GG News Bureau
New Delhi, 12th Nov. Under Indian-origin UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, ties between the UK and India will remain on a “phenomenal upward trajectory,” said the country’s former prime minister Boris Johnson on Saturday.
The two countries need each other now more than ever as “we live in dangerous and turbulent times”, he said.
Johnson also urged the two countries to complete a free trade agreement as soon as possible, saying he couldn’t wait until next Diwali.
“No mission that I have led has been as successful as the one in April this year when I arrived in Gujarat and was greeted like Sachin Tendulkar. There were pictures of me everywhere and literally thousands of people dancing on the streets,” Johnson said during his speech at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi.
Johnson stated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and he discussed the future of the India-UK partnership during his India visit, and that they had “fantastic talks” with results.
“India has become the number one supplier of overseas students to the UK. There are 1,08,000 Indian students in the UK to support our education industry,” he said.
The former British prime minister noted that even without a free trade agreement, bilateral trade between the two countries increased by 28%.
“Let us finally deliver that free trade agreement which mysteriously seems to have developed a flat tyre since I left office. Prime Minister Modi and I said it will be done by Diwali. I’m not going to wait till the next Diwali before we do that free trade deal. I wonder what the holdup is,” Johnson said.
“The government that I was proud to lead boasted more ministers who could trace their origins to India than any other government in the world. The crowning achievement of my approach is that my replacement himself is of Indian-origin,” he said
Rishi Sunak was installed as Britain’s first Indian-origin prime minister last month, following Liz Truss’s brief tenure as prime minister after Johnson resigned.
“I know that under Rishi, this relationship, so strong and so dynamic, is going to follow the same phenomenal upward trajectory. We need each other now more than ever because, as PM Modi and his external affairs minister S Jaishankar had said, we live in dangerous and turbulent times,” Johnson said.
The Former British Prime Minister also blasted Russian President Vladimir Putin for launching a “vile and unprovoked invasion” of Ukraine.
“Even if the UK and India were not drawn together by ties of love, sentiments, family, by trade, commerce…if we were not tied together by economic self interest, we would be drawn together for this fervor and vital reason that we two democracies are forced to cope together with the irresponsible and sometimes dangerous behaviour of the world’s coercive autocracies,” he added.
Hitting out at Putin, Johnson made three predictions. “Putin will lose and deservedly so…Putin will be beaten by simple heroism of love and country by the people of Ukraine,” he said.
Asserting that the conflict was a “disastrous advertisement” for Putin’s “war machine”, he said Russia’s exports of military equipment will be badly affected.
This disastrous miscalculation by Putin will severely weaken Russia and greatly strengthen China, he predicted.
“The bear is looking increasingly forlorn and pushed around by a giant, assertive Kung Fu Panda,” he said.
The former British prime minister also praised India and the United Kingdom for their collaboration in providing Covid vaccines to the rest of the world, and compared the successful handling of the pandemic in democracies like the United Kingdom and India to that of “autocracies” like China.
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