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| Sunanda K Datta-Ray: Reverse East India Company | | Can Cameron explain how Indian enterprises in Britain will help India's economy? |
| Sunanda K Datta-Ray / New Delhi Jul 31, 2010, 00:18 IST |
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I was taken aback by David Cameron’s claim that Indian businesses employ 90,000 people in Britain. It seemed an exaggeration. But, then, I began counting, and the figure soon appeared to be a gross underestimate.
Indian restaurants alone (10,000 in 2003 according to one count) must absorb that number and more unless, of course, Britain’s prime minister is splitting legal hairs. But if he counts the restaurateurs as Bangladeshi, so must the food be. You try telling that to the Brit bent on his chicken tikka masala. Or change Madras vindaloo on the menu to Mymensingh vindaloo!
In fact, the curry pioneer — Sake Dean Mahomet whose weatherbeaten grave I discovered in Brighton — was more Bihari than Bengali. Sheikh Din Mohammed, to restore his real name, who launched the Hindostanee Coffee House in London in 1809, came from Patna.
But Cameron doesn’t want settlers. He wants expats. Not Swraj Paul’s Caparo but Tata’s Corus and Mittal’s Arcelor. He wants the East India Company process reversed. But could he explain to his hosts how the expansion of Indian enterprises in Britain, or any other foreign country, helps India’s economy?
Oh, afternoon tea at Fortnum and Mason must have been additionally thrilling for the very few Indian glitterati who knew that the “Queen’s Grocer” was Indian. Baroda’s flamboyant Maharaja Pratapsinhrao Gaekwad owned the shop until 1951. But splurging on a Fortnum’s hamper didn’t put a paise into any pocket in India. Neither does riding a Jaguar or Rover create jobs here except perhaps if the chauffeur is Indian. As for Arcelor, try telling adivasis not to join the Maoists because we own the world’s biggest steel mill.
So, why should Indians invest there? The British corporations and managing agencies that flowered in Calcutta were altogether different. The bosses were British. The products they sold were made or developed in Britain. Whatever they earned went back to Britain even though, sometimes, Indians provided the money to launch these undertakings. It doesn’t take a distinguished economist like Manmohan Singh to know that Indian companies in Britain are as irrelevant for India’s growth as Mohamed Al-Fayed’s Harrods was for Egypt’s.
This matters more than the Cameron’s commitment to curb what amounts to non-white immigration. Whatever one thinks of that, a country that aspires to superpower glory should be ashamed to send construction workers to Singapore and Malaysia, labourers to the Gulf, professionals to the US and people of all categories to Britain. Their need to seek a living abroad underlines the failure of the Indian state. Instead of accusing the Cameron government of racism, self-respecting Indians should try to ensure there are no reasons for the flight of manpower.
What New Delhi wants are British endorsement of its Security Council ambition, nuclear status and stand against Pakistan. Cameron promised the first; despite half-promises, Britain’s position on the other two will always remain dodgy. Remember the time when Churchill, lunching at Buckingham Palace, bowed to George VI and his consort and boomed, “I believe that this is the first time I have had the honour to be invited to luncheon by their Majesties the King and Queen of Pakistan”? Modern strategy and American priority reinforce historical sentiment.
What Cameron wants — especially after a dramatic fall in Indian imports from Britain — is our burgeoning market. He also seeks a share of India’s defence (the Hawks got the trip off to a flying start) and infrastructure spending. Hence soothing talk of a “special relationship” with Britain the “junior partner”. But pragmatism must contend with prejudice. Outsourcing may not be as controversial for Cameron as for Barack Obama but is nevertheless problematic. I was going to call railway inquiries in London once when an elderly Englishwoman burst out, forgetting who she was addressing, “Don’t! You’ll find yourself talking to Bangalore or Bombay or heaven knows where. They won’t know a thing and you won’t understand a word they say!”
Presumably, Cameron didn’t ruffle feathers by calling the prime minister “Manmohan” and the finance minister “Pranab”. But those who accused David Miliband (now hoping to one day take over Cameron’s job) of impertinence should remember that the problem is that the British are floundering in unaccustomed modernity. Otherwise, would Tony Blair’s father who wrote to congratulate his son in 1997 and signed himself “your loving Pa” receive a stiff acknowledgement addressed to “Mr L Pa”?
Much can be forgiven a nation that, having lost an empire, hasn’t — adapting Dean Acheson — found its bearings. Like India, Old Blighty bumbles along.
sunandadr@yahoo.co.in
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