Sunak hosts Diwali reception ‘on his first full day in office’
PRIME MINISTER VOWS TO EMBODY TRADITIONAL VALUES IN OFFICE AS HE REVEALS KING’S ‘SWEET’ GIFT
RISHI SUNAK hosted his first Diwali reception at 10, Downing Street, last Wednesday (26), revealing that King Charles gifted him a box of Indian sweets when he went to Buckingham Palace and was asked to form a government as the country’s first British Asian prime minister.
Sunak was met with loud cheers as he greeted some 200 guests, saying “Happy Diwali everyone.” He began with a “quick confession”. “I haven’t done all the usual things that I do,” he admitted. “I didn’t light any diyas. (But) more importantly, I did manage to get to Leicester and get my mithai
[sweets]. You will be pleased to know, His Majesty King Charles did have Diwali mithai for me.”
Sunak acknowledged the idea of the King’s Diwali gift had been inspired by Lord Jitesh Gadhia, although the monarch is familiar with Indian culture and customs. He was appointing his first prime minister, compared to the late Queen, for whom Winston Churchill was the first and Liz Truss the 15th at Balmoral just a few days before her death.
Speaking to the guests, among them leading members of the Indian community, Sunak recalled his maternal grandmother who came to Britain from Kenya six decades ago. During the leadership contests, the prime minister had spoken of how he was not born to privilege, and that his parents had made many sacrifices – in common with the first generation of Asian immigrants – to give him and his siblings a good education.
“Now, I think about that today, I think about yesterday,” Sunak said. “I think of my naniji, when she boarded that plane some decades ago on her own to come to this country, not knowing when she would see her family again – and she’s not with me today.
“And I think what she would have thought about me standing here in front of you. As I’ve said to many of you before, my story is your story.
“It is our collective story about what our families have done, what they have been through. And what it says is something amazing about our country.
“The most incredible thing I did as chancellor was to light those diyas on Downing Street very soon after I was there. And I know how much that meant to all of you, how much it meant to people around the world. Well, we’ve managed to do one better.”
The prime minister’s official residence, where he will live with his wife, Akshata Murty, and their daughters Krishna and Anoushka (though the older one is at boarding school during term), had been transformed with Diwali decorations.
“I couldn’t be more thrilled to be here with you,” Sunak told his guests. “This is the first reception I’m doing on my first full day in office.
“A very special Diwali gift for me to be able to now have this opportunity to serve our country. And that is something that I know all of us have in common, whether we are Hindu, Sikhs, Jain, this idea of service is so incredibly important to all of us. So I wanted to say on behalf of the whole country, which I can now do with all of you, thank you for what you do for your community.”
Sunak also spoke about how Asian values come down the generations: “Wanting to be in service is because of my parents, and many of you have heard me talk about them in the past and the values that they raised me with when I was working in my mum’s shop.
“And those values were about hard work. They are about sacrifice, about education, and family. Those are the values that we share as a community. And those are the values that have always guided me whether I was working in my mum’s shop, or indeed swearing my first oath as an MP on the Bhagavad Gita. And most importantly, those are the values that will define me as your prime minister.”
Sunak was born in Southampton General Hospital on May 12, 1980. His father, Yashvir Sunak, was born in Kenya, his mother Usha in Tanganyika (before the country was absorbed into Tanzania). His grandparents were born in Punjab in prepartition India and migrated from East Africa to Britain in the 1960s.
In Southampton, his mother ran a pharmacy where Sunak helped out during the holidays. His father was a GP.
He also spoke of his gratitude and debt to Britain. “To live in a country, journeys like mine, journeys like yours, are possible. There is something very special about Great Britain and, as your prime minister and inspired by the incredible universal message of Diwali, I will commit to you that I will do everything I can in this job to build a Britain where our children and our grandchildren can light their diyas and look into the future with hope. Thank you very much.”
Guests at the reception included Indian high commissioner Vikram Doraiswami; Visakha Dasi, president of the Bhaktivedanta Manor; and brothers Kalpesh and Shailesh Solanki, from the Asian Media Group, whose late father, Ramniklal Solanki CBE, launched the Garavi Gujarat newsweekly and who was a regular visitor to Number 10.
Lord Dolar Popat, who introduced the prime minister to guests, had often accompanied Sunak to hustings during the leadership contest earlier in the summer.
Another guest, Lord Karan Bilimoria, former president of the Confederation of British Industry and now its vice-president, said: “It was amazing to be at No 10 for the first Diwali celebration with a British Asian prime minister having just taken office the day before and who was appointed on Diwali day. What serendipity!. And, in his speech he spoke, as I have for decades, of the importance of Asian values – hard work, the importance of family and the importance of education, all values Rishi Sunak himself personifies.”
Among those who attended the reception – many took photographs outside the famous black door of Number 10 – were Shrai and Aparna Madhvani; Malik Karim, the Conservative party treasurer; Baroness Sandip Verma; Lord Swraj Paul (“the atmosphere was very nice”); Ameet Jogia and Reena Ranger, co-chair of the Conservative Friends of India; Kamal Pankhania of Westcombe; Bina Mehta of KPMG; and Amish Tripathi, director of the Nehru Centre in London.