This week Rishi Sunak finally took the small step from 11 Downing Street to 10 Downing Street. Yet, it came after a long journey for him, and the past months were a rollercoaster of a ride as he struggled to take that step. From a high of leading the group of contenders for the Conservative Party leadership in August to failing to get the backing of the party’s rank and file in September and then being overlooked for a possible cabinet berth by the new leader Liz Truss, October saw him achieving the high that he had been aiming for in the past months.
As Liz Truss resigned after 45 days as PM, Sunak was the only contender to replace her, making him the youngest PM of the United Kingdom in 200 years, the first to be appointed by King Charles III and the first of Indian origin.
Sunak’s appointment as Prime Minister of England has had the Indian media in a tizzy. From calling him Desi Boy to tag lines of Rishi Raj begins, the television channels in particular oversold his rather tenuous Indian origins. Tenuous, since Rishi was born and raised in England, his parents were born in Africa and it's only his grandparents who had been born in India and then migrated to British Africa. Yet, he does become UK’s first Indian-origin Prime Minister, and in his cabinet has Suella Braverman as Home Secretary, another Tory who traces her origins to India, Goa in particular.
In Britain’s changing demographic profile, where the Indian diaspora is growing and playing a larger role in the economic, social and political circles, a head of government of Indian origin was a foregone conclusion, despite the fact that there were many misgivings of the British ever getting reconciled to having a PM of Indian origin.
The current House of Commons has 15 MPs of Indian heritage, including the three with Goan origins and with no other Tory MP throwing his or her hat in the leadership ring, Sunak was the consensus.
The Home Secretary’s post to Braverman did come as a surprise, for she had resigned from the very position six days earlier due to what she said was a lapse on her part. The appointment has drawn opposition displeasure, but Sunak possibly wants to keep his main challengers close, to keep an eye on them and, as he said, he wants to unite the party that has seen some deep fissures in recent months. The fact that there was no challenger to his leadership bid indicates that the party is actually looking up to him to bring it together, and to do that he would have to include in his cabinet those who in the earlier leadership bid had opposed him.
Sunak, however, does not have much time to deliver, whether for the party or for the country. There are two years to the end of the term and he has his desk piled high with tasks, the economy after Brexit being the main. The opposition is already sensing victory in the coming polls, and will keep up the pressure on the Sunak government.
Yet, Sunak and Braverman are British, not just because they are citizens of that country, but by their upbringing, their values, their way of being, just as Portugal’s Prime Minister Antonio Costa is Portuguese for the same reason. Costa may hold an OCI card, confirming him as an Overseas Citizen of India, and Goa in particular may bask in his Goan origins. His father was the celebrated writer Orlando da Costa, a Goan from Margao, but the son is Portuguese in every essence of the term. Would he have reached the position of Prime Minister of Portugal, had he been anything but that?
The Indian migration across the world has established roots in various countries. On the global political stage, persons of Indian origin hold the post of Vice President of the United States of America where Kamala Harris is a heartbeat away from the presidency, Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and Portugal, Deputy Prime Minister of Ireland where Leo Varadkar was until a couple of years ago the Prime Minister.
There have been other heads of state or government of smaller countries who have been of Indian origin, what makes Sunak’s appointment special is that this is Britain, a country that belongs to the G7 and has veto power in the United States Security Council.
In that, let’s not forget that Britain was once ruling India and Portugal was once ruling Goa. So, 75 years after Independence there is a person of Indian origin leading the British government, and a person of Goan origin has been leading Portugal since November 2015. There are then, two persons of Indian origin to watch out for as they lead the countries they migrated to. It should be an interesting few years ahead.
