The Kohinoor Is Not Coming Back!

Now that the meme fest is ending, a reality check, the Kohinoor is not coming back and immigration to the United Kingdom will not be privileged for Indians. There will be no talk of apologies/reparations for the British Raj on the anvil, the Indo-UK deal will still not be a cakewalk, and above all, Winston Churchill will not be turning in his grave.

No, 'our' Rishi did not seek blessings of a Hindu priest before swearing-in as the Prime Minister of UK, as widely and wrongly circulated in the social media. Presumably, he may have certainly partaken his prayers as a practicing Hindu, as he deemed appropriate, privately.

Rishi Sunak is the latest poster boy of successful Indian ethnicity who is subjected to the utopian formula of naïve presumptions that ethnicity is equivalent to being beholden to the land of said ethnicity. It certainly didn't ring true across the choppy Irish Sea with the former Irish Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar, or with the current Portuguese Prime Minister, Antonio Costa.

Quaint nativity inherent in 'Vannakam' and 'Chithis' surrounding Kamala Harris as the Vice President of the United States of America was wooly and mushy. The USA is no closer to India, than what it ever was during the Trump's decidedly 'redneck' era.

Just as President Muhammed Irfaan Ali of Guyana, President Prithviraj Sngh Roopun of Mauritius or President Chan Santokhi of Suriname would put the interest of their own Sovereign, above any other land (including that of their ancestors).

That, incidentally, is how it should always be so. Mixing ancestry or personal faith with any assumed obligation to any other land is either pure fantasy or more likely than not, appropriated politics/partisanship in the land of original ancestry or religio-affinity.

Often jumping the gun to appropriate a successful person of Indian ethnicity can backfire. Examples of Attorney Preetinder Singh Bharara who seemed to have a particular fascination for going behind 'fellow-Indians' or the infamous 'white-o-fication' by one-time Presidential candidate, Bobby Jindal, is still fresh.

Jindal's attempt to de-hyphenate his Indian identity with the American one, may have made imminent electoral sense across the Atlantic or the Pacific. But his statement, "if we wanted to be Indians, we would have stayed in India" had many initial supporters from the diaspora recoiling and squirming at Bobby's brazen downplaying of roots.

Barack Obama's or even Kamala Harris's 'birther' controversy of 'not fully black' or Kenyan and Indian/Jamaican roots respectively, did not exactly lead to exceptional United States' relationships with either Kenya, or now with Jamaica or India.

Harris's enthusiastic insistence on dialing-up her 'Black Woman' credentials, on par or even more aggressively, than her 'Indianness', could have had an electoral angularity given the 1.4% and almost ten times more, at approximately 14% of the total American population, for Indian-ethnicity, and African-Americans, respectively.

Electoral considerations aside, the food/spices in the kitchen, list of ancestors in the family records, or the nomenclature afforded onto the 'Almighty' by any individual, is and should be, a private matter.

However, in the 'new-normal' of India, appropriation of success is the name of the game. Blaming the past for all ills, appropriating whatever 'good' happens today, even if inadvertent. However for anything unsavory, again pointing a finger to the past, and hard selling of the dreams of a golden future, however implausible and unlikely to happen, is the winning formula.

The electoral success of a Rishi Sunak fits in perfectly with that template. Throw in additional private matters like his faith, sacred strings on the wrist, cow worshiping, and creatively ascribe things that were either not said or implied to the admixture. Then package the whole storyline to create a quasi-political and quasi-religious narrative, voila! A perfect par for course.

For all the jeering at the British Crown and all that it inflicted on India, Rishi Sunak's oath of allegiance would have read: "I, Rishi Sunak, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles, his heirs and successors, according to law. So, help me God".

That Rishi Sunak took oath on the Bhagavad Gita, when elected as a Member of Parliament, does not afford any alteration or diminishment from bearing 'true allegiance to His Majesty', and not to some other land.

Importantly, not only is Rishi Sunak's loyalty to the 'Crown' a matter of personal choice, but even his preference of the Conservative Party, a party of the monarchy, imperialistic anchorage, union, Constitution, and the established Churches. This was personified by the fellow-Conservative Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, the avowed racist.

Even today, the majority of the Indian diaspora is pro-Labour party for its more accommodative and inclusive instincts on matters like immigration. But Rishi Sunak has been Conservative or proud Tory, through and through. So no, Churchill ought not to have major beef with Sunak.

While many in India were still in the throes of jingoistic presumptions about Rishi Sunak, on day one of his job at 10 Downing Street, he reinstated the controversial and extreme right-wing, Suella Braverman (ironically, of Indian descent too) as the all-powerful, Home Secretary.

Incidentally, Suella Braverman is widely believed to be the principal force behind the scupper of the Free Trade Agreement between UK and India. Whilst on immigration, she had shockingly said of her own supposed ethnicity, "Look at the migration in this country – the largest group of people who overstay are Indian migrants".

Braverman had incredulously said about the 'Empire' so grandiloquently defended by the likes of Winston Churchill, that she was, "not going to apologise for the Empire, for our history. I am proud of the British empire". While the recently resigned Prime Minister Lizz Truss (and even Boris Johnson, earlier) were all for the Trade Agreement, it was Suella Braverman of Indian origin who had put the spanner in the wheel with her defiance.

Braverman's views notwithstanding, her subsequent re-elevation to the Home Secretary is foremostly and very importantly, indicative of Rishi Sunak's first major decision.

Cherry-picking on Rishi Sunak's personal attributes such as being a teetotaller or a non-beef eater, may be stitched to sew a 'sanskari' script that dovetails into the political drama of Indian politics. But the fact is that as the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi had scrapped Beer Duty (only the second time in 20 years) towards delivering on the promise of better living conditions during the Covid pandemic, to the delight of the liquor industry.

He had tweeted his personal support to the UK's beef industry, "My constituency is home to hundreds of beef and lamb farmers and I am committed to supporting the fantastic industry they represent". The delineation of the matters concerning personal faith and that of the state, are clearly separated, as they should be.

Rishi Sunak is entirely entitled to his views on matters that concern him personally in terms of his faith, and even that which pertains to the running of the state i.e., who to appoint or reject? The sole prism ought to be his unflinching loyalty and fidelity to the 'Crown'.

If anything, British politics can take pride in walking the talk of diversity and inclusion, even though the issue of racism, bigotry or even imperialism is far from resolved in the United Kingdom.

Rishi Sunak has conducted himself with immense grace, dignity and measure (even when he conceded the race of Lizz Truss, earlier). So in that sense one can take vicarious pride in someone belonging to the Indian 'identity', even if he is out-and-out a Briton, as he should be.

Like many of the choices he made, Rishi Sunak could have chosen to take the Indian passport if wanted to, but he chose the one which states, 'In the name of Her (now, His) Majesty'. That is an important choice that must be understood, respected and not unnecessarily appropriated.

Rishi's land of ancestry would be served better if they introspect if they too could now afford similar parity, dignity and opportunity onto its own minorities, as incidentally they were used to, well before the Britishers did so.

Lt General Bhopinder Singh is an Army veteran. He is a former Governor of the Andamans and Nicobar Islands and Puducherry.