Shadowing Practice: Dr. Shashi Tharoor - Britain Does Owe Reparations (Over 4 million views) - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Reviewer.
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Madame la Vélez, gentlemen, ladies of the house,
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I, standing here with eight minutes in my hands at this venerable and rather magnificent institution,
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I was going to assure you that I belong to the Henry VIII School of Public Speaking.
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That as Henry VIII said to his wives, I shall not keep you long.
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But now finding myself the seventh speaker out of eight in what must already seem a rather long evening to you,
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I rather feel like Henry VIII's last wife.
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I more or less know what's expected of me, but I'm not sure how to do it any differently.
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Perhaps what I should do is really try and pay attention to the arguments that were advanced by the opposition today.
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We had, for example, Sir Richard Ottoway suggesting, challenging the very idea that it could be argued
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that the economic situation of the colonies was actually worsened by the experience of British colonialism.
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Well, I stand to offer you the Indian example, Sir Richard.
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Also, Richard, India's share of the world economy when Britain arrived on its shores was 23%.
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By the time the British left, it was down to below 4%.
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Why?
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Simply because India had been governed for the benefit of Britain.
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Britain's rise for 200 years was financed by its depredations in India.
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In fact, Britain's industrial revolution was actually premised upon the de-industrialization of India.
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The handloom weavers, for example, famed across the world, whose products were exported around the world, Britain came right in.
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There were actually these weavers making fine muslin lightest woven air it was said and Britain came right in, smashed their thumbs, broke their looms,
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imposed tariffs and duties on their cloth and products
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and started of course taking the raw materials from India and shipping back manufactured cloth,
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flooding the world's markets with what became the products of the dark and satanic mills of Victorian England.
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That meant that the Weavers in India became beggars, and India went from being a world-famous exporter of finished cloth into an importer,
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went from having 27% of world trade to less than 2%.
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Meanwhile, colonialists like Robert Clive bought their rotten boroughs in England on the proceeds of their loot in India,
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while taking the Hindi word loot into their dictionaries as well as their habits.
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And the British had the gall to call him Clive of India, as if he belonged to the country, when all he really did was to ensure that much of the country belonged to him.
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By the end of the 19th century, the fact is that India was already Britain's biggest cash cow, the world's biggest purchaser of British goods and exports,
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and the source of highly paid employment for British civil servants.
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We literally paid for our own oppression.
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And as has been pointed out, the wealthy Victorian British families that made their money out of the slave economy.
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One fifth of the wealthy class in Britain in the 19th
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century owed their money to transporting three million Africans across the waters.
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And in fact, in 1833 when slavery was abolished, what happened was that a compensation of 20 million pounds was paid,
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not as reparations to those who had lost their lives or who had suffered or been oppressed by slavery, but to those who had lost their property.
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I was struck by the fact that your Wi-Fi password at this union commemorates the name of Mr. Gladstone, the great liberal hero.
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Well, I'm sorry, his family was one of those who benefited from this compensation.
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Staying with India, between 15 and 29 million Indians died of starvation in British-induced famines.
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A famous example, of course, was the Great Bengal Famine during the Second World War, when four million people died because Winston Churchill deliberately,
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as a matter of written military policy,
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proceeded to divert essential supplies from civilians in Bengal to sturdy Tommies and Europeans as reserve stockpiles.
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He said that the starvation of any way underfed Bengalis mattered much less than that of sturdy Greeks.
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Churchill's actual quote, and when conscious stricken British officials wrote to him, pointing out that people were dying because of this decision,
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he peevishly wrote in the margins of the file, why hasn't Gandhi died yet?
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So all notions that the British were trying to do their colonial enterprise out of enlightened despotism,
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to try and bring the benefits of colonialism and civilization to the benighted heathen.
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And I'm sorry, Churchill's conduct in 1943, simply one example of many that gave a lie to this myth.
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As others have said on the proposition, violence and racism were the reality of the colonial experience.
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And no wonder that the sun never set on the British Empire, because even God couldn't trust the English in the dark.
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Let me take World War I as a very concrete example, since the first speaker, Mr. Lee, suggested these things couldn't be quantified.
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Well, let me quantify World War I for you.
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Again, I'm sorry, from an Indian perspective, others have spoken of other countries.
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One-sixth of all the British forces that fought in the war were Indian.
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54,000 Indians actually lost their lives in that war.
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65,000 were wounded.
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Another 4,000 remained missing or in prison.
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Indian taxpayers had to cough up 100 million pounds in that time's money.
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India supplied 70 million rounds of ammunition, 600,000 rifles and machine guns, 42 million garments were stitched and sent out of India,
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and 1.3 million Indian personnel served in this war.
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I know all this because, of course, the commemoration of the centenary has just taken place.
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But not just that.
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India had to supply 173,000 animals, 370 million tons of supplies,
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and in the end the total value of everything that was taken out of India
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India and India by the way suffering from recession at
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that time and poverty and hunger was in today's money 8 billion pounds.
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You want quantification?
