‘Half the children in London schools don't speak English'

Pranay Sharma, Delhi, Hardnews 

The 52-year-old British high commissioner in New Delhi, Sir Richard Stagg, is a career diplomat. Since joining the diplomatic service in 1977, he has served in a variety of posts in the Hague, Brussels, Sofia and also as private secretary to the British foreign secretary in the mid-1990s. He spoke to Hardnews on India-UK partnership in education and other areas and on some of the raging debates in Britain.

What was achieved from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's visit to India last month?
It cemented the relationship between the two leaders (Brown and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh) who get on very well and have a similar background and interests. To lead the relationship onto the government-to-government level, I think that worked successfully. It was about identifying some new areas for us to work on or on areas where we haven't done as much as we could have done historically and to sort of raise our game.

What are these areas?
One is education. The Indian government is planning the expansion of higher education - new world class universities, new IITs, new IIMs. And we agreed that we will partner some of these new institutions. A minimum of one in each category and may be more by identifying UK institutions which will like to work with these new institutions. We see this as a way of bringing real mutual benefit. It will help India develop the world class academic institutions that it wants. But there will be benefits for UK too in forging relationships with these universities.

Are you setting them up in the major cities or are you planning to take them away from the bigger metros?
There are two different issues. One is about the agreement we signed on the general exchange between universities that will obviously incorporate the main, existing centrally public universities. The new institutions will not be in the big metros but in second-tier cities or areas of the country that are not so well provided. Once the Indian side clarifies what they are looking for we can clarify what we can offer. Education is going to be one of the big pillars in our relationship.

Can this cooperation make a big contribution to both the countries?
Both our economies are increasingly going to be skill-based. UK universities are keen to be here and have more such collaborations. Through the UK-India Educational Research Initiative, there is a good deal going on and there is more in the pipeline.

Will the decision to take research and development facilities away from the UK and setting them up in India create problems since there has been some concern over outsourcing?
The UK does not have a huge amount of anxiety about outsourcing. The government believes that we should support sensible business decisions since that will help the economy. In terms of our society there are concerns from time to time at particular decisions. In general, there has not been a great deal of anxiety.

We are talking of top-end students who will be attracted to such jobs. Wouldn't it have been better for them to have found such jobs in UK rather than to come to India for them?
I have talked to people from Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial; they all say there is added value in these partnerships. They are clear it will help them over time in partnering with the top end of the Indian academic world. They feel this will add value, bring different perspectives and ways of thinking, which will allow their top quality research operations to improve further. They believe that if these work and prosper over time, perhaps there will be mutual benefit. So these British institutions don't see them as outsourcing. It will be for the partners to judge for themselves whether it will bring things for them as well.

So there is a lot of scope for both sides
to benefit?
Yes. For instance, business schools are interested in looking at Indian business models. They think their students will be more successful if they spend some time looking at the way the Indian economy worked.

Traditionally, the UK has been an attractive destination for Indian students. But now you have competition not only from the US but also from Australia, Singapore and others. How are you going to cope with such competition?
There are two issues - one is substance and the other is perception. The substance is in the hand of the UK universities to decide what kind of product is attractive. At any given time there are about 20,000 Indian students in UK and that is not a small number. There is a perception issue which has a strong image. For the sort of people that we are trying to attract to study in our country, the UK is a strong brand, but it tends to be a traditional brand. People associate it with good things - an open, responsible, value-based society.

Is this sufficient to attract students to the UK?
These are good things but they are associated with quite a bit of history and tradition. This is only part of the story. We should persuade young Indians thinking of studying abroad that UK is not only a good place to study history or philosophy but also a good place to study bio-technology, farming information technology. We have some of the best models linking business to the academic world. But as long as people view us as a stable and traditional society it will be less easy for our universities to attract those who may see the US as a better place to go to.

UK universities were seen by students as places where they can freely express their views and engage in debate. But teachers and vice chancellors are now being asked to keep tabs on students who could be potential trouble-makers - almost asking them to spy on students. How will this affect the relationship?
The government believes we have a successful policy of integrating a wide range of people who come in large numbers in a relatively short period of time. In 40 years there has been a big change in our population. But within this process there are some people who don't feel comfortable. They feel alienated by our society. It is not just to do with poverty or obvious exclusion. Some of the people who have been involved in terrorist activities have been highly educated. So we have to manage the risk to our society from those who move from verbal discontent to violence. The challenge is how we can minimise that risk while maintaining the values of our society.

Is this an attempt to isolate them or to
co-opt them?
Ultimately, our goal is to try and see everyone in Britain feel comfortable. We are not trying to instruct university authorities to spy on people. It is normal life in a university where people do tend to express their views quite strongly and passionately and that is highly desirable. But there is a risk as in a few cases they have moved from that to taking violent actions in support of their views. Universities are a part of our society like anywhere else. We are asking them to be conscious of this risk and try to see how to manage it. It is a preventive measure. It is not that they are being put under some legal commitment to do things and will be held to account for failure. It is difficult since it is a small minority who are willing to use extreme and violent means. For any open, democratic and law-based society it is very difficult to handle that.

London was always seen as a melting-pot of different cultures. But now there is a fear that the UK is turning into a Police-State?
In reality, more than half the children in London schools don't speak English as their first language at homes. So it is as multi-national as any other city. It is not reverting to being an Anglo-Saxon island on the northwest coast of Europe. The issue of surveillance has been much discussed. But the evidence is that people feel much less concerned about these CCTVs that you and I might expect. People tend to see this as reassuring. It could also be seen what some may call as living under an Orwellian city.

There were reports that a member of Parliament's conversation with one of his constituents was taped by the police
without his knowledge. Does this indicate a sense of paranoia?
I genuinely don't know the details of the allegation, I only saw the headlines. But I can say that these issues are actively publicised and debated. The worry will come when nobody knows about them. It is the strength of our society. I don't know the details of this particular story, but it seems an unusual story. I don't think it is symbolic of a wide change that is at work. The police are closely scrutinised. We have a body which is specifically set up to undertake enquiries into police activity at the request of members of Parliament or members of the public. There is a system in place to ensure that if this does happen and if there is public concern there is a way to deal with that.

Recent reports suggest that the UK government deliberately jazzed up the report on Saddam Hussein's WMD capabilities to go to war in Iraq. To what extent does it affect people's trust and confidence on the government?
Some people will definitely see it as whether they can believe in their government. But the issue is not a black and white one but more of a spectrum. Every government tries to portray its policies in the best possible light and back them up with statistics. There are complicated issues. All governments do the same sort of things - they choose statistics that support their policies. That is inevitable and it is the opposition's job to identify the areas and prove the opposite. On Iraq, there was an active debate in the UK about the pros and cons of the war. But there is a constant temptation for governments to push it beyond the point to which the argument is sustainable.
On a wider point, society is changing a lot. I won't say that the underlying values are being fundamentally changed. If they are than the government's policies are failing.

So you think these debates are contributing to fundamental values?
You ought to have these debates. What you can't have is not to have these debates and then allow people to find other ways to express their concerns. We don't let people and others, like NGOs and lobby groups who are operating in our country, think that they can't change things. Rightly or wrongly, they should believe that they can convince the British people and the government that they should be doing A and not B. And that they will spend their money and time to do that.

Civilian nuclear energy is an area where you want to cooperate with India. Does the coalition nature of the Indian political system raise concerns in view of the Left parties' ability to slow down the Indo-US nuclear deal?
There is scope to have strong relations between the two parliaments. We are genuinely philosophical about dealing with the government that is in power. In a country like India, if the government wants to legislate on a particular area, it needs to get the support of a wide coalition and that is not always easy. I don't think we need to comment on that reality, we need to deal with it. We think people in the UK should understand that if they want India to change its laws it is not a matter for Manmohan Singh to issue a directive that will make it happen. Personally, I am confident with the coalition environment since it tends to help ensure that laws don't get passed that are going to be widely controversial or needs reversing shortly after their passage.