Cameron visits India to start a new chapter in Indo-UK relations

22 February, 2013

Today, Great Britain is not that big power as it used to be. But its presence in India is so deep that it will continue to be an important for us for a long time. The British Prime Minister David Cameron's visit to India in general and Jallianwala Bagh in particular is an indication of joint historical events. Cameron not only visited Jallianwala Bagh but he also expressed regret at the massacre of unarmed civilians in 1919.

Despite all this, there are not that many fissures in the relations between the two countries unlike what we have seen between Japan and China. No doubt, the view point of both the countries has been different on colonialism.

The culture of Indian and British people of that historical period was contradictory. But now the Britishers will not agree that colonialism was a good thing and that has some significance. The incident of Jalliawala Bagh is the outcome of that colonial era. This incident of firing on the unarmed people further raised the tempers of Indians against the British Government and because of this attitude they felt that Indians are ‘uncultured’.

Indians do not expect any regret from the Englishmen but sometimes it looks we should be more sensitive and emotional towards our past. One of the reasons for the same is that we have inherited most of our problems from the English.

Now the circumstances have changed as India is now a developing and rising super-power while the Great Britain is a dying super-power. The main purpose of Cameron’s visit to India is to develop business relations with India so that it can bounce back its dying economy. There is a specific reason behind the visit to Golden Temple in Amritsar and Jallianwala Bagh because Punjabis and Sikhs are very important in social and economic life of Great Britain.