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It's available.
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Second World War?
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It was even worse.
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2.5 million Indians in uniform.
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I won't belabor the point but of Britain's total war debt of 3 billion pounds in 1945 money
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1.25 billion was owed to India and never actually paid.
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Somebody mentioned Scotland.
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Well, the fact is that colonialism actually cemented your union with Scotland.
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You know, the Scots had actually tried to send colonies out before 1707.
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They'd all failed, I'm sorry to say.
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But then, of course, came union, and India was available, and there you had a disproportionate employment of Scots.
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I'm sorry, Mr. McKenzie has to speak after me.
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engaged in this colonial enterprise as soldiers, as merchants, as agents, as employees,
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and the earnings from India is what brought prosperity to Scotland, even pulled Scotland out of poverty.
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Now that India is no longer there, no wonder the bonds are loosening.
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Now we've heard other arguments on this side.
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There's been a mention of the railways.
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Well let me tell you, first of all, as my colleague the Jamaican High Commissioners pointed out,
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railways and roads were really built to serve British interests and not those of the local people.
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But I might add that many countries of built railways
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and roads without having had to be colonized in order to do so.
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They were designed to carry raw materials from the hinterland into the ports to be shipped to Britain.
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And the fact is that the Indian or Jamaican or other colonial public, their needs were incidental.
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Transportation, there was no attempt made to match supply to demand for mass transport, none whatsoever.
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Instead, in fact, the Indian railways were built with massive incentives offered by Britain to British investors,
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guaranteed out of Indian taxes paid by Indians.
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With the result
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that you actually had one mile of Indian railway costing twice
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what it cost to build the same mile in Canada
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or Australia because there was so much money being paid in extravagant returns.
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Britain made all the profits, controlled the technology, supplied all the equipment, and absolutely all these benefits came as private enterprise,
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British private enterprise, at public risk, Indian public risk.
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That was the railways as an accomplishment.
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We're hearing about aid.
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I think it was again Sir Richard Ottoway mentioned British aid to India.
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Well, let me just point out that British aid to India is about 0.4% of India's GDP.
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the government of India actually spends more on fertilizer subsidies, which might be an appropriate metaphor for that argument.
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If I may point out as well...
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If I may point out as well that, as my fellow speakers from the proposition have pointed out, there have been incidents of racial violence,
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of loot, of massacres, of bloodshed, of transportation, in India's case even of one of our last Mughal emperor.
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Yes, maybe today's Britons are not responsible for some of these reputations, but the same speakers have pointed with pride to their foreign aid.
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You're not responsible for the people starving in Somalia, but to give them aid, surely the principle of reparations for what is for the wrongs that have been done cannot be denied.
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It's been pointed out, for example, the dehumanization of Africans in the Caribbean, the massive psychological damage that has been done, the undermining of social traditions,
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of property rights, of the authority structures of these societies, all in the interests of British colonialism.
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And the fact remains that many of today's problems in these countries,
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including the persistence, in some cases the creation of racial and ethnic and religious tensions, were the direct result of the colonial experience.
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So there is a moral debt that needs to be paid.
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Someone challenged reparations elsewhere.
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Well, I'm sorry, Germany doesn't just give reparations to Israel.
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It also gave reparations to Poland.
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Perhaps some of the speakers here are too young to remember
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the dramatic picture of Chancellor Willy Brandt on his knees in the Warsaw ghetto in 1970.
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And there are other examples.
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There is Italy's reparations to Libya.
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There's Japan's to Korea.
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Even Britain has paid reparations to the New Zealand Maoris.
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So it's not as if this is something unprecedented
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or unheard of that's going to somehow open some sort of nasty Pandora's box.
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No wonder Professor Lewis reminded us that he's from Texas.
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There's a wonderful expression in Texas that summarizes the arguments of the opposition, all hat and no cattle.
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Now, if I can just quickly look through the other notes I was scribbling while they were speaking,
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there was reference to democracy and rule of law, let me say with the greatest possible respect.
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You can, it's a bit rich, to oppress, enslave, kill, torture, maim people for 200 years, and then celebrate the fact that they're democratic at the end of it.
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We...
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We were denied democracy, sir.
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We had to snatch it, seize it from you.
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With the greatest reluctance it was conceded in India's case, after 150 years of British rule and that too with limited franchise.
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Yes indeed, ma'am.
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The opposition spoke quite highly of Greek and Athenian democracy on
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which the West depried itself and spoke of liberty and equality in that same name.
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The Athenian democracy was only functioning because of the slave society on which it was built.
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That's the nature of colonisation.
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Alright, I don't think that needs contradiction, not from me at any rate.
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But if I may just point out, I think the arguments made by a couple of the speakers, the first speaker, Mr. Lee in particular, conceded all the evil atrocities of colonialism,
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but essentially suggested that reparations won't really help, they won't help the right people, they'll be used as a propaganda tool, they'll embolden people like Mr. Mugabe.
