Brown has been among the first British politicians to recognise the opportunities and challenges presented by India to Britain’s economy.
LONDON: Who exactly is Gordon Brown? Until January this year, except for a few, not many in India may have heard of him, for the simple reason that he had never visited the country as Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, a key post he held for a record time.
Brown was confirmed on Thursday as the next Labour leader who will take over from Tony Blair as the next prime minister of Britain. Yet, do a search on his pre-budget and other speeches in recent years and one of his most oft-mentioned words is ‘India’. Brown has been among the first British politicians to recognise the opportunities and challenges presented by India to Britain’s economy.
India figured prominently in his interaction with the press on Thursday when nominations for the Labour leadership contest closed and it became clear that he was the only candidate in the fray. He repeatedly referred to India and its growing role in global issues such as climate change.
As Brown begins his passage to 10 Downing Street, India and Britain appear set for a new phase in their relationship in which economy, trade and business will become the predominant buzzwords.
A political heavyweight in the Labour party, Brown, 56, will not really have to exert much to deal with Indian leaders, in particular, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He developed a rapport with Manmohan Singh during the January visit that was, in some ways, overshadowed by the Shilpa Shetty-Big Brother brouhaha.
Brown and Manmohan Singh share a strong academic background in economics: both have doctorates in the subject, Brown from the Edinburgh University and Manmohan Singh from Oxford. Manmohan Singh served as India’s finance minister before becoming the prime minister, while Brown has trodden the same path.
Brown’s Ph.D thesis was titled ‘Labour’s struggle to establish itself as the alternative to the Conservatives (in the early part of the 20th century)’. For a while, he lectured at the Edinburgh and Caledonian universities, and also had a brief stint as a journalist at Scottish TV in the early 1980s.
Brown has been a regular in meetings of the Labour Friends of India, a lobby within the Labour party comprising MPs, ministers and party leaders. At a recent meeting of the group, he said: “I value my contacts with India and want to convey my thanks to Labour Friends of India for the constructive and positive role it plays in parliament.”
Before visiting India in January, he said: “I am looking forward to visiting India with a view of understanding how our two countries can work even more closely than they already are. Our connections with India as a party go back many years and our relations are deep and so profound.”
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