Thiruvananthpuram MP and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has been in the news for some time after he wrote the book ‘Inglorious Empire’ highlighting the atrocities of British colonial rule in India.
This time, the subject of news is one of the excerpts from the book where Tharoor has compared Winston Churchill with Adolf Hitler stating that the latter has as much blood on his hands as the former.
“Churchill has as much blood on his hands as Hitler does. The Bengal Famine – millions died because of the decisions he took or endorsed.
Not only did the British follow its own policy of not helping the victims of this Famine, Churchill persisted in exporting grain to Europe, not to feed actual ‘Sturdy Tommies’ as he described them, but to add to the buffer stocks that were being piled up in the event of a future invasion of Greece and Yugoslavia,” UKAsia quoted Tharoor as saying in an interview.
He further mentioned that ships carrying wheat were coming to India from Australia during the famine but Churchill instructed his people to sail the cargo to Europe instead.
Tharoor added that Churchill’s statement after British officials wrote to the Prime Minister in London about the loss of lives, was that he wrote back ‘why hasn’t Gandhi died yet?’. Tharoor described it as a ‘permanent stain’ on colonial history demanding Churchill’s role to be re-examined.
Tharoor decided to write the book after his speech at Oxford Union went viral on the internet. Ever since, Tharoor has been in news for providing an ‘alternative narrative’ on British rule in India. Tharoor spoke with UKAsia during the launch of the book in London on March 5.