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It's always nice how in the old days, you know, I'm sorry to say
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that the people of the Caribbean used to frighten their children into behaving
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and sleeping by saying Sir Francis Drake would come after them.
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That was a legacy of that.
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Now it's Mugabe will be there.
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This is the new sort of Sir Francis Drake of our times.
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And the fact is, the fact is very simply, sir, that we are not talking about reparations as a tool to empower anybody.
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They're a tool for you to atone for the wrongs that have been done.
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And I am quite prepared to accept the proposition that you can't evaluate,
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put a monetary sum on the kinds of horrors people have suffered.
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no amount of money can expiate the loss of a loved one, as somebody pointed out there.
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You're not going to be able to figure out an exact amount.
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But the principle is what matters.
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The fact is that to speak blithely of sacrifices on both sides, as an analogy was used here, a burglar comes into your house,
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ransacks the place, stubs his toe, and you say, well, there was a sacrifice on both sides.
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That, I'm sorry to say, is not an acceptable argument.
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The truth is that we are not arguing specifically that vast sums of money need to be paid.
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The proposition before this House is the principle of owing reparations,
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not the fine points of how much is owed to whom it should be paid.
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The question is, is there a debt?
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Does Britain owe reparations?
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As far as I'm concerned, the ability to acknowledge a wrong that has been done,
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to simply say sorry will go a far far far longer way than some percentage of GDP in the form of aid.
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What is required it seems to me is accepting the principle that reparations are owed.
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Personally I'd be quite happy
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if it was one pound a year for the next 200 years after the last 200 years of Britain and India.
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Thank you very much Madam President.
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Thank you.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 170 sentences and 2285 words to shadow. The speech runs for 15:18. The speaker talks at a steady 149 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 less common words from the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
- railway /ˈɹeɪlˌweɪ/ (noun) — A transport system using rails used to move passengers or goods.
- colonial /kəˈloʊ.njəl/ (adjective) — Of or pertaining to a colony.
- owe /oʊ/ (verb) — To be under an obligation to give something back to someone or to perform some action for someone.
- enterprise /ˈɛntəˌpɹaɪz/ (noun) — A company, business, organization, or other purposeful endeavor.
- principle /ˈpɹɪn.sɪ.pəl/ (noun) — A fundamental assumption, fundamental law or guiding belief.
- proposition /ˌpɹɑpəˈzɪʃən/ (noun) — The act of offering (an idea) for consideration.
- lieutenant /l(j)uˈtɛn.ənt/ (noun) — In the US Army, Air Force and Marines, holding the rank above second lieutenant and below captain. Both ranks may be referred to as "lieutenant" or as the…
- belong /bɪˈlɒŋ/ (verb) — To have its proper place.
- cloth /klɒθ/ (noun) — A fabric, usually made of woven, knitted, or felted fibres or filaments, such as used in dressing, decorating, cleaning or other practical use. Sometimes…
- weaver /ˈwi.vɚ/ (noun) — A person who weaves; especially, one who weaves cloth for a living.
- argue /ˈɑɹ.ɡju/ (verb) — To show grounds for concluding (that); to indicate, imply.
- poverty /ˈpɑːvɚti/ (noun) — The quality or state of being poor; lack of money
- deny /dəˈnaɪ/ (verb) — To disallow or reject.
- compensation /ˌkɑm.pənˈseɪ.ʃən/ (noun) — The act or principle of compensating.
- slave /sleɪv/ (noun) — A person who is held in servitude as the property of another person, and whose labor (and often also whose body and life) is subject to the owner's volition…
Phrasal verbs you will hear
- point out (verb) — To identify among a group of similar subjects, or in a scene where the subject might not be readily seen or noticed, with a gesture of the body.
- come after (verb) — To pursue or follow; to pursue with hostile intent.
- come into (verb) — To obtain (usually money or property), especially through inheritance.
- figure out (verb) — To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.
- live in (verb) — To reside on the premises of one's employer (used especially of domestic staff such as nannies, cooks, maids, etc.)
- look through (verb) — To take a view of the contents of; search in, either with the eyes or by hand.
- set on (verb) — To attack.
- talk about (verb) — Used to draw attention to the speaker's characterization of someone or something.
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 29 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, won't, couldn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: cloth /klɒθ/, wealthy /ˈwɛl.θi/, sixth /sɪksθ/, ethnic /ˈɛθ.nɪk/, seventh /ˈsɛvənθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: proposition /ˌpɹɑpəˈzɪʃən/, compensation /ˌkɑm.pənˈseɪ.ʃən/, racial /ˈɹeɪʃəl/, starvation /stɑɹˈveɪʃən/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/
- Long words — get the stress right: proposition /ˌpɹɑpəˈzɪʃən/, compensation /ˌkɑm.pənˈseɪ.ʃən/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, institution /ˌɪn.stɪˈtʃuː.ʃən/, acceptable /əkˈsɛp.tə.bəl/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like railway, colonial, owe.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has been pointed · have said · have spoken |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | could be argued · was actually worsened · had been governed |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | those who had · those who benefited |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.