India has “disengaged” from Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations with the United Kingdom over the failure of the British authorities to condemn the Sikh extremists who targeted the Indian High Commission in London last month, The Times reported.
The British publication quoted sources in the Whitehall as saying that New Delhi wouldn’t “talk about trade until they get a very public demonstration of condemnation of Khalistan extremism in the UK”.
The Indian Commerce Ministry is yet to confirm or dismiss the reports.
The eighth round of talks for the proposed FTA were scheduled to take place in the last week of March.
However, the vandalizing of the Indian High Commission in London by Sikh radicals on 19 March led to a diplomatic row between the two countries.
The Indian Foreign Ministry summoned the Deputy High Commissioner of the UK, at the time the senior most British diplomat in New Delhi, to lodge a strong protest over the “complete absence of security” at the Indian mission.
Amid the diplomatic unease, UK’s National Security Advisor Tim Barrow also flew down to New Delhi last month to hold talks with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval.
Troubled FTA Talks
The FTA was announced by the two countries during a virtual meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in May 2021, as a post-Brexit UK rushes to ink free trade pacts with other countries to negate the economic impact of leaving the EU.
Both governments have expressed hope that the FTA would double the bilateral trade by 2030 by providing greater market access to each other’s products.
For India’s part, it has been seeking access for its skilled labour in the British market as part of the ongoing FTA negotiations. Both countries signed the UK-India Migration and Mobility Partnership in May 2021 as part of a larger push to deepen commerce ties between the nations.
India’s push to increase migration to the UK has faced pushback from British Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who accused Indians of being “the largest group of people who overstay their visas.”
“I have concerns about having an open borders migration policy with India because I don’t think that’s what people voted for with Brexit,” Braverman stated in an interview with The Spectator last October.
Security of Indian Interests 'Paramount': Indian Economic Advocacy Group
Ashwani Mahajan, the co-convenor of economic advocacy group Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) told Sputnik that New Delhi's concerns vis-a-vis the security of Indian diplomatic personnel was paramount and that New Delhi's concerns have to be addressed by the British authorities.
The SJM is considered as the economic wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
"These are very genuine concerns. Trade and security issues can't be separate... After all, trade is also related to diplomacy," Mahajan told Sputnik.
He further expressed concerns over some of the aspects of the ongoing FTA talks between India and the UK.
"The UK has a template on the basis of which it conducts its FTA negotiations. Their policy in regards to procurement of goods could hurt the Indian manufacturers. India must be careful on that," Mahajan said.
He further expressed concerns over UK's stringent Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) policy, which Mahajan might hold back Indian companies when competing with their British counterparts.
Mahajan also seemed unoptimistic about the increase in Indian skilled labour intake into the UK, which is being negotiated between the two countries under the banner of the FTA.
"Well, definitely, the movemenmt of labour and goods are negotiated as part of the FTA. But our experience in getting the visa norms relaxed hasn't been favourable in the past," Mahajan highlighted, as he cites India's previous FTA with the ASEAN grouping.