Rishi Sunak’s rise and our pride and prejudice

The news of Rishi Sunak becoming Prime Minister of Britain – catapulted to that position by a set of fortuitous political circumstances, an ironic twist of fate, aided, of course, by his academic and career credentials and, most of all, his courage of conviction to rise a banner of revolt against an incumbent boorish and blundering Prime Minister -- brought great cheer to people in India.

Who will not be proud, who will not rejoice when someone who traces his ancestral roots to the same soil and hails from the same genetic pool as oneself, becomes the head of a foreign country -- that too a country that ruled one’s forebears and plundered their country for over 200 years? But there the gloating and chest-thumping must stop.

Save for that ‘Indian’ DNA in his genes, Sunak is all British to his bones, and as conservative as British conservatives come. Son of Indian immigrants, he’s vociferously against marginalised immigrants, especially from war-torn countries in Asia, Middle East and Africa. He said Britain cannot absorb those “boat people”. But that’s politics and allowance must be made as it is in line with his party’s policy. It is well to bear in mind that he’s a British politician and a British Prime Minister and his loyalties will rightly be with that country of which he’s a citizen. We must temper and set our expectations right in how he regards India and Britain’s relations with it.

His grandparents migrated to Africa and his parents were born in Kenya in what was then a part of the British empire, and like many Indians in Africa, they chose to become British citizens rather than return to India. Rishi Sunak was born in Britain. Sunak owes his meteoric rise to British society, which opened its doors to immigrants; to his Conservative Party, which embraced ethnic diversity and welcomed them into its fold during David Cameron’s time as PM; to his British education and upbringing; and to his Stanford University MBA and his professional credentials. Most of all his debt is owed to Britain’s long legacy of intra-party democracy and holding genuine elections to elect a party leader.

Mainstream and social media are agog that the wheel of fortune has turned full circle. It would be poetic justice if India had colonised Britain and ruled the British, in a role reversal. But this is not the ‘colony strikes back at the empire’ moment for India. This, in a way, is restorative justice for the British. The empire has redeemed itself through its politics and democracy, which is more inclusive by nurturing a society that is diverse religiously, ethnically and racially and is tolerant and welcoming. A polity and ecosystem where merit matters and is rewarded. In government, political parties and in the private sector, many Africans and Asians, religious and ethnic minorities, and women, have a higher representation and hold positions of power than in India. A Pakistani-origin Muslim, Sadiq Khan, is the powerful Mayor of London.

Sunak’s victory is an occasion for Britain to celebrate for inner-party democracy, its embrace of diversity and for providing equal rights and opportunities for minorities in Britain. And it is a moment for reflection for us about the absence of these in India.

There are many other amusing and perplexing British ironies here. A coloured Hindu Prime Minister was sworn-in by the Bhagavad Gita in a white Christian majority State. And he will be advising the King in choosing the Archbishop for the Church of England! Curiously, in Britain, the State is Christian constitutionally but all citizens, including minorities, are equal before the law and guaranteed full democratic and civil rights. Can we imagine such a thing in India?

Inner-party democracy thrives in Britain and many western democracies. It was not a ‘no-confidence motion’ by the opposition Labour Party that ousted former PMs Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. It was the Conservative Party’s members themselves who dislodged them for their misdemeanours and incompetence and elected a new leader. In contrast, once elected, MPs and MLAs in India turn into vassals of the party high command and lose their soul and voice. The supremos of the BJP, Congress, the regional parties, even the relatively new AAP, which had pretensions to inner-party democracy, rule their parties with an iron fist and brook no debate, let alone dissent.

It is strange that all parties when in opposition clamour for free and fair elections to legislature, but want none of that for the post of party president or parliamentary party leader; they demand the freedom to hold legislature to ransom, call for strikes and bundhs, and swear by the democratic value of protests, but will not tolerate the same spirit and ethos within the party. The BJP anoints its party president in backdoor consultations with its ideological mentor, the RSS; the recent Congress party presidential poll was a comic eyewash remote-controlled by the Gandhi family; the satraps of all regional parties are virtually tinpot dictators. Can we have democracy in the country without genuine democracy within the political parties, where debate and dissent is stifled and party members who speak out are branded 'anti- party' and thrown out?

Since many are now given to crow jingoistically about our past glory, it may be well to remember that our own great heritage from the Upanishadic times has been one of enquiry, debate and dialogue. Our highest fealty and our worship should be to freedom of thought. Deifying party leaders is anathema to democracy. Ambedkar, with Gandhi and Nehru in mind, warned the country, in his famous speech in Parliament, to desist from ‘hero worship and personality cult’.

Xenophobic protectionism, a blinkered jingoistic nationalism, and intolerance of other ethnicities and faiths, the rising majoritarian politics of assertion and the quest for creation of a theocratic Hindu State, attempts at homogenisation of society, disregarding other social and cultural mores, demands for a dominant status and preferential treatment for Hindus over others, the desire to establish cultural and religious hegemony, akin to Islamic States – the path we are on will lead to a sterile nation deprived of the benefit of cross-cultural fertilisation, and such an India will decline and diminish once again as it happened in the medieval times.

Rishi Sunak’s ascent to the office of the Prime Minister of Britain holds a mirror to India. Political parties must widen their political base to people of all religions, castes, ethnicities and social and economic backgrounds, bridge the gender gap, and encourage debate and dialogue and be tolerant to dissent. We must embrace diversity in all its many splendoured facets. That is the glue that has held India together. That is the idea of India that has enriched it over the centuries and given us our unique civilisational identity.

(The writer is a farmer, soldier and entrepreneur)