Honorable Nirj Deva former British MP and MEP of the European Parliament and now Presidential Envoy addresses BRISLA Excerpts of the speech made by Honorable Nirj Deva former British MP and MEP of the European Parliament and now Presidential Envoy of Sri Lanka at the dinner hosted by the British Sri Lankan Association (BRISLA) yesterday, 20th October 2023 during its Annual Award Ceremony.
My Lords, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Zimar Sivadeen, Chairman of BRITSLA you are an extraordinary human being, an extraordinary British Sri Lankan, You have brought the Sri Lankan community together over many years and you have brought all of us here together repeatedly to create a British Sri Lankan Community which in your own words, is a uniform, credible voice for the Sri Lankan community in the United Kingdom.
In that, you have succeeded beyond measure. And I want to thank you.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We are at the cusp of a shift in global affairs.
The old post-war Bretton Woods agreements are crumbling before our very eyes and however we detest that fact, we have to face that the 21st century will belong to Asia.
When I made this point in Delhi, some clever young fellow said, “You mean the world has gone back to being normal.” So I said, “Explain that “and he said “For the 2000 years of recorded world history, India had 31% of global trade and China 34%. “
When Sir Thomas Rowe, the first British ambassador to the Indian court, the Mughal court arrived, those were the facts. 65% of global trade was with India and China and in that long period of global history, the rise of Greece, Rome, the birth of Christ and so on and so on, there was never a war between India and China, not one. They grew independently and separately. They acknowledged each other, but they never fought.
There is no reason they should fight now and the Indians have made that clear and Mr. Wickremesinghe the President of Sri Lanka has made that clear. Recently he said “We are not going to be drawn into the rivalries of Atlantic powers over the Indian Ocean. We are not pro America nor pro-China. We are pro Sri Lanka.”
Mr. Jaishankar and Delhi have said the same thing. They are conducting their own foreign policy that is in the interest of India and Sri Lankans are doing the same for Sri Lanka.
The Chinese, well the Chinese are the Chinese. They are doing what they will do inexorably, whether we like it or not. So if we want to stand in front of a railway line while watching the train coming out of the tunnel and get smashed, then so be it. But intelligent people step aside.
Today, I am a British politician who has served this country unrelentingly for 50 years as a Conservative politician with my dear colleague Michael Morris, who has been an exemplary epitome of what a British politician should be, promoting British interests around the world and particularly in Sri Lanka.
If you look at British interests in Sri Lanka today, I am sad to have to say that no one cares a hoot in Colombo what I as a British politician or what the British High Commissioner has to say. We have talked the wrong talk and walked the wrong walk.
We are going to have to change that.
We must position Sri Lanka as a primary friend of Britain in the Indian Ocean and make that hub relationship the primary relationship to promote British and Sri Lankan commercial and trade interests in the Indian Ocean rim countries.
Sri Lanka’s position in the Indian Ocean makes her punch far above her weight, not only because of the ports, not only because of the undersea cables that link the entire financial world together and link all the financial messages that go through, only 6 kilometres away from the seashore, not only because of the size of the seabed that Sri Lanka owns, which is 28 times the size of the country going all the way to Antarctica, not only because she’s a hub between Africa and China, not only because she is a hub between the East and the West.
Sri Lanka’s location is why the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British came there, not because they like the taste of the Sri Lankan food. They came because it was geographically important and that importance has grown immeasurably as Asia has become the engine of world development.
So, if we don’t grasp that, Britain will lose out and over the years become an insignificant nation. We have a duty as British Sri Lankans to reverse this sense of drift that is now taking place in Britain. Having Brexited we appear to be a country with nowhere to go.
It is our duty and the duty of every one of the diaspora, Sri Lankan, Indian, Pakistani, Ghanaian, Nigerian West Indian and East African living and working in Britain for Britain to give a new direction to British people who are once again seeking a global role post Brexit.
President Wickremesinghe has worked very hard to bring the all the communities, of Sri Lanka, the Tamil, the Sinhalese and the Muslim communities together in a very positive way to create one nation because we are one nation. For 2,500 years, Sri Lanka has been one nation and we must never allow anyone to divide us again.
