Thorn in the crown

British were miffed that India didn’t favour their planes in our multi-billion dollar Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) deal. The UK media rose in uproar that India could dare to turn down Britain’s proffered hand when it was the recipient of some $400 million of aid each year. 

Thorn in the crown | Deccan Chronicle: Our overall relationship with Britain is a complicated one. The kingdom was India’s colonial master for two centuries. While recent developments — India’s economic boom, its emergence as a global powerhouse, has reversed the historical pattern. It is now Britain that is seen as the supplicant, seeking to please an often-indifferent India.

After two centuries of presiding over the systematic impoverishment of the Indian people, Britain arguably has a historical and moral responsibility towards the well-being of its former subjects. So the fact that it provides India annually with some $400 million of developmental assistance, mainly targeting beneficiaries in three of India’s poorest states, is perfectly reasonable.

However, the British media made it an issue of Indian “ingratitude”, not to mention profligacy, thereby conflating the poor Indians, whom its tax money was aiding, with the Government of India. So don’t aid the Indian government, but do aid poor Indians; they need it, because however much the Government of India is doing for them, their poverty is so dire that it can never be enough. Channel it through charitable non-governmental organisations, British or Indian, working directly with the poor. It would avoid a revival of this invidious debate.

Hell hath no fury like Britain 'scorned'

"No single issue in recent years has generated so much anti-India sentiment in Britain as the Rafale deal which many Britons see as a calculated ‘snub' to their country."

Two entirely separate issues — India's decision to accept the French bid and the British aid to India — have been conflated to accuse India of “ingratitude” by suggesting that as a recipient of British money, New Delhi had a “moral” obligation to reciprocate and give it the contract. Crudely put, there were no free lunches. The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : Hell hath no fury like Britain 'scorned'.

The anger is palpable, cuts across party lines and — fuelled by the right-wing media — has percolated down to ordinary Britons on the street. Some of the reaction, especially on the Right, has a whiff of the hard-to-die old cultural arrogance: “how dare a country, a former colony to boot, and a recipient of our aid dare snub us?”
The fact is that India has been extremely reluctant to take British aid and has made it clear on more than one occasion that it does not want it describing it as ‘peanuts' in terms of India's massive development efforts.