Britain may apologise for acts of slavery:PM Andy Burnham rejects compensation for affected countries despite 400-year-long slave trade history

Britain is considering an apology for enslaving and selling African people, according to Prime Minister Andy Burnham. Burnham wrote this in an article published in the British newspaper The Guardian on Friday. He has rejected demands for economic compensation to be paid to countries affected by slavery. Britain enslaved and sold African people for around 400 years. Burnham now says that Britain will begin talks with countries and organisations affected by slavery on the issue. PM says today’s generation is not responsible for past crimes Burnham wrote that today’s British citizens cannot be held responsible for mistakes made hundreds of years ago. People living today had no role in the crimes committed at that time. They wrote that Britain could instead help poor Commonwealth countries repay their debts. A plan led by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown is proposed for this purpose. Under the plan, efforts would be made to give poor countries more time to repay their debts and offer them lower interest rates. Britain would also help these countries adopt clean energy. Britain enslaved 32 lakh Africans According to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, Britain transported around 32 lakh Africans across the Atlantic Ocean and enslaved them. 1. European countries collectively captured and sold more than 12.5 million Africans into slavery. 2. Britain banned the slave trade in 1807. It passed a law to abolish slavery in 1833, which came into effect in 1834. 3. Enslaved people did not receive full freedom until 1838. After slavery was abolished, Britain compensated slave owners rather than the victims. 4. The government paid £20 million (around ₹2,550 crore) to slave owners. This was nearly 40% of Britain’s annual budget at the time. The British government took out loans to fund these payments and continued repaying the debt until 2015. 20 lakh workers were also sent abroad from India for employment After the abolition of slavery, Britain began sending workers from India to other countries to meet labour shortages in its colonies. This system was known as the indentured labour system. Between 1838 and 1917, around 2 million Indians were sent to British colonies, including countries in the Caribbean and South Africa, to work. Many of these workers were not properly informed about their working conditions. They were made to work on farms and plantations for low wages. Shashi Tharoor says Britain should apologise for atrocities in India too Congress MP and author Shashi Tharoor has reacted to Burnham’s statement. He wrote on X that Britain should apologise not only for slavery but also for the atrocities and looting carried out in India. Tharoor told The Hindu that Britain’s failure to apologise so far for the looting, devastation and deaths in India was shameful. He said no amount of money would be enough to compensate India for the damage it suffered, but Britain should acknowledge its mistakes. Tharoor has previously suggested that Britain should pay India symbolic compensation of £1 every year for 200 years. He says it is more about acknowledging its historical wrongs than about the amount of money. King Charles acknowledges: People suffered great injustice in the past King Charles of Britain is currently visiting Caribbean countries. Before the Commonwealth meeting, he said in the Bahamas that people had suffered greatly in the past and had been treated unjustly. However, he did not offer a formal apology for this. Buckingham Palace in Britain has said that the decision to apologise rests with the country’s elected government. Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley welcomed Burnham’s statement. However, she made it clear that Caribbean countries would continue to demand financial compensation for slavery. ​