UK think tank lists India in ‘Difficult 4’; clubs India with China, Saudi, Turkey | India News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: Even as UK and India seem like resetting their relations publish Brexit, a serious British think tank has a phrase of warning for the British authorities. “While giving India the attention it deserves, the UK government needs to accept that gaining direct national benefit from the relationship, whether economically or diplomatically, will be difficult,” says the brand new report by Chatham House.
The report, “Global Britain, Global Broker” questions whether or not the UK, regardless of its inherent strengths, would be capable to keep away from dropping affect in the world. It observes that regardless of the evident shortcomings, “Britain has remained influential because it is one of the few countries capable of combining its diverse national assets — diplomatic, military, intelligence and humanitarian — to pursue its interests beyond its shores.”
Calling for a “shift in strategic focus” the UK, the report says, ought to have extra life like targets about creating deeper ties with India, which it clubs with China, Saudi Arabia and Turkey because the “difficult four”.
“India’s importance to the UK is inescapable. … But it should be obvious by now that the idea of a deeper relationship with India always promises more than it can deliver. The legacy of British colonial rule consistently curdles the relationship. In contrast, the US has become the most important strategic partner for India, as recent US administrations have intensified their bilateral security relations, putting the UK in the shade,” says the report.
The report goes on to say that India’s “complex, fragmented domestic politics have made it one of the countries most resistant to open trade and foreign investment.” In addition, “the overt Hindu nationalism of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is weakening the rights of Muslims & other minority religious groups, leading to a chorus of concern that intolerant majoritarianism is replacing the vision of a secular, democratic India bequeathed by Nehru.”
The British overseas coverage institution is at present in the method of re-writing its overseas coverage focus, bringing the Indo-Pacific entrance and centre of the brand new insurance policies.
The report is important of Boris Johnson’s initiative of organising a D10 membership of democratic international locations, and notably, together with India in it. “Including India in a D10 at this time could make building any meaningful consensus on policy or joint actions that much harder. India has a long and consistent record of resisting being corralled into a ‘Western’ camp. It led the Non-Aligned Movement during the Cold War and, in 2017, India formally joined the China-and Russia-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.”
In a critique of India’s diplomatic behaviour, the report factors out that regardless of border clashes with China, “India did not join the group of countries that criticized China at the UN in July 2019 over human rights violations in Xinjiang. India has also been muted in its criticism of the passage of the new national security law in Hong Kong. With Indian domestic politics also having entered a more ethno-nationalist phase, as noted earlier, a D10 might end up functioning as a D9 at some point in the future, with all the damaging knock-on effects this would have on the UK’s relations with India.”