Reader's reaction

This refers to Hissam Khandker's write-up with the above title published in The Daily Star on 31 July 2015. I have not been able to download Dr. Tharoor's speech delivered at the Oxford Union debate mentioned by Mr. Khandker, but it seems from his write up that Dr. Tharoor has proposed that the British Government should, as a symbolic gesture, pay India at least one pound per year during the next two hundred years for colonising the country. Claiming compensation will be justified, for there is no doubt that England caused huge harm to India during the colonial rule although the colonial rulers did take certain positive step as well. Moreover, claiming a symbolic amount as reparation is reasonable, because we will never be able to arrive at a generally acceptable amount to be claimed as reparation (far from its acceptance by the British Government). 

However, I would like to comment on several other aspects of Khandker's piece. Firstly, I know of only one author who mentions that India's share of world manufacturing output stood at about 20 percent in 1800 and then it declined steadily. But the author does not say that Mughal India may have 25 percent of the world GDP in the pre-colonial period. Secondly, according to Mr. Khandker, around 1700 Dhaka had a population of one million. But Manrique who came Dhaka in 1640 said that the “indigenous population of the city exceed 200 thousand”. If that was the case, the population of the Dhaka city is highly unlikely to have increased to one million by1700. 

Thirdly, of all the different regions of India, Bengal was perhaps the largest supplier of textile goods, but how does Mr. Khandker come to the conclusion that Bengal's share was about 50 percent of the total Indian share? Fourthly, we have several opinions on Clive's share in the spoils of Bengal conquest. But our commentator accepts one particular opinion. It is useful to mention statistical data in any analytical exercise; however one should be very careful in handling those data. Fifthly, Mr. Khandker suggests that the tax rate in Mughal period was ten percent of the produce, but the generally accepted view is that it was much higher. Again, it appears from Mr. Khandker's write-up that Dr. Tharoor does not include “drain of wealth” from India and the loss of three to four million lives (“a genocide”) as a result of Bengal famine of 1943 as reasons for claiming compensation. Mr. khandker does not ask why. Finally if Mr. Khandker claims that Bangladesh should get a symbolic share of 45 pence per pound, it is not clear why our close neighbors Nepal and Bhutan and Pakistan should be deprived?

Professor M. Mufakharul Islam
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