Envoy says country’s success story is missing in coverage

The British press focussed too much on negative stories about India, India’s High Commissioner in London Y.K. Sinha said at an event in Parliament this week, urging parliamentarians and others in both countries to become champions of a stronger bilateral relationship.

Pointing to the The Times, the Guardian and the Financial Times (the last of which he said had been very bullish on India until very recently), he said stories about India focussed on negative angles. “Where is India’s success story? Why is everyone queuing up to assiduously woo India?: there must be a reason. There is something right happening in India and I’m afraid that story is not being well publicised,” he said at an event organised on the contribution of Indian companies in Britain.

Despite India being set to grow at 7.1% this year and 7.8% next year, it was still being criticised for not growing fast enough, said Mr. Sinha. “India is the story of today and it will be the story of tomorrow... Engaging India is extremely important.” The High Commissioner said that while India and Britain’s long history could be seen as an advantage, it also could be a disadvantage. “People here feel they know India well but I’m afraid they don’t,” he said.

His emphasis on the bilateral relationship was echoed by Baron O’ Neill , the economist who coined the phase BRICS. “India could do so much better,” he said, arguing that given demographic trends, the country could be growing at 12.5%.

“Between 2015 and 2035 just the increase in India’s working age population will be bigger than the combined working population of the four largest EU countries… if that translates into people actually having jobs... in my judgment, India could easily repeat in the next 20 years at least what China has done in the past 30 years and grow by double digits... They need to do more stuff in order to achieve this,” he said.

PM’S U.K. visit

The High Commissioner also highlighted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s forthcoming visit to Britain — which will combine the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London in April and a bilateral visit.

The Commonwealth had until recently suffered from “benign neglect”, he said. As Britain prepared to leave the EU it was time for the country and others to look towards the Commonwealth not just as “an old boy’s club to talk about shared legacies of the past…we have to be forward looking,” said the High Commissioner .