PLEASE Note: As many as 1.5 million people of Indian descent live in England and Wales making them the largest ethnic group outside of white Britons.
Nitish Pathway writes, "There couldn’t have been a more fitting moment for the ascendance of the United Kingdom’s first Indian prime minister, who will also be his country’s first PM of color, the first Hindu to lead its government, and the youngest person to have the role in 200 years.
On Monday, when the 42-year-old, 5-foot-7 Rishi Sunak was selected by Conservatives to lead their party—and therefore the former British empire—it was also the first day of Diwali. It was only weeks after the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
And 2022 marks the 75th anniversary of Indian independence from Britain.
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Why Indians Everywhere Feel So Weird About Rishi Sunak
He’s an inspiration. He’s “posh and rich and just like the rest of Westminster.” He’s “kinda hot.”
"The diaspora has much to consider in this desi power broker’s rapid ascent in British politics—helped, in part, by years of turmoil on Downing Street and within the Tories’ ranks. The Southampton-born son of Punjabi medical workers who emigrated from East Africa, Sunak mostly carries a typical Tory pedigree: a boarding-school education, an Oxford degree, and multiple family connections to wealth. Before his election to the House of Commons in 2015, he worked for various international finance firms and married his Stanford Business School classmate Akshata Murthy—the daughter of legendary Indian billionaire N.K. Narayana Murthy, who co-founded the tech behemoth Infosys in the 1980s. Sunak’s financial career and his wife’s fortune made them one of Britain’s richest couples by the time he became an MP; Murthy’s assets, including a chunk of her father’s company, made her “richer than the queen,” according to the Guardian...
✓ It’d be a strange political origin in any context, but Sunak’s is further magnified by his nationality and religion. British Indians, especially its Hindus, have historically leaned toward the Labour Party, given the Conservatives’ history of blatant racism. But, as in the United States, more British Hindus of South Asian origin have drifted toward the center-right in recent years. Various factors have contributed to this: Hindu nationalism has expanded its global presence, abetted in part by app-fueled misinformation; more privileged Indian immigrants increasingly support “pro-business” politicians; small-c conservative politicians in Western countries are often perceived as “friendly toward India”—i.e., toward the subcontinent’s right-wing government. Indeed, some of Britain’s most globally prominent politicians of Indian descent have risen under Tory cabinets: Alok Sharma, who led last year’s United Nations climate conference; the scandal-plagued Thatcher superfan Priti Patel, a member of both the May and Johnson governments; and Suella Braverman, a Truss Cabinet appointee who was forced to resign just last week for mishandling documents (and after making comments about Indian immigrants that almost scuttled a U.K.-India trade deal).
So, in the midst of all this, just how are Indians looking at incoming PM Rishi Sunak? Well, all the WhatsApp forwards that fizzled when Truss beat him for the big job are flurrying anew, as Indians incorporate Sunak’s “kinda hot” visage into Diwali wishes to their families.
✓...But many responses across the diaspora have focused on Sunak’s ethnicity and Hindu faith, which are highly meaningful on a symbolic level...At least superficially, Sunak represents a major advance in a country that brutalized Indians for centuries. One Delhi businessman told ABC News this was “a moment of pride for India”: that “the country which ruled us for many years” is now anointing a prime minister of Indian descent.
✓ ...Sunak is also a proud Hindu who took his MP oath of office on a copy of the Bhagvad Gita, an essential text of Hinduism, and used his social media presence to share photos of himself practicing his faith. This is especially significant in light of the fact that just four years ago, a Conservative politician said that Hindu and Muslim faith-based celebrations had transformed Britain into a “crime-ridden cesspool.” It may be that Sunak’s new position as party leader will help marginalize sentiments like this within his party. But he’s also been quickly embraced by Hindu nationalists, including from India’s ruling party, who hope his selection augurs well for more fundamentalist forms of Hinduism. Sunak does not appear to have solid ties to Hindu nationalist organizations. But it seems unlikely he’d confront India over its Hindutva agenda anytime soon.
At any rate, Sunak’s honeymoon period as a paragon of British multiculturalism will likely be brief. He’s inheriting a Britain suffering from both economic and energy crises, and as a result his party’s approval rating has sunk to the bottom of the Thames. And to the dismay of many Indians in the U.K. and elsewhere, the Tories are still the party of austerity, climate denial, transphobia, crackdowns on citizenship eligibility, and—yes—racism. Sunak has sometimes bucked the party line on these issues, and at least has far better records on climate and the economy than Truss (which really isn’t saying much). But, as evidenced by this summer’s Conservative Party contest, he’s not likely to halt the Tories’ ever-rightward drift. Meanwhile, the majority of Indian Britons still back Labour, and Britain’s minority artists and activists, increasingly surveilled and demonized under Conservative administrations, probably won’t get relief or empathy from their first PM of color. Sunak has benefited a lot from good timing, savvy image-making, and relative newness to the global stage—not to mention an immense personal fortune. So he’s getting quite a bit of love this week. Soon enough, we’ll see how the auntie WhatsApps really feel."
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