Colonial Reparations, Borrowed Narratives and Sri Lanka’s Historical Reality

Photo courtesy of Sri Lanka by Ish

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister recently stated that the country should seek compensation from former imperial powers for the economic destruction caused by colonialism while also expressing intentions to reclaim Sri Lankan artifacts currently held in British museums. While the question of cultural restitution deserves serious and nuanced discussion, the broader claim of colonial-era economic destruction requires closer scrutiny.

At first glance, this argument appears persuasive. However, upon examination, it closely mirrors a post-colonial narrative developed primarily in the Indian context – most notably articulated by historian and politician Shashi Tharoor in his widely cited Oxford Union debate. The issue is not that Tharoor’s argument is weak; rather, it is that it is being applied to a historical context where it does not fit.

Tharoor’s case against British colonialism in India is grounded in substantial historical evidence.

Before British domination, India accounted for approximately 23-25% of global GDP in the early 18th century. By the time of independence in 1947, that share had fallen to around 3-4%. This decline was not accidental. British colonial policy systematically deindustrialised India, dismantling its globally competitive textile and manufacturing sectors while turning the country into a supplier of raw materials and a captive market for British goods.

Colonial rule also coincided with state managed or exacerbated famines, most notably the Bengal Famine of 1943, in which millions died despite the availability of food. During long periods of British rule, life expectancy stagnated or declined and literacy rates remained below 20% at independence, reflecting deliberate underinvestment in mass education.

In short, India experienced a civilisational scale economic and social rupture under colonialism. Whether one agrees with reparations or not, the historical basis for India’s claim is internally coherent and empirically grounded.

Sri Lanka’s experience under colonial rule, while exploitative and often violent, was not comparable in scale or structure to that of India.

Sri Lanka was not a global economic superpower prior to colonisation. There is no credible evidence of a dramatic collapse in global economic share nor of systematic deindustrialisation of a major manufacturing economy. Unlike in India, British rule in Sri Lanka did not produce mass, empire-wide famines engineered through state policy.

This does not imply that colonialism was benign. It was not. Land was appropriated, economic priorities were distorted to serve imperial interests and political sovereignty was lost. However, exploitation alone does not automatically translate into long term national economic destruction.

Sri Lanka’s most severe economic crises, including the recent collapse, are overwhelmingly the result of post-independence decisions: poor fiscal discipline, unsustainable debt, corruption, weak institutions, ethnic majoritarian politics and decades of policy mismanagement. To attribute these failures primarily to colonialism is not historical analysis; it is political convenience.

Few former colonies pursue broad-based economic reparations claims today. Where such claims exist, in parts of the Caribbean or Africa, they are typically narrow, evidence-based and linked to specific atrocities such as slavery or genocide.

India stands out as an exception because its pre-colonial economic dominance and subsequent collapse are historically demonstrable. Sri Lanka does not share that trajectory. Importing India’s reparations narrative without equivalent historical evidence weakens Sri Lanka’s credibility and obscures the real causes of its contemporary problems.

Blaming colonialism for modern economic failure may offer emotional satisfaction and political cover but it avoids the far more uncomfortable task of confronting our own post-independence mistakes.

If Sri Lanka is serious about pursuing compensation, there is one morally and historically robust case that stands apart from the borrowed Indian narrative:
the Indian Tamil estate workers.

These workers were brought to Sri Lanka by the British to sustain the plantation economy under conditions of extreme exploitation. They were paid starvation wages, housed in degrading conditions, denied basic rights and treated as disposable labour – a system that closely resembled colonial-era slave labour.

The injustice did not end with independence. Their descendants were stripped of citizenship, excluded from political participation and marginalised socially and economically for decades. This represents clear intergenerational harm, directly traceable to colonial policy and compounded by post-independence state actions.

If compensation is to be demanded, it should be for this community and their historical suffering, not for an abstract claim of national economic destruction that lacks comparable evidence.

The question of Sri Lankan artifacts held in British museums is a separate and legitimate issue. Cultural objects removed under colonial conditions deserve serious reassessment and repatriation where appropriate.

Economic reparations, however, require context-specific historical proof, not imported arguments crafted for another country’s experience. Sri Lanka does itself no favours by adopting a narrative that does not match its historical reality.

A mature engagement with history requires distinguishing between colonial exploitation, post-colonial failure and present day accountability. If Sri Lanka truly wishes to move forward, it must confront its past honestly, including the parts that are uncomfortable not because of imperial powers but because of our own choices since independence.