The ghosts of the past are proving to be an opportunity for today’s politicians. Hundreds of dead corpses left to rot after the mindless massacre orchestrated by Brigadier General Reginald Dyer, are, a century later, proving to be useful tools to build ‘vote banks.’
Spectacular speeches at elite universities, highlighting the dark deeds of the empire, have nursed wounded political careers back to health. Appeals for an apology and demands for reparations have also turned out to be a lucrative market opportunity; publishers sell books, newspapers sell opinion editorials, and literature festivals sell events to urban literati. Byte-sized media oomph with grandiloquence, go viral on social media and authors emerges out of political doom, metamorphosed as crusaders against colonial oppression.
Shashi Tharoor, a former UN diplomat and Member of Parliament, stands out as a stellar example of this clever marketing ploy. He chastises colonial oppression, calls out Winston Churchill’s racist policies and seeks an apology from the current British government. In a recent article published in rt.com, he writes:
The centenary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre is the right occasion for Britain to apologise for the evils of colonialism. Two years ago, on the UK publication of my book Inglorious Empire: What The British Did to India, I took the unusual step of demanding an apology from Britain to India. I even suggested the time and place – the centenary, on April 13, 2019, of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in Amritsar. This single event was in many ways emblematic of the worst of the “Raj,” the British Empire in India.
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