Stagg has spent 30 of his 52 years as a career diplomat and fends off with practised ease the prickliest of questions.
Britain’s High Commissioner to India, talks about immigration and other issues
“Gordon Brown will be visiting India - but not Mumbai — in January next year.” Clearly that’s uppermost in the mind of Britain’s new High Commissioner to India. Stagg, who started on his India assignment in September this year, was in Mumbai last week, for “a special introduction to India’s first or second city — depending on your perspective”.
Stagg has spent 30 of his 52 years as a career diplomat and fends off with practised ease the prickliest of questions. There is one issue, however, that penetrates the diplomatic armour — climate change.
“Britain is working out a legislation that would set emission reduction targets for every government department,” he says. But, “Even if all the developed nations became zero carbon economies by 2050, carbon emissions would continue to grow and global warming would continue because of emissions from the developing economies.” But how can countries like India the catch up with the industrialised west and its emission heavy growth model? “You can no longer look at growth and climate change as two different things,” he says.
“India, because of its geography, has far more to lose from global warming than Britain. And it will not be able to reach the same level as the developed economies if it is going to suffer from successively severe droughts and floods. You need to think radically.” As an example, he cites India’s call centre economy. “Who would have thought that people sitting in India would take care of customer relations for American companies in America? But that’s happened. Something as new and as unprecedented as that needs to be worked out in order to achieve a zero-carbon emission economy.”
Stagg explains why it seems that it’s more difficult for a non-white, non-European Union (EU) citizen to get into the UK: “We have our obligations as a member of the EU, so we have to give a certain treatment to EU citizens.” But isn’t Britain, which had a comparatively liberal immigration law, converting itself into a fortress with the new biometric visas and the Australian-type points system?
That’s not the way to look at it, says Stagg. The points system has to be separated from immigration policy, as it is only a mechanism to make the entire process transparent. Depending on your immigration policy, you could have a points system where only the richest and the most highly qualified get in, or you could have a system where semi-skilled persons from any economic background can get in. Now, with the points system, people can know before they apply whether they stand a chance, unlike earlier, when they would invest their life’s savings in the process and then stand in danger of their application being rejected. But he does admit, with some reluctance that Britain cannot afford to admit “all the 6 billion people in the world” who might want to live and work in its territory.
One of the tasks Stagg has set for himself is to bring about an image make-over for his country in India. “We are perceived as reliable but what people don’t realise is that Britain is also cutting edge. We do manufacture Formula One cars. I want this - our leadership role in technology and research, especially - to be reflected in our image here.” And for that he has big plans to jazz up the British High Commission website. But for the vast majority of Indians, will it sound like: sorry, we cannot let you into our country, but you can visit our website instead.
sampath@dnaindia.net
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}