LAUSR

This article looks at India’s rise from a UK perspective. The emergence of India as an increasingly important power, politically and economically, has been a significant development in the international system and for UK foreign policy, bringing with it what the British Prime Minister called ‘a 21st century partnership’.2 The United Kingdom’s vote by referendum in June 2016 to leave the EU has made India an even more important factor for UK policy-makers. The argument of the article is threefold. First, it argues that Britain’s relationship with India is now primarily driven by economic considerations rather than political/normative considerations. Second, it argues that this is a relationship in which India’s hand is increasingly being politically strengthened vis-à-vis the UK precisely through India’s increasing economic weight. Third, it argues that the relationship is an asymmetric one in which India is more important to the UK than the UK is to India, and in which the UK is pursuing India more than India is pursuing the UK. These arguments are advanced through five successive sections. The first section of the article deals with the legacy of the past, considering the period up to 2002. The second section looks at the developing partnership between the UK and India that emerged between 2002 and 2016. The third section considers the politics of the current relationship, from the viewpoint of mid-2016. The fourth, core, section considers the economics of the current relationship as of mid-2016. The fifth section concludes by considering the post-Brexit future of the UK’s relationship with India, in the light of the June 2016 referendum result.