External affairs minister S Jaishankar is on a six-day tour of the UK and Ireland. Amid dramatic turns and re-turns in the global order due to Donald Trump’s policies on its allies and adversaries, India’s quest for its strategic benefits continues. Merely a week after the entire College of Commissioners from the EU delegation came to India for deepening strategic ties across trade, defence and technology, the EAM has embarked on a trip to the continent again. This time, to give momentum to enhancing a £41 billion (approximately $52 billion) trade partnership with the UK.
A lot has changed since George Fernandes, India’s then-defence minister, visited the UK in 2002. Following the ‘2+2 upgrade’ in October 2023, high-profile visits have taken place on both sides. Jaishankar’s present visit marks his second multi-day trip to the UK, following his five-day visit during Diwali 2023.
In January 2024, defence minister Rajnath Singh also travelled to the UK, shaping key defence industry cooperation agreements. Jaishankar’s current visit follows British trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds’ trip to New Delhi in February 2025, aimed at accelerating FTA (Free Trade Agreement) negotiations. Both countries are now working to resolve outstanding issues on market access, investment guarantees, and mobility.
At its core, this diplomatic momentum reflects bipartisan support for India in the UK, with both the Conservative and Labour parties actively engaging in strengthening ties with New Delhi.
Through these strategic engagements, both sides will assess various facets of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, aligning efforts with the 2030 Roadmap for India-UK relations.
Following his UK visit, Jaishankar will travel to Ireland, after which he is set to inaugurate two new Indian Consulates in Belfast and Manchester.
An evolving trade outlook
India’s focus on trade, defence, and connectivity with Western partners has been a key priority for the Modi government in recent years. The rationale is clear: New Delhi wants to further capitalise on its highest trade surpluses with partners like the US, the EU, and the UK, to compensate for high trade deficits recorded with China and Russia.
However, during Donald Trump’s presidency, India’s trade surplus with the US has come under scrutiny. Controversial statements by Trump have led to the US decision to impose reciprocal tariffs. This has come despite India’s early diplomatic outreach to the new administration and agreeing to reduce trade surplus with concrete deliverables such as lowering key tariffs on US imports and buying more hydrocarbons and military equipment.
However, the current push for FTAs also reflects a shift in India’s approach toward deeper integration into global supply chains, aligning with its growing economic stature.
This marks a departure from the government’s 2014 policy when it paused most FTA negotiations and scrapped bilateral investment treaties, citing their lack of benefits for India. At the time, the focus was on ‘Make in India’, aimed at strengthening the domestic industrial base. Now, the renewed enthusiasm for FTAs suggests a recalibration of this strategy—balancing domestic industrial growth with global competitiveness. The government’s pragmatic approach seeks to enhance market access, facilitate investment, and address India’s historically low FTA utilisation rates as compared to developed nations.
From an international perspective, this shift signals a departure from India’s long-standing import-substitution policies, attracting global attention. However, in some Western circles, ‘Make in India’ is still perceived as a protectionist trade strategy. For example, in 2021, the US Trade Representative (USTR) criticised it as a challenge for bilateral trade. Yet, the recent FTAs suggest India’s increasing willingness to engage with global production and supply networks.
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Trade with Europe
A notable milestone in India’s trade strategy has been the recently concluded Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA), its first FTA with advanced economies. The agreement was signed in March 2024 with Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein. It is structured on a simple quid pro quo: India opens its markets in exchange for substantial investments from these nations, particularly Switzerland and Norway. TEPA also stands out for its inclusion of remedial clauses, offering a more balanced framework.
India is currently negotiating two more FTAs with European partners. One is a multi-tier FTA and bilateral investment treaty with the EU, which, despite political momentum following European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s visit to India, faces technical challenges. While both sides aim to conclude the deal by 2025, its current form appears too rigid to be finalised without modifications.
In contrast to the prolonged EU and EFTA negotiations, trade talks between India and the UK are relatively recent. They were initiated in 2020, four years after Brexit. Successive Conservative governments—from Boris Johnson to Liz Truss to Rishi Sunak—and now Labour—have supported the negotiations, demonstrating the UK’s interest in strengthening trade ties with India.
Another crucial factor behind India’s focus on the UK is remittances. In 2023-24, India earned about $120 billion from remittances, surpassing its Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) earnings of approximately $75 billion. Given that the UK has been one of the top sources from where India earns its remittances, strengthening overall economic ties with the UK aligns perfectly with India’s strategic priorities.
The second aspect of India’s strategic relationship with the UK is defence industry cooperation. Although not the focus of Jaishankar’s visit this time, it is a robust pillar of the 2+2 format and adds meat to our bilateral ties. In 2022, India and the UK had set up a Joint Working Group on strengthening defence industry collaboration. The following year, the UK issued its first Open General Export Licence (OGEL) in the Indo-Pacific region to India to shorten delivery time for defence procurement.
That said, a striking contrast emerges whenever Jaishankar visits Europe or the UK—the spirit of open discourse. His visits are often marked by candid, unscripted exchanges, such as the interaction at Chatham House in London, where his sharp wit and pointed remarks resonate widely, earning him admiration both at home and abroad.
Yet, this openness is notably absent when the European counterparts visit India. For instance, during European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s recent visit to Delhi, only a single engagement with the strategic community took place, where open interaction was reportedly canceled at the last moment. In thriving democracies, open dialogue is a mark of democratic vigour. Making an effort to increase space for such open discussions will be a testament to the evolving democratic ethos of our times.
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History vs pragmatism
Despite the progress, skepticism lingers. India-UK diplomatic relations have often been entangled in political controversy, diverting attention from the broader imperatives of defence and economic cooperation. New Delhi has strongly pushed back against the BBC’s critical portrayals of India and the growing Khalistan influence in UK politics, viewing them as unfair and misrepresentative. The recent security breach involving Jaishankar by a Khalistan extremist has once again sparked controversy in India, reviving concerns over these lingering issues.
For strategic trust to stabilise, the British side must walk its talk on these long-standing concerns from New Delhi.
Despite deep alignment on several strategic fronts, India-UK relations have often underperformed. This shortfall is partly rooted in a complicated past, but as Jaishankar has repeatedly pointed out, India’s strategic discourse must move beyond ingrained anti-Westernism. The pursuit of national interest must be shaped by pragmatism rather than the shadows of history, ensuring that policy decisions reflect the realities of an ever-changing world rather than the weight of the past.
Swasti Rao is a consulting editor at ThePrint and a foreign policy expert. She tweets @swasrao. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)
UK’s never ending love for Pakistan and Islamists of all shades and hues means that India will always keep a distance from the UK.
The recent attack by Khalistanis on Mr. Jaishankar is a case in point.
UK has always been a hub of all sorts of anti-India activities – ranging from Khalistanis to Islamists to ISI backed Maulvis propagating jihad against the Indian state. The nature of UK politics is such that no political party will ever take action against these elements as each of these have a significant votebank capable of titling the scales in the electoral race.
India must bot have great expectations of the UK. France, in stark contrast, is a much more reliable security partner.
For Europe, including Britain, Russia is a looming, one will not say existential, threat. One it must now face without the reassurance of having the United States as a trustworthy military ally. Whereas Russia and India are inseparable. If anything, ties have deepened after its invasion of Ukraine. 2. India and Europe, collectively through the EU, or in the form of important bilateral relationships as with Britain, have the potential to increase trade, investment, technology, some limited mobility for skilled professionals. However, in terms of the political or strategic partnership, Russia is going to be a constraint. And the United States no longer the cementing force it was.
Nothing much can be done with socialist India, says the UK and rest of the world.