‘Indians regarded UK as a country in decline’

LONDON: Long before Brexit posed questions about Britain’s global stature, Indian politicians and officials considered the country “in decline”, according to a declassified February 1984 note by a member of Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee.

Held back but released under directions of a tribunal following a protracted legal battle by journalist-researcher Phil Miller, the documents include the note by R J O’neill of the Cabinet Office, providing a rare insight into London’s view of India.

The note contains hitherto undisclosed assessment of key issues in the India-uk relationship attributed to what he called “a complex of attitudes which, because they lie rather deep, we do not always want to bring out into the open”.

O’neill’s assessment was dated 1984, when India’s role in the Non-aligned Movement riled the west, but most of his conclusions resonate today, including the perception among many Indian diplomats that Britain’s Foreign Office remains trapped in the colonial era.

O’neill set out William Harding in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office the ‘problem’ in the India-uk relationship along two sections: ‘On the British side’ and ‘On the Indian side’; each section containing three points.

He wrote: “Indian politicians and officials do not regard the relationship with Britain as special…or as particularly important. Indeed, they regard Britain as a European country in decline, and of very much less account in the world than India”.

“The same people do not look back warmly or with gratitude to the period of British rule…they take the view that India had to struggle for its independence, and finally won it from a reluctant Britain. India owes Britain nothing; much the reverse”.

“At the same time (again) Indians are very sensitive to British criticism of what happens in India, and they react emotionally to United Kingdom opposition to Indian policies.”