Rift over Ukraine exposed as high-powered UK delegation to India called off
Boris Johnson tries to persuade Indian PM to take a more robust approach to Russia over invasion
House of Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle was to have led a cross-party delegation to India. Photograph: UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/PA
A high-powered cross-party UK delegation to India led by the Commons Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, and his deputy has been called off at the last minute in a sign of a growing rift over India’s refusal to distance itself from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The 10-strong delegation has been in discussion with India since January and was planning to visit Delhi and Rajasthan, but the Indian high commission is understood to have raised objections at the last minute.
Boris Johnson spoke with Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, on Tuesday in an attempt to use his influence to persuade India to take a more robust position over the Russian invasion. India has not imposed sanctions or even condemned Russia, its biggest supplier of military hardware.
The Speaker’s visit, the first of its kind to India and part of his effort to act as a diplomat between parliaments, was due to go ahead during the Easter parliamentary recess.
The delegation had originally been envisaged as giving a nudge to encourage progress on a UK-India free trade deal, but the context of the visit changed after the invasion of Ukraine in February, and Britain’s leading role in supporting the armed resistance of the Ukrainians.
It was not clear if India’s issues were with individual members of the chosen delegation or related to a wider concern about British MPs being given a platform in India to urge Modi to take a more robust position.
Britain has been concerned by reports that India’s central bank is in initial consultations on a rupee-rouble trade arrangement with Moscow that would enable exports to Russia to continue after western sanctions restricted international payment mechanisms.
The talks would allow India to continue to buy Russian energy exports and other goods.
However India, locked in a land border dispute with China, may feel it cannot afford to alienate its main arms supplier.
A high-powered cross-party UK delegation to India led by the Commons Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, and his deputy has been called off at the last minute in a sign of a growing rift over India’s refusal to distance itself from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The 10-strong delegation has been in discussion with India since January and was planning to visit Delhi and Rajasthan, but the Indian high commission is understood to have raised objections at the last minute.
Boris Johnson spoke with Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, on Tuesday in an attempt to use his influence to persuade India to take a more robust position over the Russian invasion. India has not imposed sanctions or even condemned Russia, its biggest supplier of military hardware.
The Speaker’s visit, the first of its kind to India and part of his effort to act as a diplomat between parliaments, was due to go ahead during the Easter parliamentary recess.
The delegation had originally been envisaged as giving a nudge to encourage progress on a UK-India free trade deal, but the context of the visit changed after the invasion of Ukraine in February, and Britain’s leading role in supporting the armed resistance of the Ukrainians.
It was not clear if India’s issues were with individual members of the chosen delegation or related to a wider concern about British MPs being given a platform in India to urge Modi to take a more robust position.
Britain has been concerned by reports that India’s central bank is in initial consultations on a rupee-rouble trade arrangement with Moscow that would enable exports to Russia to continue after western sanctions restricted international payment mechanisms.
The talks would allow India to continue to buy Russian energy exports and other goods.
However India, locked in a land border dispute with China, may feel it cannot afford to alienate its main arms supplier.
India's need to maintain supply of its military systems and critical spares for existing equipment from Russia is understandable. There is also the matter of oil and wheat , both of which India imports substantial amounts.
ReplyDeleteHowever , there is a matter of magnitude and proportion. If India is seen as indulging in active sanctions busting , there will be repercussions and costs.
Like most adults find out at some point in their life, sitting on the fence is often not an option in major , critical matters.
Either that, or there will be consequences and costs associated with sitting on the fence, one way or the other.
India's government leadership, mostly middle-aged to elderly men are still steeped in India's pre-1990's embrace of the USSR, later transferred to Russia.
These old men need to wake up and understand, as most young Indians do, that India's future well-being lies in cultivating economic and diplomatic affiliations with the Free-Market Democracies.
The glitzy future that India's Financial and Tech-centers like Mumbai, Bangalore , Chennai are reaching for , have their critical consequential connections with Silicon Valley, London, New York, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Sydney, Taipei.. ....
Moscow Central is India's past, not India's future. The Past is important , but you better learn to take care of your future.
Wakakakakaka…
DeleteMfering katak dibawah perigi advising India on how to survive on a new world order that it would never anticipate!
Go eat yr own fart - "future well-being lies in cultivating economic and diplomatic affiliations with the Free-Market Democracies"
India has a long history of her own.
ReplyDeleteYet under the pommie influence of close to 100yr of colony, plus that pivotal umbilic hateful caste system, the modern day Indians have lost/forgotten about that eon old history.
The newbie Indians only think about their pommie prides. They r yearning for western demoNcratic standards such that many able/intellectual Indians would rather work to serve their dreamed host countries, with that corresponding hedonistic & materialistic lifestyle, than returning to the motherland to help reinvigorating a modern & progressive India worthy of her past!
Never have they ever come to think of creating a new India - aka the modern China - in their own mold & under their own societal characteristics! In most of their mind, that India us a basket case of poverty & disillusionment.
Thus, the failing of the India in her current state of nowhere - neither socialist not capitalist. Meanwhile the huge population of the poor&trodden remain unseen, unknown & ignored.
"The glitzy future that India's Financial and Tech-centers like Mumbai, Bangalore , Chennai are reaching for , have their critical consequential connections with Silicon Valley, London, New York, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Sydney, Taipei.. ...."
No no NO!
That model is an illusion built on past world order that used to feed on the bloods of the disadvantages. It couldn't be sustained & its end time had begun.