United Kingdom revives a relationship

The Pioneer ^ | June 12, 2010 | Premen Addy

[James C. Bennett]

Amidst a haystack of words on the parlous state of the British economy, the Queen’s speech at the State Opening of Parliament contained the following needle of intent: “My Government looks forward to an enhanced partnership with India.” The Times took up the theme with a substantial report entitled “Hague heads east for new ‘special relationship’.” It told of the Foreign Secretary’s planned sojourn to India sometime this summer as “Britain’s new Government tries to turn cultural and trade ties with the emerging superpower into a ‘genuinely special relationship’.”

The Foreign Secretary’s aides later confirmed that the country was considered vital to forging a ‘distinctive British foreign policy’. Before the election Mr William Hague said that Britain needed to reach out beyond traditional allies in the US and Europe and that has remained a priority for the coalition Government. An aide to Mr Hague suggested that “relations with India had lagged behind China by about five to 10 years.” The aide said: “The truth is that this is a key relationship that has been neglected and we aim to address that.” A Foreign and Commonwealth Office briefing note read: “We need to better recognise India’s rising global influence and work closely with the Indian Government to address the many challenges facing South Asia.”

No man is an island, neither is any country, as another of the Queen’s lines made clear: “My Government will work with the Afghan Government, Pakistan and international partners for lasting security and stability in Afghanistan.”Pakistan is now part of the AfPak equation. The wind of change is blowing upon us, but whether it turns Gale Force 9 or remains a zephyr will be revealed in the fullness of time.

That said, there is nothing like a crisis to concentrate minds. The financial meltdown coming on top of Mr Tony Blair’s bungled crime in Iraq and the debilitating drain of blood and treasure in the deepening futility of Afghanistan clearly carries a message on course correction from the gods. Britain’s ‘special relationship’ with the US has lost its mythic attraction as a cure-all for the nation’s ills and insecurities following the loss of empire and the painful struggle to find a role in a transitional world. The Cold War was a distraction that concealed the hard realities. It enabled the UK to punch above its weight in the illusory pursuance of ‘Great Power’ status, which amounted to little more than inebriating dining rights at Uncle Sam’s high table.

The most myopic habits of the Raj were cast in stone. Islamic Pakistan, continuing the traditions and practices of the pre-partition Muslim League, became the hand-maiden of the Anglo-American post-War imperial enterprise. Phobias on international Communism and Russia resulted in a misbegotten dalliance between the West and conservative Islam, with its twin centres of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The containment of India, despite the commerce in ministerial banalities on shared values, was only less central to this narrative than the containment of the Soviet Union. Jammu & Kashmir, the liberation of Bangladesh from Pakistani thraldom, coupled with the eventual convergence of Anglo-American interests in Pakistan with those of China —the compact unfolding in the aftermath of the Nixon-Kissinger visits to Beijing in 1971-73 — became a seamless robe of Whitehall policy.

The stitching, it would appear, is now coming off. With Russian pipelines under the Baltic Sea, soon to supply German industry and the German consumer directly with Siberian oil and gas, nearing completion, the most powerful economy in the EU may start singing from a different hymn-sheet to those of its principal partners in Europe and Nato. Pakistan is in a shambles, a menace to itself, its neighbours, and to Britain and America. The hyped Chinese economy is a giant bubble in the making, according to certain reputable financial experts, while Beijing’s close relations with a rogue North Korea and a terrorism-exporting Pakistan says little for its trustworthiness as a true international partner.

Furthermore, New Delhi has faced down Beijing’s threatening postures on the Dalai Lama’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh, to which China lays claim. The re-calibration of British foreign policy is thus timely, opening the door to a win-win situation for both Britain and India. It would end the well honed dialogue of the deaf, the practice of talking past each other, as was once the wont of British and Indian diplomats and politicians, according to Mr Douglas Hurd, Mrs Margaret Thatcher’s suave and capable Foreign Secretary.

The new creative British conversation with India is likely to be based on all that is praiseworthy and lasting in Britain’s record in the sub-continent. Indian civilisation reached its nadir during late Mughal rule in the 18th century, but the first steps to its restoration and mutation as a modern nation state occurred under the aegis of Warren Hastings, when the Bhagavad Gita received its English rendition by Charles Wilkins, thanks to the Governor-General’s efforts to promote the work. A galaxy of British Indologists such as Jones, Carey, Colebrooke, Wilson, Prinsep, Hodgson, Tod, Cunningham and Max Muller et al over the next century returned to India her lost classical past, so seeding liberal Indian nationalism.

Of these early discoveries of Sanskrit, Hastings wrote: “These will survive when the British dominion in India shall have long ceased to exist, and when the sources which it once yielded of wealth and power are lost to remembrance.” Lest it be forgotten, the founder of the Indian National Congress in December 1885 was the revered Allan Octavian Hume and India’s political institutions and their cultural underpinnings were seeded in the British experience. The last British Viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, was invited by Indian leaders to become free India’s first Governor-General, a gesture never quite appreciated by Britain’s great and good down the years.

At a time when the Indo-British reset button is being pressed, let us recall that Winston Churchill, who had once dismissed his Indian adversaries as “men of straw,” came to respect and laud the one among them he knew best in his last years as Britain’s Prime Minister. Writing to Jawaharlal Nehru on February 21, 1955, Churchill said: “I hope you will think of the phrase ‘The Light of Asia’. It seems to me that you may be able to do what no other human being could in giving India the lead, at least in the realm of thought, throughout Asia, with the freedom and dignity of the individual as the ideal rather than Communist Party drill book.”

[James C. Bennett]

Related:

UK Government pushes ahead in cuts bid

(UKPA) – Jun 8, 2010

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5gpSatZsuV2ySsQqmh2ZUtywydXFw

The coalition is pushing ahead with efforts to slash the deficit after George Osborne appealed for the public to help identify where cuts can be made.
The Government’s working group to eradicate waste will meet for the first time, with ministers determined to realise quick savings.

The Chancellor said reducing spending by billions of pounds was a “national challenge” as he outlined the Government’s approach to the looming Comprehensive Spending Review.
A series of consultations will be held so the “brightest and best” from society, business and charities can provide ideas on reshaping provision of services to reduce costs. Ministers will also be forced to justify every item of departmental expenditure before a “Star Chamber” of senior colleagues, while welfare and pensions bills are to be re-examined. The announcements were condemned by opponents as a political “Axe Factor” and lacking in substance.

But the coalition received support from a surprising quarter when Labour’s former City minister insisted there was “considerable waste” that could be cut. In an extraordinary attack, Lord Myners also told peers he had been frustrated by his ex-colleagues’ “flawed thinking” on the economy, and said there was “nothing progressive” about running up huge public debt.

Setting out his plans in the Commons, Mr Osborne said: “We are going to have a more collegiate approach. We are genuinely seeking to engage as many people as possible, the brightest civil servants across all the Government departments, the best people from the devolved administrations, the best people from pressure groups, independent think-tanks and the frontline public services.”

The Chancellor said the UK needed to learn from Canada’s experience tackling a massive budget deficit in the 1990s. “They asked probing questions about every part of Government spending. They engaged the public in the choices that had to be made and they took the whole country with them,” he said. “That is what we will seek to do. We are committed to carrying out Britain’s unavoidable deficit reduction plan in a way that strengthens and unites this country.”