Manjari Chatterjee Miller (Boston University) writes:
My analysis found that governments in 78% of such cases have not asked to be compensated for historical acts of injustice against them. Why don’t more victim states press for intercountry redress?
The answer lies in the fact that colonial pasts and atoning for injustices are controversial – not just in what were perpetrator countries, but also in their victims.
What to ask redress for, from whom and for whom are complicated questions with no easy answers. And there are often divergent narratives within victim countries.
As a result, there is a disproportionate amount of attention paid to whether perpetrator countries offer redress. They are lauded when they enact redress and shamed when they do not.
The processes pertaining to redress within victim countries – the former colonies – gets less attention.
India is an example of the difficulty in building consensus for official redress. Take the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919, in which British troops killed hundreds of peaceful protesters, including women and children.
The Indian government has never officially asked for an apology from the United Kingdom over the incident.
Part of the problem is different groups within India have different narratives about the 200 years of British colonial rule.
No one disputes that the Raj was exploitative and violent. But which acts of violence to emphasize? How much responsibility should be assigned to the British? And should any positive attributes of the Raj be highlighted? These are all debated.
