TRK Travelogues
Subhash Chopra
Indo-British partnership - Gordon Brown's Passage to India
The
immense fund of goodwill between the two lies untapped, especially
investment in infrastructure, for lack of initiative by British
industry, writes
Subhash Chopra
Partnership, like love, is in the air and the vibes are coming not just from the Indian diaspora known as Non-Resident Indians or NRIs but from the global village. Leaders and delegations from Russia, World Trade Organisation (WTO), European Union and other friends have been enjoying India’s warmth and winter sunshine. Not to be left behind has been the contingent from the old partner, the United Kingdom, both as a member of EU and in its own individual right, and led by no less than Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer and prime minister-in-waiting.
For Chancellor Brown it was his first visit to the country on which he has been bullish for a long time. As if to underscore the financial partnership theme, he was accompanied by none other than cabinet colleague Alistair Darling, Trade and Industry Secretary, tipped to be Brown’s successor as chancellor when Brown moves into No.10 Downing Street some time this year.
No surprise that Brown pitched his expectations pretty high by declaring at a gathering in Bangalore in January that he would like to see Indo-British trade double by 2010 and quadruple by 2020. The two-way trade has grown from about £5 billion in 2002 to around £8 billion in 2005, a brisk rise after languishing at a snail's pace in earlier years. To make his message clear beyond doubt Brown put his political weight behind Indo-British partnership by adding: ‘Let me say Britain strongly supports India’s bid for a permanent place with others on a larger (UN) Security Council.’
Speaking at the Confederation of Indian Industry’s 13th Partnership Summit, Brown also touched on his favourite subject — education — by stressing: ‘Our aim in Britain is what I detect is your ambition for India: to celebrate, and not constrain scientific and engineering exploration and discovery; to nurture the new creative industries.’
Brown's meeting with Indian Finance Minister P Chidambaram seemed to click instantly with the latter almost hinting at a budgetary move (that may well have to wait quite a while ) to raise foreign share holdings in Indian insurance sector to forty-nine per cent from the current limit of twenty-six per cent.
The visiting Trade Secretary, Alistair Darling, on his part assured Indian entrepreneurs that his government was neutral on any takeover of British companies (be it Tata Steel's takeover of Anglo-Dutch Corus or any other). ‘Any Indian company can come and buy any business in the UK. We need to make sure it becomes a two-way process,’ he said after meeting Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath. Good straight talk at a time when India has become the second or third largest investor in Britain and when Indian groups are looking purchase-hungry.
Brown and Darling's visit was underpinned by the arrival of a 150-strong British business delegation, the largest ever, led by Lord Karan Bilimoria, the chairman of Indo-British Partnership Network. An old India hand, he is one of the youngest members of the House of Lords, and a Pravasi Bharti or a Person of Indian Origin Bilimoria is spearheading Indo-British partnership with a special zeal. He is a strong advocate of globalisation, which he believes is inevitable. He believes in adapting to new conditions and cashing in on new opportunities rather that protecting old industries. Citing the example of British shipping, once a pillar of national economy, he said it simply could not be protected. But Britain rightly found new strengths in areas like financial services and tourism.
Similarly Bilimoria wants India to further open up its banking, insurance, accountancy and legal sectors instead of protecting them beyond a certain limit. He finds India's red tape a big disincentive for investment and trade, though he concedes that it has become less severe over the years.
However, the Indian perception of globalisation is not quite as rosy. Bluntly put, globalisation is a suspect word among sizeable sections of Indian opinion-makers. The agriculture sector is a prime example where hefty subsidies to their farmers by Europe and America have destroyed any hope for a level playing field for small farmers in India and several other countries. The WTO's Doha Round is stuck precisely because of that.
True there is a lot of red tape in India, yet there is a feeling that the British industry, like the proverbial lady, protests too much. It needs to start grabbing the opportunity India offers or see the prize go to non-English speaking Chinese, Russians and others. India needs investment in infrastructure in areas like hotels and tourism in which Britain has an excellent record. But sadly British industry has shown little interest so far. The goodwill and easy access created by English language has been amply exploited by the Americans but rather frittered away by the British originators of that language legacy.
In sharp contrast to the U.S. moves for issuing more visas for highly skilled persons from India, as recently sought by President George Bush, Britain has thought fit to bring in retrospective curbs on employment and settlement opportunities for a mere 30,000 invited immigrants -- a minuscule number compared with over 600,000 migrants from Poland and other EU countries. Fortunately there is still some hope that this irritant will blow away as elements in ruling Labour and Tory opposition seem to be united against any retrospective change of rules.
The other cloud cast by Britain’s Channel 4 Big Brother television programme-in-the-raw starring India's Shilpa Shetty and Britain's Jane Goody will be onsigned to the bin where it rightly belongs — thanks to forthright and timely condemnation by Brown and entire British leadership as well as by ndian opinion leaders.
Indo-British partnership is on course. All it needs is a drive to focus on the immense fund of goodwill that lies untapped.
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