When Mr. Modi Went to London

'His 2003 visit to the UK was a nerve-racking and politically fraught affair, writes Satyabrata Pal, who was India’s Deputy High Commissioner in London at the time... Throughout 2002, after the Gujarat riots, the British media was up in arms, particularly since a family of Indian origin was among the Muslim victims. The Conservatives demanded that the Labour government live up to its claim that it ran an ethical foreign policy, Amnesty and other human rights organisations were on the warpath, the NRIs were split down the middle, and the bilateral relationship came under strain. An enormous amount of the High Commission’s time, and that of the India Desk at the Foreign Office, was spent in trying to contain the damage...

It was into this simmering discontent that Modi decided in the summer of 2003 that he would immerse himself with a visit to the UK at the invitation of the Gujarati Hindu diaspora. The British government’s reaction was neither warm nor respectful; it was deeply upset, for a number of reasons. With its Muslim population already embittered over Iraq and the Islamophobia unleashed by the War on Terror, the last thing it wanted was a visitor who would alienate them even more and drive a wedge between its immigrant communities. They would be forced to be critical of the chief minister, to whom they could issue none of the usual courtesies, and this would in turn create a needless niggle in bilateral relations, to which, as the Indian economy boomed, they were paying unprecedented attention.

The Foreign Office therefore made urgent demarches with the Indian High Commission, asking it to convey their government’s anxieties to India, and their request that the chief minister of Gujarat decline the invitation from his supporters in the UK in the larger interest of bilateral relations. The High Commission completely shared these concerns. Having been in the eye of the storm from 2002 – and knowing from its engagement with the diaspora just how deeply divisive this visit would be, and how toxic its fallout on bilateral relations – sent a strong recommendation to the Ministry of External Affairs that the chief minister be advised against the visit. It was told the external affairs minister agreed that it would be best for him not to go, but that his advice had been brushed aside by Modi...

Two days into the visit, the Foreign Office called the High Commission in a panic to report that they had learnt that, following a precedent set during a recent visit by Robert Mugabe, an attempt would be made to put Narendra Modi under citizen’s arrest, permitted by British law, while some lawyers were approaching a magistrate for a more conventional arrest warrant. If either of these initiatives succeeded, it would be a disaster, because the British government would either have to break its own law to let Modi go, or stand back and let the law take its course, while the bilateral relationship went down the drain, which it would if an Indian chief minister was under arrest in London. The British pleaded that Modi be urged to take the next plane out, pre-empting a possible arrest...

The coda came in March, 2005, when the chief minister planned another visit, again invited by Hindu groups. This time the British government was even more insistent, to the point of being adamant, that he should not come, not least because they feared that the application for a warrant, which had failed on a technicality in 2003, would succeed, setting off a horrible diplomatic crisis. The UPA government, not beholden to the voices which had prevailed in 2003, told Mr. Modi in very clear terms that he was on his own if he ignored the advice not to go. Very prudently, he called his trip off...' (Read full article.)