Imperial Receipts - Moscow Special Episode

At 4:30pm Moscow time on Monday, August 18, we air a special preview episode. It was filmed in Moscow in June, with the participation of Russian and international students and experts on a variety of topics, both of the past and present.

In this episode, Dr. Tharoor highlights that India’s economy has now overtaken Britain’s - a contrast to the fact that when the British left, 90% of Indians lived below the poverty line, the literacy rate was just 16%, and life expectancy only 27. So there’s no inferiority complex in India, only determination to develop further.

On the acknowledgement from the former colonizers, he said one way to make up would be to have the “unvarnished” truth of colonialism to be taught in schools, as students in Britain can still complete A-levels in history without learning about it.

Dr. Tharoor notes that one of colonialism’s most damaging legacies is the “colonization of the mind,” which makes people see their culture as inferior. India, he said, was luckier than many, as it was able to preserve its classical dance, music, sciences, Ayurveda, and yoga.

He also explains India’s “strategic autonomy” and previous non-alignment foreign policy as shaped by colonial history: “For 200 years, somebody else has been deciding what you're supposed to stand for in the world. The last thing you want to do is to surrender as an independent nation your right to have your own view to anybody else.”