Rishi Sunak meets with the audience after giving a speech during the Conservative Friends of India event held at the Dhamecha lohana center in Harrow, England, in August.
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Rishi Sunak meets with the audience after giving a speech during the Conservative Friends of India event held at the Dhamecha lohana center in Harrow, England, in August.
Leon Neal/Getty Images
MUMBAI, India – Indians call it a Diwali gift.
At the Hindu festival of lights, Rishi Sunak, a practicing Hindu of Indian origin, became the next prime minister of Britain. face of the altar splashed on the front pages of Indian newspapers Tuesday celebrates the success of their ancestral homeland – 75 years after Indians renounced British colonial rule.
“The Indian son rises on an empire,” said a chyron on the leading English-language channel NDTV.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to these “historical ties”. a tweet Congratulations to Sunak. “As we transform our historic ties into a modern partnership, we send special Diwali wishes to the ‘living bridge’ of UK Indians,” Modi said.
sincere congratulations @RishiSunak! I look forward to working together on global issues and implementing the 2030 Roadmap once you become UK Prime Minister. Diwali special wishes it to be the ‘living bridge’ of UK Indians as we transform our historic ties into a modern partnership.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) 24 October 2022
Altar will become Britain’s newest prime minister on Tuesday, and Britain will face immediate economic and political crises.
Altar was born in England to a family born in East Africa. But he is of Indian descent. First Hindu and first non-white person to become British prime minister. to be this Celebrated by Hindus around the world, but especially in Hindu-majority India, currently led by Modi’s Hindu nationalist party. supporters Sharing pictures of Sunak disguised as a Hindu religion on social mediaand adding Hindu devotional slogans to them.
So it’s approved. On Diwali day, @RishiSunak He will go down in history as Britain’s first Indian-Hindu Prime Minister. Who would have imagined that after only 75 years the paintings would change!! pic.twitter.com/5U4e25UgL2
— Priti Gandhi – प्रीति गांधी (@MrsGandhi) 24 October 2022
A spokesperson for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party described Sunak’s appointment as “a moment of great celebration”.
BJP national spokesman Guru said: “We have seen CEOs of big tech companies and people of Indian descent in the United States at the top of the game. So the appointment of Mr. Sunak as prime minister of the UK is a welcome step.” Prakash said earlier on Tuesday. “As a party, as a government, we look forward to working closely with Mr. Sunak to rekindle our relationship.”
That relationship was strained earlier this month by comments from Suella Braverman, the then-Minister of the Interior of the UK, who is also of Indian descent, claiming that Indians are the ones who have extended UK visas the most. He has since resigned (on another issue) and Indian officials say they are working with British officials to “facilitate the return of Indian nationals who have exceeded their visa period”.
But this event, along with the political chaos in London, may have contributed to delaying the final Diwali date for the UK-India trade deal. Since its exit from the European Union, the UK is increasingly looking to countries like India for investment. The Indian economy is now the fifth largest in the world, surpassing its former colonial master earlier this year.
Sunak’s government will lead these trade negotiations during a major economic turmoil in the UK.
In previous interviews with Indian media, the incoming prime minister recalled how both of his grandfathers were born in Punjab, British India, and immigrated first to Africa and then to Britain in the 1960s. Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murthy, is an Indian citizen and daughter of billionaire businessman NR Narayana Murthy, who founded the Indian IT outsourcing company Infosys. (Akshata Murthy, a stakeholder in this company, is one of the UK’s wealthiest residents and said earlier this year that she will start voluntarily paying UK tax on all her income, amid allegations she is taking advantage of a loophole to minimize how much she pays.)
The Indians took a special interest in Altar’s political career even before he ascended to England’s highest office. Video of the then UK chancellor of the Exchequer Diwali diyas – earthen lamps – went viral on social media in India two years ago on the steps of his residence No. 11 on Downing Street.
Rishi Sunak lights a candle for Diwali in Downing Street in 2020.
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Rishi Sunak lights a candle for Diwali in Downing Street in 2020.
Leon Neal/Getty Images
Indian newspapers also featured Sunak’s swearing-in ceremony in the British parliament in 2019, drawing attention to how he took the oath of office in Bhagwad Gita, one of the sacred texts of Hinduism.
I have placed our rangol outside No.11, mithai is ready to be delivered and the Zoom family has been booked.
I know things will be a little different and it’s hard not to see family, but we’ll get through this together.
Happy holidays everyone! pic.twitter.com/4lDI8bH1HJ
— Rishi Altar (@RishiAltar) 14 November 2020
While some Indians celebrated the success of the Altar and what it revealed about Britain’s openness to diversity, it cast doubt on whether an ethnic or religious minority would ever have the same trajectory in India. Discrimination and attacks against religious minorities, especially Muslims, have increased since Modi took office.
“The British did the very rare thing in the world to place a member of a visible minority in the most powerful office.” tweeted out Shashi Tharoor, a dissident MP and fierce critic of Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.
But he continued: “As we Indians celebrate the rise of the world @RishiSunakLet’s ask honestly: could it be here?”