We now have a chance under our current President to refashion, remould and relaunch one of the oldest countries in the world, one of the most literate countries in the world, one of the countries that fed South India and Bay of Bengal for thousands of years and to create a country which stands for human rights, democratic values and an economy that promotes growth in the coming years.
When Hon. Ranil Wickremesinghe became President a year ago, you won’t believe this, but inflation was 70%. Today, it is 8%. Interest rate was 36%. Today, it is 12%. Then the tourists coming to Sri Lanka could be counted on your fingers. Today, we are nearly 1.0 million and increasing. The hotels which were empty then are filling up now. There are no food queues, no petrol queues, there are no power cuts. The IMF first tranche and the second tranche are being given. And miraculously, this man just waved a wand and things started going right. Do you know why? Why? Because he’s got magical powers? No, it’s simply because he knows what to do.
He has been Prime Minister six times. He was a Cabinet Minister at the age of 26. He is now 74. For all his life, he has known how to use the instruments of governance to get the country on its feet and that is what he is doing. He just came back from Beijing, having signed the 1.5 billion dollar investment into Colombo with the Chinese. A couple of months ago, he persuaded the Indians to give Sri Lanka 4 billion dollars.
This is after we were declared bankrupt, which should really have not happened but that’s another story. So, where are we going? We are going to become a key country in agribusiness, in internet and software and coding and digitized economy, in ports and logistics, in transport, in financial and banking servicing the Indian subcontinent, and further afield.
So I am telling my British political colleagues, Sri Lanka needs investments. She does not need lectures.
The British role should be to lead the investment promotion of Sri Lanka as an opportunity to service the vast 1.4 billion Indian market. Lest you forget, there is a free trade agreement between the small island and the huge 1.4 billion Indian market, which is not being used. We need to use that. And the British companies need to come to Sri Lanka, particularly on the service sector, banks, insurance companies, financial services, and other things, to promote the vast emerging middle class of India from Sri Lanka because Sri Lanka can give better tax rates, even no tax in some places like the Port City. New business friendly programs that will assist British companies to access the Indian market and promote services to India. Huge opportunity.
So we Brexited. We left a market of 500 million people to embrace a market of 65 million people and now we need to fight back to achieve that global position we once had. A few years ago, we were the fourth richest country in the world. Now we are the eighth.
A long time ago, the British endeavors left the world with the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth is neglected now in London. The British of today, and I mean us all have forgotten what potential it has. We have forgotten because we are scared of the behaviour of imperialist long dead, whose behaviour was utterly reprehensible but is not of our doing. Today’s Britain is not remotely anything like the Britain that was then. Imperial Britain did not have as a Conservative Prime Minister a Hindu British Indian in Downing Street. Yet we are frightened to accept that things have changed and pick up the challenge to create a new Commonwealth.
No matter. Others have noticed, others are aware and the other day I was in Delhi and I was talking to some very senior Indians.
And I said, what do you think of the Commonwealth? And they smiled and said, we know of it and we are very happy with it. And I asked, what exactly are you saying? He said, you know the Chinese have their belt and road.
We have the Commonwealth. Of the 2.4 billion people in the Commonwealth of 56 countries, 1.4 billion are Indians. 60% of the Commonwealth is Indian. And they see that as their belt and road. We have access to ports in the Caribbean, in Canada, in Africa, in the Pacific. All quietly being built up by the Indian diaspora.
The Indian diaspora is the most powerful diaspora ever in human history. I know the Jewish diaspora was very powerful. But if you look at the role of the Indian diaspora, every single high tech company in the world is now run by Indians.
The Indian diaspora in the United States, might even have an Indian President. We certainly have an Indian origin vice president in the United States now. So the Indian diaspora, which is a part of this Commonwealth thing I’m talking about, is incredibly powerful.
Our British prime minister is a part of that. The richest people in this country are the Indian diaspora. Jaguar, Land Rover, British Steel, actually Indian Steel. All the steel companies owned by Indians.
Pharmaceuticals. The retail industry. The IT industry, they’re all Indian. This Indian diaspora is going to be a huge asset to this country and to Sri Lanka. So let’s all get together and march forward, Britain included.
Thank you
