Forget photo shoots, these are the issues Boris Johnson should have addressed in India

India’s role in the world, and in relation to the UK, deserves far more serious attention than it currently receives, writes Vince Cable

Popular press coverage of the PM’s visit was scant, but helps to explain why Britain is not taken very seriously in India (AFP via Getty)

One little-noticed event in Boris Johnson’s calendar last week was his two-day trip to India. It merited a few photos of him in a turban surrounded by saffron-clothed priests, and the odd reference to a scrawny little rabbit he hoped to pull out of his hat, called “Brexit opportunities”.

In fact, India’s role in the world, and in relation to the UK, deserves far more serious attention than it currently receives. It matters that India is now the third-biggest economy in the world after China and the USA. It matters that this country of 1.4 billion people is managing to function as – by far – the world’s biggest democracy. And it matters that it has chosen, like most of the non-western world, to stand aside from the Russia-Ukraine war as a disinterested neutral.

Popular press coverage of the PM’s visit was scant, but helps to explain why Britain is not taken very seriously in India. There was confected enthusiasm for the export opportunities, notably the prospect of our selling more whisky to a nation composed mainly of teetotallers, and for more diggers to be sent to the UK from the Indian factory of a leading Tory party donor.

Also on the list was our graciousness in allowing a few more, very valuable, Indian IT specialists to work, temporarily, in the UK; and the need for Boris to admonish this naughty little boy of a country for failing to follow our line on Ukraine.

A more useful perspective might be gained by dwelling on the fact that India, unlike the UK, is becoming one of the world’s economic superpowers. Roles have been reversed since the days of empire. According to the World Bank (and confirmed by published data from the US CIA), India has a $10 trillion economy in terms of purchasing power, about half the size of the USA or the EU taken as a whole. The UK’s, on this measure, is around $3 trillion, the 10th biggest in the world (not, as our leaders like to claim, the fifth).

India is also currently the world’s most rapidly growing major economy, surpassing China, while Britain, according to the IMF, has fallen to the bottom among the G7 countries. All of this would suggest that some humility is in order.

India, however, is not an easy country in which to do business. The labyrinthine complexity of India’s laws, regulations and taxation deter many foreign companies. Others become entangled for years in disputes, as have Vodafone and Cairn Energy.

As business secretary, I discovered in four rounds of trade negotiations in India that promises of market openings are made with great charm and plausibility but are slow to materialise. Nonetheless, in a generation’s time, India – along with China – will dominate the world economy. Working within its systems may be difficult, but will become a necessary skill.

India also matters profoundly because it is by far the biggest major country making democracy work. It is something of a modern miracle that an electorate 20 times as big as that of the UK regularly turns out to vote in highly competitive (and generally free) elections at both national and state level.

However, as in the UK, the country’s democracy is imperfect. Many of its politicians have a history of criminality (a score on which the UK is catching up fast). The rich buy influence (as they do here), and there are pressures to undermine the impartiality of judges and the plurality of the media (also, as here).

There are also more serious concerns that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) exploits Hindu anti-Muslim (also anti-Christian) feeling for political gain. There are localised pogroms and expressions of religious fundamentalism.

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The BJP’s doctrine appears to be that the family of political and social institutions that has grown up around Hinduism – the Hindutva – represents a kind of steel frame that holds this vast, diverse country together. There are some parallels with the role of the Communist Party in China, and, as there, “separatist” groups are not viewed kindly. India now finds itself on the “countries at risk” list kept by Genocide Watch, who say Islamophobia has become a “state-manufactured ideology”.

The Congress Party, which represented secular, liberal values in India, has succumbed to corruption and exhaustion. In recent state elections, the main challenge to the politics of religion came from the politics of caste: another form of divisive identity politics.

What is uncomfortable for Britain in particular is that none of this is likely to be solved by lecturing and preaching by us or by western allies. India is growing more confident that the souring of western relations with Russia and China will stand it in good stead to be a leading force economically and politically, whatever its domestic politics.

One of India’s wisest heads – the former prime minister, Manmohan Singh – has written this week of the need to replace the collapsed liberal international order with a new one that India will help to lead and not meekly follow. It is striking that, within that order, when it comes to the war in Europe and relations with Russia, the approach of India – along with most of what used to be called the “third world” – is one of pragmatic self-interest. Amid the crisis, emerging countries see opportunity.

Boris Johnson’s successor will have to eschew the posed photo shoots and make more time for a serious dialogue with India on these issues.

Sir Vince Cable is the former leader of the Liberal Democrats and served as secretary of state for business, innovation and skills from 2010 to 2015. His podcast ‘Cable Comments’ is available here