As India shakes off its colonial history, are the British captive to it ?

India's history with Britain is brutal. Economist Utsa Patanik's research claims the British stole $US45 trillion from India throughout its rule, among a series of other alleged crimes.

India's former Foreign Secretary and current Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Dr Kanwal Sibal, is no stranger to the impacts of the British in South Asia, having had to move as a child from his family home in what is now Pakistan at the time of partition.

Dr Sibal told 360info's Leave it To The Experts that under the British Empire, "The whole attitude was to tax India, to exploit India, take those resources to fuel the economic growth and prosperity, in Britain itself."

However he believes that there are other ways to repay India for the crimes of the empire, rather than reparations.