In his memoirs The Labour Government 1964-1970: A Personal Record published in 1971, Harold Wilson admitted that it was wrong on his part to issue such a statement, “because all the facts were too much in dispute”, and blamed a pro-Pakistan faction in the CRO who had inveigled him into issuing such a statement blaming India, “justified as they said by cast-iron evidence.” But these allegations about the partisan role of a ‘pro-Pakistan faction’ in the CRO were dismissed by Sir Algernon Rumbold, who was then the Deputy Permanent Under-Secretary of State in the CRO, in a letter to The Times published on 5 August 1971 claiming that for an early end to the war, the statement issued from 10 Downing Street was impartial ‘as between the two parties.’ Was it really so? Arthur Bottomley, the Commonwealth Secretary ~ who was in Scotland at the time and returned to London the following day ~ claimed later that had he been present in London on the 6th, no such statement would have been issued from 10 Downing Street.
The statement which was probably drafted by some official(s) in the CRO and sent for the Prime Minister’s consideration was based on the report sent by the then British High Commissioner in New Delhi ~ John Freeman. He reported in a telegram, received in London at 11.20 a.m. on 6 September: “I have no firm evidence that the Pakistan Army had themselves crossed the international boundary up to last night.” As much was claimed later by the senior-most official in the CRO at that time, in a ‘personal and confidential’ letter to Wilson. John Freeman was not anti-India.
Perhaps misguided by the anti-India reports being published in the British press emanating from Pakistan, he failed to take note of the statement issued by a spokesman of the Government of India on 1 September after the Pakistani attack: “…it is our understanding that the attackers have crossed the international border.” In a damage-limitation exercise in April 1966, Wilson met Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was returning to India from New York at London airport. They talked for about two hours and these discussions, in Wilson’s words, “were able to do something to repair the harm done by the statement of the previous September. I explained what had happened and made clear what I felt about the mistake.” The British attitude towards the Indo-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir had been one of the major causes of tensions in IndoBritish relations. Learning from past experience, Britain decided not to intervene in the Kashmir dispute, unless requested by the two sides.
This was stated by Michael Stewart, then Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, during his visit to India (and Pakistan) in December 1968. By the end of the decade, as Britain was preparing for its European odyssey ~ by joining the EC (and subsequently, the European Union) ~ and thus unburdening its imperial legacies, India was also trying to diversify its economic, political, military and strategic links. Relations with Britain were no longer the principal concern of India’s foreign policy, but a decent working relationship was maintained betw – een the two states during the 1970s and 80s with cooperation in areas of common concern, despite occasional setbacks.
Britain’s willingness to mediate in the Kashmir dispute surfaced again in 1997 after the Labour government came to power, with devastating consequences for Indo-British relations. Queen Elizabeth ll visited India in 1997, on the occasion of the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of India’s independence. During her previous two visits, in 1961 and 1983, she was warmly received both by the government and people of India, but her 1997 visit was a diplomatic disaster. Prior to visiting India, she visited Pakistan and in her banquet speech in Islamabad she read out a prepared statement (obviously vetted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office) asking India and Pakistan to resolve their longstanding dispute over Kashmir, which pleased the Pakistani leaders, as this would give them an opportunity to internationalize the Kashmir dispute.
What was worse, from New Delhi’s perspective, Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who was accompanying the Queen, told Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that he was prepared to mediate in the Kashmir dispute. He belonged to that faction of the Labour Party that believed that as the former colonial power, Britain had the resp on sibility to mediate in India-Pakistan disputes as Britain was committed to promote peace, harmony, tolerance and human rights.
Indians were angry, because this stand of the British Foreign Secretary was opposed to the principle of bilateralism as enunciated in the Shimla Agreement (1972) committing both sides to resolve all India-Pakistan disputes, including the Kashmir dispute, peacefully through bilateral negotiations. Prime Minister I.K. Gujral, who was then in Cairo on an official visit, reacted by calling Britain a ‘thirdrate power’. Thus the Queen’s visit, which was designed to boost Indo-British relations, particularly trade and economic relations, was doomed to fail even before she landed in India.
Officials of the two sid es tried to salvage the situation; while British government officials dismissed reports about Cook’s remarks on Kashmir, Indian officials blamed the press for misreporting Gujral’s comments. However the diplomatic atmosphere hardly improved and controversies never ceased. At the state banquet in New Delhi, the Queen acknowledged ‘some difficulties in our past’ identifying Jallianwala Bagas a ‘distressing example’. For some Indians that was not enough, as they expected her to apologise. Even her visit to Jallianwala Bag to pay homage to the hundreds of civilians who were killed in the firing was mired in controversy because of some off-the-cuff remarks made by the Duke of Edinburgh questioning the veracity of the number of people actually killed as mentioned by Indians.
Thus, instead of boosting Indo-British relations, the Queen’s visit to India was a diplomatic disaster. Prime Minister Tony Blair’s role in the Anglo-US attack on Iraq did not endear him to the Indians either. The Labour Party’s return to power in the UK after fourteen years has raised new hopes, especially because the party in its manifesto had pledged to work for “a new strategic partnership with India, including a free-trade agreement” and to deepen cooperation in security, education, technology and climate change. As an indication of the UK’s desire to strengthen cooperation with India, Foreign Secretary David Lammy visited India in July 2024 and said that negotiations for the FTA with India will be a floor, not the ceiling, for Indo-UK cooperation.
India is now the fastest growing economy in the world, and after exiting from the EU, Britain has looked towards India for increasing the volume of bilateral trade and for investment opportunities, in order to reduce dependence on China. Negotiations for a UK-India FTA began in January 2022 and were expected to be finalised before the end of the year. That did not happen because certain sticky issues such as import duty on Scotch whisky, e-vehicles and business visas still remain unresolved. The Labour Party is committed to the FTA, but may seek to change some terms and conditions agreed upon earlier, because so far the only two free trade agreements signed by the UK, with Australia and New Zealand, have been criticised by British farmers as their interests were adversely affected.
Britain still remains an attractive destination for Indian immigrants and 1.7 million Indians ~ both people of Indian origin and those who migrated to that country ~ live in Britain making them the single largest visible ethnic minority community. According to the Foreign Secretary, they constitute a ‘living bridge’ between India and Britain and have made significant contributions to different sectors of the British economy and society. The present British monarch has also developed warm relations with India over the past several years particularly because he likes India’s age-old traditions like Yoga, Ayurveda and India’s cultural diversity.
The Labour Party’s stand on the Kashmir issue during the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, and the pro-Khalistani views of some Labour Councillors (mostly Sikhs) alienated the Indian diaspora living in Britain and cost the party dearly in the 2019 Parliamentary elections. Learning from the past, the Party during the election campaign vowed to cleanse its ranks of members with such extremist views who may pose a threat to closer Indo-British relations.
The Labour Party’s commitment to widen and deepen cooperation with India, including the Free Trade Agreement, may usher in a new era in the development of India-UK relations, especially because both the Conservatives and the Liberals officially support this. But the ultra-nationalist Reform Party, that secured 14 per cent of the vote, but won only five seats, may create serious problems zas could be seen in the recent violent disorders that rocked several cities in Britain, targeting a particular community based on a disinformation campaign in social media. Prime Minister Starmer, of course, promised stern action against such rioters. Similarly, the activities of a segment of the Indian immigrant community in Britain who are campaigning for a separate state of Khalistan, unless firmly checked, may lead to a deterioration in India’s relations with Britain.
(The writer is Professor (Retired) of International Relations and former Dean, Faculty of Arts, Jadavpur University)
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