- Wednesday, March 12, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
WHILE the world watches political developments in the UK, a country which has now seen three prime ministers since the Brexit referendum in 2016 and is waiting for the fourth to take over in September, noted Indian journalist Vir Sanghvi has praised the country saying the race for the new occupant of the 10 Downing Street shows it is a mature democracy and lamented that the same could not be said about India.
In an opinion piece he penned for The Wire, Sanghvi started off by saying that the ruling Conservative Party in Britain has more Muslim parliamentarians than there are seen in India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He also said that many of those Muslim members of the British parliament are of South Asian origin which also made the difference with the BJP “even more startling”.
There are more Muslim MPs in the UK’s Tory party than in the BJP.
If Rishi Sunak had been in India, the highest job he could get is Chief Economic Advisor.
The world is getting more diverse but Indian politics is about majoritarianism & political families https://t.co/yA80VcE8xP— vir sanghvi (@virsanghvi) July 14, 2022
“I hadn’t thought about it until Boris Johnson was forced to step down as the prime minister and the race to succeed him began in earnest. I was struck by the number of non-white contenders and began to wonder: Has Britain become a diverse society, where minorities get a share of power? Or is it just that India is a diverse society where minorities are kept away from power?” Sanghvi asked in his piece titled ‘Rishi Sunak to Priti Patel, UK PM race shows it’s a mature democracy. India’s not even close’
The veteran journalist said both the propositions were valid. He also cited the case of the US’s ruling Democratic Party saying it also might have more Muslim members in the Congress than the BJP’s parliamentarians from the same community, reminding that the proportion of Muslims in the American population was much smaller than it is in India.
The BJP has no Muslim parliamentarian since July 6 when Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi resigned as the minority affairs minister in the Narendra Modi government.
“So, India is not necessarily a great example of a society where power at the Centre is shared with the minorities,” he wrote.
“Even so, the diversity within Britain’s Conservative Party—especially at the top—does seem astonishing. As The New York Times wrote about the British prime ministerial contenders a few days ago: “Six have recent forebears hailing from far beyond Europe — India, Iraq, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria and Pakistan. Of the white men, one is married to a Chinese woman while another holds a French passport.” Sanghvi added.
He then went on to say that contrary to what the outside world after Brexit, Britain has become more inclusive, less racist and is more willing to share power with its minorities.
Sanghvi then took a dig at the Indian democracy saying a mature democracy is one where politicians are valued for their ability and not ethnic origin.
“In India, all too often we make appointments not on merit alone but out of a desire to placate communities or sheer tokenism: A minority minister here or a vice president there,” he said.
“One of the tragedies of today’s India is that when it comes to politics, we are just not able to offer the kind of opportunities that our people deserve. To get anywhere in politics, you have to be born into the right family or you need to play the identity politics of region, religion or caste.
As the UK experience shows us, our democracy is the loser because Indian politics refuses to recognise, let alone encourage, the natural genius of our people,” Sanghvi said.
