Cameron in a meeting with young MPs, New Delhi, November 14

Britain came under a long period of Labour Party rule when the dashing Tony Blair led it to victory in 1997. He was the youngest prime minister since 1812, and a charming and energetic leader. He won two successive general elections; it looked as if Labour just could not be dislodged. The Conservative Party tried out three leaders; after much experimentation, it chose a 38-year novice in 2005. He had worked as a gopher with a number of Conservative ministers in the early 1990s; but he got fed up with the infighting amongst them, and left in 1994 to join Carlton Communications, a media firm engaged in producing television programmes and distributing films. He came to India for the first time in 1999, but nothing is known about the visit; it was probably in the course of business. In the meantime, he looked for a parliamentary seat. He finally won one in 2000. He fought for the leadership of Conservative Party and won in 2005. His name was David Cameron.

In 2006, he came to India. Why India? Because “[i]t’s the largest democracy on the planet, its economy is growing fast, and India is an incredibly diverse society with people of many cultures and religions living together... People are free to be Indian and Muslim, or Indian and Sikh, or Indian and Hindu, without any contradiction… We share so many ties, particularly the many people of Indian origin who live in Britain and make an enormous contribution to it… Our relationship with India goes deep. But I think it can and should go deeper. Our special relationship with America is well known. But as the world’s centre of gravity moves from Europe and the Atlantic to the south and the east, I think it's time for Britain and India to forge a new special relationship for the twenty-first century”. After opening a factory in Poona, he went to Delhi, and rode in the metro and in an auto rickshaw — a “tuk-tuk” which, to his delight, used natural gas.

After the general election in May 2010, he formed a coalition government with Liberal Democrats, and became prime minister. That July, he came again to India, this time with a plane full of half a dozen ministers, many industrialists and bureaucrats. He went to the sprawling Infosys City outside Bangalore. Why was he again in India? Because “the Indian tiger has been uncaged and its power can be felt around the world. You feel it in the fantastic new airports in Bangalore and Hyderabad, in Mumbai’s Bandra-Worli Sea Link, the Delhi metro and in Delhi’s stunning new airport terminal”. The Tatas were the largest manufacturing employers in Britain. Indian companies employed 90,000 people; two million Indians lived in Britain. The two countries had much in common: they both watched Shah Rukh Khan, ate curry, spoke English and played cricket.

Then he came to his sales pitch: Britain was the world’s sixth largest manufacturing country, it was located between the Asian and American time zones, it was the best base for doing business with Europe and a great hub for science and innovation, and it had some of the best universities in the world. Then he proposed that the two countries should work together in three directions — economy, security and climate change. In the economic field, they should aim to grow and produce more, they should improve their infrastructure, they should attract more foreign investment from each other, they should twin their universities and they should trade more — and with that aim in view, conclude the Indo-EU trade agreement. Second, they should broaden their partnership in defence and counter-terrorism. Finally, they should work together on technologies to reduce climate change, such as electric cars. He said that globalization was about more than trade in goods and services: it was about the trading of experiences and stories between friends across the world. He ended with a call to action, quoting Nehru as quoted by Indira: “There are two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. Be in the first group; there’s much less competition.”

In February this year, Cameron came with another large delegation of businessmen, this time to Bombay. He was happy that Britain was the largest European investor in India, and received more than half of India’s investment in Europe. He noted that India was planning to create seats for 40 million university students, and double its ratio of healthcare expenditure to gross domestic product. He wanted Britain to participate in both these plans; he brought along people from British universities, and from the British Museum and British Library — as well as from Premier Football League.

This time he showed awareness of Indian complaints against Britain. He said that Britain’s biggest visa operations in the world were in India, and that 90 per cent of the applicants got visas. It would soon give businessmen visas on the same day, and would look for other improvements in the process. Britain had 40,000 students from India: “President Hollande isn’t here for me to hear me say this, but I think that’s ten times as many go to France, and we want to make sure that the multiple only grows.” There was no limit to the number of Indian students who could come, nor to the number who could stay back in jobs after education. Britain was removing barriers, and so should India; in particular, it should allow British firms to invest more freely in insurance, banking and retail trade amongst other industries.

Thus, Cameron has repeatedly come to India and delivered a strong, clear, message: let us be allies, let us work together. There is another side to his approach that is important; it is portrayed in his speech last January on the European Union. He is extremely dissatisfied with the European Union and the direction it is taking.

The Eurozone is in trouble, and the measures its members may take to defend the euro make him uncomfortable. Second, the European Union is losing global competitiveness. And finally, it gives too much power to the heads of state and the European Commission — power that he thinks should belong to the national parliaments. He would like the European Union to be renegotiated, and failing that, Britain’s relationship with it to be redefined. He will try to achieve this; and after he has done so, he would like the British people to decide whether they want to stay in the European Union or not.

He has this dream — that Britain would distance itself from the European Union — and in that event, he would like Britain to become the Atlantic partner of India. He has explained in the speeches referred to above why he has chosen India. Now he has to get India to choose Britain. That is where the problem lies. For our leaders simply do not have the vision required to transform India into a superpower.

They are too timid, bureaucratic, and myopic. So they have listened to Cameron whenever he has spread out his strategy before them, and then gone back into their burrows. We need our own Cameron.