The UK?s new coalition government has promised to cultivate an ?enhanced relationship? with India. The idea is not a new one: PM Manmohan Singh referred to ties between the two countries as a ?very special relationship? as far back as in 2005, and two years ago Britain?s Parliament called for a ?special relationship? with India along the lines of the country?s close ties with the US.
Many would agree with the PM that Britain and India already have a special relationship, even beyond their shared history. Indians make up the largest number of non-EU professional migrants to the UK and the second-largest group of foreign students (after the Chinese). Trade and FDI increase every year: in 2009, India was the second-largest source of foreign capital for British companies, and Britain the third-largest FDI source for Indian business. More permanent ties remain important, too: Indians form the largest non-British ethnic group in the UK.
Relations between Britain and India are unlikely ever to be as close as the UK?s current level of defence and security cooperation with the US. Nor will ties with India return to what they were in the early years after Independence, when Britain routinely shared details of its defence policy with India and helped build the country?s intelligence services. But that does not mean that an enhanced relationship would not be a good idea for India, despite the country?s increasing focus on the Gulf and East Asia.
India?s position on the world stage may well improve through closer ties to Britain. The UK has long been a strong advocate of broadening executive control of international organisations like the UN and the World Bank to include countries other than the traditional ?great powers?, and it has been a firm supporter of India?s bid for a permanent seat on the Security Council. For India, a closer relationship with Britain must include moving these aspirations higher up the UK?s policy agenda and the world?s.
A closer relationship with Britain may well mean some intricate footwork for the MEA. Many of the interests that India must seek to protect or enhance will put diplomats in the awkward position of encouraging a Tory-led, instinctively Eurosceptic administration to work more closely with the EU. Trade and investment abroad are now EU competencies rather than domestic British ones, so even improving commercial and financial ties between the two countries will mean convincing Britain to engage more tightly with Europe.
Given the layers of complexity involved in an enhanced relationship with Britain, India may have to rethink its relationship with UK-based Indians and PIOs. Until now both groups have had comparatively little involvement in lobbying the British government on issues other than trade and investment. This contrasts with their Pakistani counterparts, who have routinely used their electoral clout in Britain?s north to compel local MPs to speak out their viewpoint on Kashmir. In part, this is because British Indians are more diverse in their origins than British Pakistanis, less geographically concentrated and less likely to be involved in local politics ?back home?. But it is also true that India has generally tended to ignore the diaspora?s potential to influence Britain?s political agenda.
India?s ability to make its case to Britain will be helped by what it has to offer Britain beyond the size of its consumer market and its growing regional power. Indian business has lessons for Britain as the latter tries to make its way out of recession. Over the past three decades, British companies have adopted the American corporate model, with its focus on star CEOs, shareholder value, high margins, tightly-held intellectual property and increasing centralisation. Indian business and management models have much to teach Britain: frugal innovation, smaller margins, infrastructure-sharing, scaling out to local markets, greater focus on staff and more consensual leadership. Indian companies can remind large British businesses of the value of stable long-term ownership, the importance of an over-riding sense of purpose and the benefits of serving customers in person near where they live.
Much of what British business needs right now can already be found in India. India?s family-owned corporates and Mumbai?s dabbawallahs are prime examples of the link between lasting success, a real sense of belonging and the importance of having a stake in a business.
India?s cutting-edge eye and heart hospitals can show Britain?s sclerotic health service how to use high-volume private medicine to make expensive treatments available to more people.
Britain may well find that the lead agenda in its new enhanced relationship belongs to India.
The author is a researcher in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge
