural
and social demands.
For instance, after World War II, West Germany agreed to pay more than 3 billion deutsche
marks to Israel in reparation for the Holocaust.
This money was used to compensate survivors, recover property, and invest in Israel’s
economy.
Reparations can take many forms.
According to the UN, they fall into five categories: restitution, compensation, rehabilitation,
satisfaction, and guarantees of non-repetition.Restitution seeks to restore property, employment, citizenship,
or any specific loss by the victims.
Compensation entails paying for financially assessable damages.
Rehabilitation is assistance with any psychological, physical, or legal barriers.
Satisfaction includes things like acknowledgements of atrocities, or public apologies by the
offending party.
And Guarantees of non-repetition are usually legal or cultural changes to the status-quo
to prevent the situation from reoccurring.
So who receives reparations?
Well, usually, recipients are the original victims or their families.
In the US, more than 100,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly interned during World War II.
For the following forty years, advocacy groups petitioned the government for reparations
on their behalf.
In 1988, the US finally issued an official apology to ex-internees, and offered surviving
victims $20,000 dollars each.
Although reparations are intended to provide some form of restoration to victims, actual
reparations are exceptionally rare.
Usually, so much time has passed that current governments refuse to take responsibility
for historical atrocities.
And even when reparations are given, they cannot simply repair the lasting effects of
poverty, marginalization, exploitation, or abuse.
In the 70 years since the end of British rule in India, much of the country has moved on.
Yet the aftermath of colonial rule is still felt by many, with no legal compensation.
The UN is generally in charge of dealing with reparations between people and countries.
But that’s not all they keep track of, in fact, the UN is one of the busiest and most
powerful organizations around.
Check out this video to find out just how powerful they are.
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