LONDON: Strong differences have surfaced between Indians living in Britain and Indian government representatives over the handling of Kashmir and other issues.
The divergence has its roots in the Labour Party’s stand on Kashmir, which swung around from an emphatically pro-Indian position to firmly pro-Pakistan stand Indian activists in Britain say that in part the change came not despite the effort of the Indian High Commission but because of it.
At the bottom of the dispute lie questions about the extent of the Indian diplomatic role in a foreign country. The split has again raised old questions on whether Indians with British passports are more Indian or British.
The Pakistani government has for Jong used Pakistanis in Britain as a constituency to advance its interests, recent attempts by the Indian government to do likewise have been more open, and less successful.
The questions came up soon after the meeting in Brent Town Hall on July 31 when shadow Foreign Secretary Robin Cook spoke of Kashmir as being a part of India, That meeting had been called by the British Indian Councilors Association (BICA), but differences developed quickly between the British Indians and representatives of the Indian government. The Labour turnaround last month has intensified the differences in recent weeks, the split developing soon after the Brent conference.
“The Pakistanis are more successful because they make it seem like a movement among Pakistanis rather than anything inspired by their government,” said a senior Indian councilor whose support the Indian government has been seeking.
On the evening of the debacle for the Indian government at the Labour Party conference in Brighton, Singhvi said at a meeting attended by about 200 people at India House: “There is a message to be learnt, to keep on mobilizing, to keep on following the path of reassure went on to say that one “must not let reason to be unsupported by mobilization.”
Indian councilors say that kind of remark is undiplomatic at best. “Properly and officially we are British citizens, and it is not the job of a foreign mission to begin campaigning against us,” he said, “Some governments do this kind of a thing discreetly, but such announcements about this put the Indian government in an awkward position, and can make it very embarrassing for us.”
Another councilor from Leicester said, “This would be like the British High Commission in India announcing that the British High Commission will make it its duty to mobilize Anglo Indians to speak for the British cause in India.
But the Labour Party has not raised the issue of loyalty in swinging around to support the pro-Pakistan position. The Labour leadership was warned that the Brent position could lose them the Pakistani vote. They were advised by a leader that a pro Pakistan position on Kashmir would not lose them the Indian vote “because the Indians living in Britain are not very concerned about Kashmir.”
The Labour Party could have miscalculated on the issue of the supposed indifference of Indians over Kashmir. L.K. Advani, president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), addressed two meetings, once in the same Brent Town Hall in London and the other in Leicester, primarily on Kashmir. Close to 1,500 people attended each meeting, huge by British standards, and certainly larger than the local members of Parliament can hope to address in their own constituencies.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 1, 1995
