Revaluating India's Foreign Policy: India UK Relations Post Brexit.

Abstract

On the 23rd of June 2016, the United Kingdom held a referendum to decide on the future of its participation in the European Union. The result with a 51.9 per cent majority to leave with a 72.2 per cent turnout, indicates that the region is divided almost in half over the continued membership in the European Union despite being one of its most economically and socially prosperous members. While journalistic sources have rightly emphasised on political polarization characterised by a rise in far-right politics, an investigation into the casual links of this divide finds its roots in the neoliberal policies and the emphasis on the service sector economy. Post the 1991 LPG reforms undertaken by India, a fundamental shift in its approach to policymaking has had a significant bearing on the operations of the foreign policy establishment as well. In the transition from the focus on geo-politics to geo-economics, India’s relations with the advanced and rising economies will determine its standing in a world order that’s no longer centred around the activities of superpowers. At a time when a nation’s stature in the world is determined by rankings of how conducive the regulatory environment is for global competition, going by the political emphasis on the ease of doing business, India’s public policymaking does not happen in a vacuum. While trade reviews, trends in migration, official visits and statements by heads of both states combined with an investigation into the political relationship of the two nations have helped gain an image of the macro environment in which they operate, qualitative semi-structured interviews with both current and former practitioners of policy making in the foreign service establishment as well as scholars of India’s international relations and policymaking, provide a deep insight into the complex web of dynamics at play in the realm of foreign policymaking, say for forging new bilateral relations with the UK. In its quest to become the financial hub of the world, the series of deregulation policies adopted in the UK may have resulted in the massive economic growth of already thriving hubs like London, all of which voted to remain in the EU, and these centres may even continue to thrive after the formal departure from the EU, however, with rising inequality the hegemony of the financialsector and the concentration of all activity around very specific geographic and capital requirements will have to be challenged by fostering adequate competition amongst the financial institutions, the emergence of digital payment platforms could pose this solution, however adequate regulatory safeguards will have to be put in place to in order to anticipate and prevent market concentration being entrenched by the exploitation of the same digital disruption techniques.