From the Indian point of view, Tony Blair has got on well with both Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh and nearly always supported India as well as the Indian community in Britain. He wants India to have a permanent seat on the Security Council (though without the veto). Does that mean that Indians can overlook and forgive his utterly disastrous decision to go along with President Bush over the war in Iraq? Every other day a British soldier, some as young as his sons, is brought back in a Union Jack-draped coffin.

On Wednesday, June 27, Blair steps down after 10 years as Prime Minister, and the conventional wisdom, which Lord Meghnad Desai, the Labour peer and economist, goes along with, is that had it not been for Iraq, he would have been remembered as a great Prime Minister.

“Blair saw the importance of India for the British economy,” says Desai. “He put Third World development on the world agenda, strengthened the multiracial, tolerant society in Britain — and then he lost it all in Iraq.”

To the psychiatrist, Dr Raj Persaud, Blair remains a suitable case for treatment. Persaud is unimpressed with Blair’s argument that what he did in Iraq was right because he genuinely believed what he did was right.

“Is it about vanity,” wonders Persaud, pondering Blair’s refusal now to pull out of Iraq. “Is there a political vanity here where people are willing to sacrifice the lives of British soldiers just in the hope that one’s career could be saved?”

But Persaud acknowledges: “The Blair period appears to have coincided with more pragmatism whereby the Prime Minister seems to be not so hung up about the issue of immigration. However, contrast that with the notion that Blair has had of a war on terror so he has had a very polarised view of the world — a them-and-us view. And has that really been that helpful?”

Persaud’s analysis of Blair is not flattering: “Has he embraced the kind of them-and-us approach to the world which has ultimately led him to militarism and wars? Blair, like a lot of leaders, has been, psychologists would argue, quite a paranoid leader because he has seen enemies that we must have this war on terror on. Some people would argue that we elect paranoid leaders because they reflect our own paranoia and they tap into that. But I think that great leaders should be the ones who take us away from our paranoid position to a more helpful, more productive position.”

Nevertheless, businessman Sir Gulam Noon reflects Blair’s still high standing among Indians. “He has always supported India and the Indian community,” Noon points out. An example of that would be that Blair has ignored unions’ demands that a stop be put on the outsourcing of jobs, mostly in IT, to India.

“There are almost 500 Indian companies here, making India the second largest investor in the UK,” adds Noon. “He created a climate that was conducive for that.”

To some extent, Blair’s engagement with the Asian community in Britain and Indians in particular, has been shaped by the attitude of his wife Cherie, a forceful lawyer who has done more than her share for Asian women’s groups. Her habit of wearing Asian clothes rubbed off on her husband, who donned a Nehru jacket on one of only two trips he has made to India. But after criticism from newspapers that he was trying to ingratiate himself with the ethnic minorities, that jacket has never again come out from his wardrobe (though he looked rather smart in it).

Of course, Blair has lost a lot of Muslim support but that does not mean that the Muslim protest vote will go to the David Cameron-led Conservative Party at the next general election. Last week, it was easy to see why Blair still has a following among the ethnic minorities when Keith Vaz, himself marking 20 years as Labour MP for Leicester East, held a “thank you” dinner for the departing Prime Minister.

Over 500 people, mostly Indians but with a few Pakistanis, paid to attend the (over-subscribed) dinner and were happy to do so.

Before Blair arrived, there were warm up acts, a gushing video of achievements and headlines reminiscent of Indira Gandhi’s 20-point programmes — “2.5m more people in work than in 1997”, “79,000 more nurses” and so on.

A Pakistani businessman joked: “Many more wars than in 1997.”

During the evening, the word “Iraq” was conspicuous by its absence.

“We celebrate 10 years of achievement in race and equality which have seen our country transformed for the better,” was Vaz’s introduction. “Our chief guest is the man who made this possible, Prime Minister Tony Blair.”

His calculations showed that Blair had been “in office for 3,702 days”. “If you google the word Tony Blair, you will find there are over 12 million mentions of his name. He is one of the most famous people on this planet. Britain and the Labour Party will never be the same again.”

It was not a night for understatements from Vaz: “Our cities are mirrors of the world, London especially, a vibrant, tolerant city in a vibrant, tolerant country, the best city in the best country with the best Prime Minister in the world.”

It is certainly true that Indian visitors, who have overtaken the Japanese and are now second in the league table of overseas visitors, feel very much at home in London, for which Blair can take some of the credit — and did so in an emotional response.

“You can be very proud of yourselves, we are very proud of you,” was Blair’s message to Indians and Pakistanis and other members of the ethnic minorities.

He meant it when he spoke of migrants contributing to Britain’s human capital — something less easily accepted by the Right in British politics. “If we are to succeed as a country in future, it will only be as a result of the talent and ability and development of our people. It is human capital that makes our country great today. You can import the technology, you can bring in the financial capital but the one thing that is very very hard to do is to succeed as a country today unless you develop the potential of your people.”

He offered his thanks to Asians: “I have not always made it easy for you to offer that support but genuine friends are there for you when life is hard as well as when life is easy. I know that tonight I am among genuine friends and people I respect deeply.”

Sounding as overcome as David Beckham, when the latter stepped down as England football captain, Blair’s summed up his philosophy: “It has been a privilege and an honour to be Prime Minister of this country for the last 10 years. There is no country that it is better to be a Prime Minister of than this country, Britain, and that is because the values we stand for are not just British values or western values, still less values or the property of any one faith or religion, but they are actually universal values of the human spirit. It is what makes humanity progress, we should never forget it, and if we remember and act on those values our country and our world will be a better place.”

Sadly, Blair’s epitaph is likely to read: “Tony Blair. Prime Minister 1997-2007. Took Britain to war against Iraq.”

Quick Fact

Name: Anthony (Tony) Charles Lynton Blair.

Born: Edinburgh, May 6, 1953.

Religion: Anglican Christian.

Education: Fettes College, Edinburgh (public school). Read law at St John’s College, Oxford. As a student, played the guitar and sang for a rock band called Ugly Rumours.

Political debut: Joined the Labour Party in 1975

Elected: Labour MP for Sedgefield, county Durham, in 1983.

Shadow briefs: Treasury front bench (1984); trade and industry spokesman; shadow energy secretary (1989); shadow employment secretary; shadow home secretary (1992). Made famous pledge that Labour would be “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”.

Labour leader: Took over as Labour Party leader in July 1994. Won the leadership battle by a large majority. Did away with the party’s traditional commitment to nationalised industry, thereby allowing for the birth of “New Labour”.

Prime Minister: On May 2, 1997, Blair, 43, led Labour to a landslide majority after 18 years of being in the Opposition. Promised “education, education, education”, and became the youngest British Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool in 1812. Reelected in June, 2001, and May 5, 2005. Blair is the Labour Party’s longest-serving Prime Minister — the only person to have led the party to three consecutive general election victories. On September 7, 2006, announced he would step down as Prime Minister by September, 2007.

Family life: On March 29,1980, married Cherie Booth, a practising Roman Catholic and now a QC and judge. They have four children (Euan, Nicky, Kathryn and Leo). Leo (born May 20, 2000) was the first legitimate child born to a serving Prime Minister in over 150 years.

Wars: Sierra Leone; Kosovo; Afghanistan (2001); Iraq (2003). Has said his judge on Iraq would be God. Strong supporter of President Bush’s “war on terror”.

India trips: January, 2002; September, 2005.

Future plans: May undertake paid lecture tours, write Downing Street diaries and promote inter-faith dialogue. He is still only 54, the age at which Indian politicians are considered too young to be Prime Minister.