Thorn in the crown

The recent kerfuffle over British aid to India is now off the news pages, which may be a good time to look at the broader context. During an earlier elimination round for India’s multi-billion dollar multi-role combat aircraft deal, the Americans and the Russians were miffed that we didn’t favour their planes; the Russians even cancelled some long-scheduled defence exercises to signal their displeasure. Now it’s the Brits’ turn to be upset with us, for the same reason. Our Air Force Chief must feel like the casting director of a play at a girls’ high school.

But it was Britain’s unhappiness that took a particularly pointed twist. Unlike the other countries, the rejection became a public issue. The UK media rose in uproar that India could dare to turn down Britain’s proffered hand when it was the recipient of some $400 million of aid each year. Ingratitude was bad enough, the tabloids screamed; but look at the profligacy of a government that spent billions on a fighter aircraft when it was taking British taxpayers’ money to feed its poor. It then got even messier. One journalist resurrected a two-year-old statement by Indian finance minister Pranab Mukherjee that British aid was “peanuts” that New Delhi could do without. The UK’s minister for overseas development was grilled on why he was spending money on India that the Indians clearly didn’t need.
There’s no easy answer, of course. Our overall relationship with Britain is a complicated one. The kingdom was India’s colonial master for two centuries and the source of both our Westminster-style parliamentary democracy and our obsession with cricket, not to mention the provenance of the English language that has been India’s calling-card to the world. India’s relations with Britain come with an extraordinary amount of historical baggage, compounded by the presence of some three million immigrants of Indian origin in the United Kingdom (numbers comparable to those of Indians in the US, but representing both a higher proportion of the population — some five per cent, as against one per cent in the US — and a very different demographic profile). Recent developments — India’s economic boom, its emergence as a global powerhouse to be reckoned with, and Europe’s concomitant decline — appear, however, to have reversed the historical pattern. It is now Britain that is seen as the supplicant, seeking to please an often-indifferent India.
The importance given to India in the foreign policy priorities of British Prime Minister David Cameron is striking: he visited the country to burnish his international credentials soon after being elected leader of the Conservative Party, and India became the second country (after the US) that he made an official visit to upon becoming Prime Minister. Barely eight weeks after taking office, Mr Cameron travelled to India with an unusually-large delegation of key ministers, including the Chancellor of the Exchequer, several well-heeled businessmen and a motley crew of MPs and academics in his entourage. His homage to the new India began with his arrival in Bengaluru, at the headquarters of Infosys Technologies, the shining example of India’s success in conquering world markets, where he also took the opportunity to lecture Pakistan on the need to abjure terrorism against India. Apart from pleasing his hosts, Mr Cameron was signalling a departure from what Indians had too-often seen in the past as a patronising and arrogant tone about India from British political leaders. He could not have begun his journey better.
At the same time, the substance of the relationship had been stagnating for some time, with trade showing little improvement from a plateau of $11 billion in 2008-2009. Mr Cameron’s visit signalled a spurt of some 20 per cent in the next fiscal year, which has led to talk of bilateral trade heading to $20 billion by 2015. Other areas also show both progress and setbacks. Despite the signing, also in Bengaluru, of an $800 million deal between British Aerospace and Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd for 57 advanced jet trainers, the potential for stronger defence ties remains largely unexplored. The operationalisation of the civilian nuclear agreement signed during Mr Cameron’s visit also remains to be tested in practice.
The media outcry in early 2012 over Britain’s modest development aid, which broke out when the fighter deal was announced, reflected many of the complexities that still bedevil the relationship. After two centuries of presiding over the systematic impoverishment of the Indian people, Britain arguably has a historical and moral responsibility towards the well-being of its former subjects. So the fact that it provides India annually with some $400 million of developmental assistance, mainly targeting beneficiaries in three of India’s poorest states, is perfectly reasonable: if the UK is to have an aid programme, it would make little sense not to aid poor Indians. When India picked the Rafale over the British-backed Eurofighter, however, the British media made it an issue of Indian “ingratitude”, not to mention profligacy, thereby conflating the poor Indians, whom its tax money was aiding, with the Government of India. Even sober commentators saw the decision as a setback to Mr Cameron’s efforts to establish Britain as a “partner of choice for India”.
This is where a distinction would be worth drawing. Don’t aid the Indian government — the cumulative aid it receives amounts to little over half of one per cent of the country’s GDP, and Pranab-da is not alone in wishing it away. But do aid poor Indians; they need it, because however much the Government of India is doing for them, their poverty is so dire that it can never be enough. So don’t give the aid to the same people who are buying fighter aircraft; channel it instead through charitable non-governmental organisations, British or Indian, working directly with the poor. That would not only help people in need; it would avoid a revival of this invidious debate.
One footnote. Given our history, things are always likely to be blown out of proportion. It did not help that India had dawdled for over six months in replacing its retiring high commissioner to the UK, suggesting that London figured low in New Delhi’s strategic priorities. Whatever the sins of his forebears, David Cameron’s Britain deserved better.

The writer is a member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram