2023 G20 Summit: What to expect from Rishi Sunak's first visit to India since becoming UK PM

In 1903, the UK imported over 14 percent of the total wheat and wheat flour from India. From being a negligible supplier – in 1872, it was nought – in the last three decades of the nineteenth century, India rose to become the second-largest wheat supplier to the UK, after the US. None of the European countries figured in the top 5 list, with Russia being joint second with India. It was, of course, the days of the British Raj and different dynamics were at play, but in the post-colonial (and Brexit) era, at the heart of London’s engagement with New Delhi on Free Trade Agreement (FTA), is the imperative to show that countries outside the EU can be meaningful and long-term trading partners. The 13th round of discussions on the India-UK FTA are scheduled for this month.

Now that Rishi Sunak has landed in India for the G20 Summit, his meeting with the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will provide an impetus to finalize the FTA for which talks have been ongoing for a fairly long period. After the debacle of announcing a deadline of Diwali 2022 for the signing of the FTA, both the sides have now judiciously avoided putting any sort of timetable. Simplification of visa rules, migration policies, Scotch whisky, British cars, pharmaceuticals have emerged as some of the key sticking points between both the sides. These have been knotty enough to not allow the FTA agreement to be ready during the G20 summit, which would have given it an added spectacle, although optimist voices in the British government have been making it known that a deal could still be reached by the end of 2023.

A high percentage of young people in India's population means that New Delhi is keen to extract the fullest possible concessions allowing greater mobility for students and professionals, certainly on par with any other country. This has meant that while the UK’s education sector and its ministry of education have been enthusiastic about the possibility of greater number of international fee-paying Indian students, the UK home office has consistently made different noises. As migration and visas ultimately fall under the ambit of the home office, and the home secretaries, including the incumbent, have traditionally pandered to the Tory Right, the larger objective of the ministry has always been to keep migration numbers down. In May 2023, the UK home office announced that from January 2024 foreign postgraduate students on non-research courses will not be able to bring family members to the UK.

But much steam has been taken out from the narrative that India wants more visas as part of the FTA deal, when Vikram Doraiswami, Indian High Commissioner to the UK, told The Times Radio on Thursday (September 7) that reports in the UK media about India demanding more visas for its nationals were not entirely correct. “What we have been asking for is simplification of the process by which inter-company transfers happen. That is basically your (British) companies that have invested in India and our companies of which I might point out there are somewhat larger number that have invested here - 950 of them - find it easier to move Indian and British nationals between each other countries as part of free trade deal,” said Doraiswami.