DC Edit | India-UK Ties Are on Firm Footing Again After 3 Years
The pinpricks do remain — visa and economic fugitive issues and Sikh separatism that seems to have taken firm roots in the UK as well
It is remarkable how quickly India’s ties with Britain have strengthened in the last few months in the wake of the major trade deal signed in July. Today, Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Keir Starmer are speaking of how the UK and India are natural partners; what kept the two nations from finding each other in the modern age must remain a mystery unless it can be surmised that the colonial hangover and mutual suspicions conspired for long to cause this hiatus.
It’s an uncertain world in which this high point in ties is being arrived at with the Trump factor probably a good reason even if the hard work of three years had seen the deal take substantial shape before the full US tariff effect struck India like bolts of lightning.
The British PM, travelling with the largest business delegation of 100 CEOs, educators and cultural leaders, was given the full India treatment with huge posters and cutouts of him and Prime Minister Modi lining Mumbai streets — a visible endorsement of the two nations signing the most ambitious deal that India has ever attempted.
As Mr Starmer said, the trade deal was the springboard that has energised this push which saw the British team enjoy a virtual Bollywood scotch party to celebrate a take-off across sectors as diverse as defence, education, health and climate change. The British see an unparalleled opportunity in democratic India’s economy, set to be the world’s third largest in three years while Indian traders are elated that their goods will by next summer have tariff-free access to UK markets.
The pinpricks do remain — visa and economic fugitive issues and Sikh separatism that seems to have taken firm roots in the UK as well. But the newfound trust in each other could have seen Prime Ministers Modi and Starmer discuss issues without inhibition, with India bringing up the space in the UK for Khalistan sympathisers even as the topic of the continued incarceration of a Sikh activist in an Indian jail for seven years came up for discussion.
It is a concatenation of circumstances that may have led to what is best described as an awakening in Britain of the economic heft of its former colony and the realisation in India that trade could be on the table while other issues may be allowed to fester. This is what India may have learnt from its dealings with China, which post the Trump tariffs have been displaying a degree of rapprochement even as the border issue remains.
The trade deal itself may be subject to approval of the British parliament, but it has already led to the commitment of a billion-dollar Indian investment into the UK and 7,000 jobs to be created. In the Trump era of heavy restrictions on foreign students, specifically Indians, education has become a vital link with UK universities, as well as Australian and others, rushing to seal land deals and launch on-site campuses in India.
In the AI era of technological leap, keeping Indian youth abreast of the latest developments in STEM education can be highly rewarding and what better way than to make this a home-grown enterprise in times of nations clamping down on visas.
The possibilities are immense, as amply illustrated in India signing up to buy UK missiles worth Rs 4,000 crores for its defence, besides naval engines. And never mind if the Trump factor was what has impelled this journey of rediscovery of an association that is as old as Chennai is today, 381 years after the British bought their first piece of land to build Fort St George.
