Varadkar’s Indian heritage may inform his pleasure at UK’s ritual humiliation
Ireland has most to lose as Leo’s pals in Europe turn the screw on PM Theresa May, writes Jody Corcoran
‘BUY Irish first, then buy Indian’ an advertisement in An Phoblacht for the Indian Stores on Dame Street in Dublin stated in the 1930s. This little-known fact is by way of illustrating the close associations between Ireland and India in the fight for independence from the British Empire.
As we know, Leo Varadkar is of Indian extraction, a reality not lost on the British and unionists in Northern Ireland as Brexit negotiations with the European Union continue. “Typical Indian,” the British peer, Lord Kilclooney, more widely known as John Taylor, the former Ulster Unionist Party MP, tweeted earlier this year. That tweet, denounced by many as a “racist slur”, may give an indication of the depth of feeling towards Varadkar from some of the UK side.
But is the feeling reciprocated? For the past year, Varadkar has been accused of harbouring stronger than heretofore realised nationalist views, since his statement last December when he believed he had negotiated a “bullet-proof” backstop to avoid the re-establishment of a hard border on the island of Ireland in the Brexit talks.
This is what he said then: “To the nationalist people in Northern Ireland, I want to assure you that we have protected your interests throughout these negotiations.
“Your birth right as Irish citizens, and therefore as EU citizens, will be protected. There will be no hard border on our island. You will never again be left behind by an Irish Government.”
The validity of that statement has yet to be tested. That is not the point of this article, however: the central point is that Varadkar’s language, what some would call his nationalist rhetoric, has stood him in good stead in domestic politics. Within weeks of making that comment his opinion poll stock rose significantly to a position that he and Fine Gael has, by and large held, to the extent that he remains favourite to form a new government whenever an election is called.
Indeed, last week another poll revealed that a significant majority believed that Varadkar should stick to his guns in the Brexit negotiations and should not compromise to achieve a deal with the UK. It is easy to imagine that this public view is informed by a certain pleasure among the public here at the repeated public humiliations of the UK side, particularly of Prime Minister Theresa May, a view that will change should an accidental ‘no-deal’ Brexit ultimately be achieved, the consequences of which would be disastrous for the economy and social outcomes here.
In the context of the ongoing schmozzle between Leo Varadkar and Micheal Martin with regard to the timing of a general election, the Taoiseach last week dismissed the Fianna Fail leader’s request that the election be postponed until the Brexit withdrawal agreement process is assured, that is, it passes through the House of Commons.
In his dismissal, the Taoiseach said that “no British or foreign parliament” should be given an effective say on the timing of an Irish election.
It struck me to be a peculiar, that is to say a ‘throwback’, or a form of dismissal redolent of a colonial past which I would suggest informs Varadkar’s particular brand of nationalism on Brexit.
Another example would be his recent article in this newspaper in which he said that Ireland would not “once again” become “collateral damage” to British policy and added that 100 years ago this country was “forced” to accept partition.
Indeed, there have been many examples of such comments in the past 12 months which have boosted Varadkar’s standing in opinion polls but still sound somewhat alien to the modern ear or era.
A recent biography, perhaps paradoxically sub-titled Leo Varadkar — A Very Modern Taoiseach, sheds what I believe could be significant illumination on Varadkar’s political formation related to India’s move towards independence.
“Whether Leo likes it or not, I think his father has had a huge influence on him,” a friend of the Varadkar family is quoted as saying in the biography.
The book reveals that Leo Varadkar’s two uncles, his father Ashok’s older brothers, were jailed for a year for their part in India’s rebellion against the British Empire.
The biography states: “Vithal Varadkar was extremely proud of his two eldest sons, as were all the family. Risking life and freedom in pursuit of independence was looked upon with a great sense of pride by most Indian families. When India eventually broke free from the British Empire, both Madhu and Manohar were decorated for their efforts during the uprising.”
This is most interesting — is it not? — and perhaps more revealing than much else in attempting to divine what informs Leo Varadkar’s approach to the UK on Brexit. To many, he seems to revel in the evident humiliation of the UK prime minister while he rigidly adheres to the hard-line position adopted by leaders in Europe; although it should be also noted that he did not appear to have been invited to share a few beers with Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and others in Brussels last week — a missed public relations opportunity, surely?
In the absence of evidence to the contrary (in these negotiations), we must continue to accept the bona fides of Europe when it effectively states that it has and will continue to have Ireland’s back, but the Taoiseach must also bear in mind, with apologies to Viscount Palmerston, that Europe does not necessarily have friends, just interests.
While the issue of a border in Ireland continues to be used by Europe to twist the UK on the rack, ultimately it is Ireland’s interests that remain most at risk, more so than will be the interests of the drinking buddies in Brussels.
Beyond the border issue, therefore, relations east-west and west-east — between the UK and Ireland — will be more significant by the time these negotiations finally conclude, and there is no doubt that relations between the two islands have been badly damaged by the manner in which the negotiations have been conducted, at which point the short-lived fun of bashing the Brits will be well passed.
If you accept that Leo Varadkar’s political heritage may be informed by India’s relationship with the British Empire, then his coming of age is so by Ireland’s relationship with Europe: “Mr President, I was born European, and am part of a new generation of political leaders born after our countries joined the union,” he said in an address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg earlier this year, in what many felt at the time was first pitch for a fierce big job in Europe, eventually.
And if Varadkar is a child of Europe, then he is an adolescent of the Good Friday Agreement; one of those with no, or little, strong, or immediate recollection of the Troubles, a point he has admitted himself, which makes no less valid, but somewhat incongruent, reports of him waving around a newspaper article of an IRA atrocity in Northern Ireland in 1972, seven years before he was born.
While the Taoiseach warns Europe on the recent history of Ireland before his birth, he might be also advised to delve further back to learn the lessons of imperial secession trade in the rich history of Irish and Indian nationalism in the 1930s and 1940s.
Throughout the first half of the 20th Century, many prominent figures from the Indian nationalist movement came to Ireland, notably Subhas Chandra Bose, the radical, socalled Michael Collins behind independence in India; but in particular VJ Patel, who backed the formation of the ‘Indian-Irish Independence League’ and formed close relationships with many now household-name Irish republican leaders.
It was Patel who encouraged Irish people to copy India’s boycott of British goods, perhaps unaware that such tactics had, of course, already been adopted in Ireland at the beginning of what turned out to be a ruinous ‘economic war’.
Interestingly enough, in a country and sub-continent so vast as India, Patel was born in Nadiad in the state of Gujarat, about just 200km from Varad, the village of Leo Varadkar’s revolutionary forebearers.
Of course, should Leo eventually move on from that fierce big job in Europe, there would be no better location to fulfil his boundless ambition and eventually launch a bid to become the prime minister of India, the world’s second most populated country with almost one-fifth of the total world population.
‘Ashok’s older brothers were jailed for their part in India’s rebellion...’
‘He did not appear to have been invited to share a few beers’