“We are the strongest supporters of civil nuclear energy for India”

In 2003, when Sir Michael Arthur was appointed as the British High Commissioner to Delhi, tension between India and Pakistan was quite palpable. A year ago, Western diplomats had left India fearing a conflict between the two nuclear warriors. Then things began to change. Sir Arthur was a witness to the thaw that swept South Asia and the growing warmth between India and United Kingdom.
Sir Arthur told Hardnews about how UK was backing US efforts to help India access civilian nuclear technology. He categorically states that Pakistan is a proliferating country and does not merit similar preferential treatment. Sir Arthur was very happy with the way the strategic alliance between the two countries was playing out on the ground.

Sanjay Kapoor Delhi

This is your first posting to Asia. How has it been?
It has been fantastic. For a British High Commissioner, India is a great place to be in. The last two-three years in India has been particularly nice. And I keep saying to London, that it is a continent and not a country. India is changing dynamically.

How do you quantify these changes?
The buzz of change is affecting economy, education, science, IT etc. India is the eighth largest investor in Britain as 500 Indian companies have a base in Britain. It is an enormous change from the situation that prevailed fifteen years ago. We are genuinely more multicultural now. The Indian Diaspora comprises 2 per cent of Britain’s population. There are as many Indians in Britain as there are Sikhs in India. NRIs are the most successful of all minorities residing in Britain and they control 4-5 percent of our GDP.

Even though it is about 60 years since India became independent from Great Britain, Indians have never nursed any hatred for its colonial rulers.  How do you explain this?

That is interesting. I think this has something to do with Gandhiji and the quality of the revolution that brought independence which was brought confrontation and peaceful, non-violent and peaceful that brought about its own legacy. I think India’s first generation led by Nehru did a fantastic job in putting itself together after independence. Britain did not have a traditional colonial kind of relationship with India that allowed build a relationship. Britain worked with India’s institutions. Now it has new “wind in the sail”. We are in a better relationship than before.
 

Well, after the 1998 nuclear tests, people who watched the Indo-UK relationship thought it had deteriorated considerably.

We are in a much better position than we were in 1998. Since Pokhran, there is much better level of understanding because of the economic dimension. We did disapprove of India become a nuclear weapon state there is no secret. Now we are to get around that problem to so from the civil nuclear side you join the world community. That is the big debate at the moment within the nuclear suppliers Group and Britain is trying for a successful