In March 2017 , Tharoor called for the Victoria Memorial in Kolkata to be converted into a museum on atrocities by the United Kingdom during its rule in India . He wrote in an Al Jazeera column that British Empire " conquered one of the richest countries in the world ( 27 per cent of global gross domestic product in 1700 ) and reduced it to , after over two centuries of looting and exploitation , one of the poorest , most diseased and most illiterate countries on Earth by the time they left in 1947 . ... Nor is there any memorial to the massacres of the Raj , from Delhi in 1857 to Amritsar in 1919 , the deaths of 35 million Indians in totally unnecessary famines caused by British policy . " Although many people want him to contest as the Prime Minister candidate in 2019 General Elections , he has disowned , downplayed , and humbly distanced himself from any such online campaigns run by his large number of followers
Amritsar
Jallianwala Bagh massacre
Shashi Tharoor