Chandrayaan 3: Why claims that India spent "British aid" on moon mission are more far-fetched than aliens
It’s easy to understand the chagrin of some of the subjects of our former colonial overlords.
The denizens of Great Britain are good at many things. Coming up with decent rock bands or satirical comedy shows that parody reality. Convincing the world that chip butties are a real thing. Playing rash shots and packaging it as a new way of playing cricket. Deluding themselves into thinking that the upkeep of a Germanic family is what’s keeping their nation together. Convincing themselves that beans on toast makes an adequate dinner. Boasting to the world that they have the most competitive football league in Europe even though it has had the same winner five times in the last six years.
But, if there’s one art form they have mastered beyond measure – especially as the harsh cold stone of reality drags the Albion out of their Rudyard Kipling-meets-John Le Carre Panglossian fantasia of being a great nation – it’s whining.
The stoical stiff upper lip, once believed to be the defining characteristic of the common, average, garden-variety Britisher, has given way to constant whining, perhaps, because our former colonisers simply can’t come to terms with their new reality. The new national character was on full display after the successful landing of Chandrayaan 3, when its former colony became the first nation to reach the south side of the Moon and also the fourth nation after the USA, Russia, and China, to manage a soft landing on the lunar surface.
While most of the world thought this was a reason to congratulate India on its remarkable achievement, several folks in Britain felt that they’d rather revert to their national pastime.
Interestingly, the criticism came from both sides of the aisle: whether it’s the BBC held up as the paragon of neutral news or more crypto-conservative outlets like GB News or the Daily Express.
BBC, which often tries to grapple with complex issues, like why women vote for PM Modi without talking to a single woman who votes for Modi, regressed to its default colonial position as an anchor asked: “A country that has extreme poverty, more than 700 million Indians don’t have access to a toilet should really be spending that sort of money on a space program?”
Of course, that’s a bit on the nose when coming from a government-paid tax broadcaster of a nation where a Premier League footballer has to campaign to ensure children get a midday meal. Perhaps, an Indian anchor could ask whether it's prudent to spend £86.3 million per annum on the maintenance of the Royal family when Britishers can’t pay their electricity bills.
Nigel Farage, perhaps the man who singlehandedly brought upon Britain’s current state of economic woes by heralding Brexit, made mendacious claims about India’s mendicity that the nation was “wasting money on space missions where half the country lived below the poverty line” and buttressed his lie with another that Great Britain had given India “foreign aid of £2.3 billion”.
There were similar tweets – laced with century-old racist tropes that’d gladden Winston Churchill’s heart from several Britishers – who kept on demanding that India “return the £2.3 billion” it gave in foreign aid to India that apparently was now being wasted on fancy things like space missions. As always, many of the commentariat appeared to follow the Yes Ministers-que maxim of not looking too closely at something when one doesn’t have all the facts.
For the uninitiated, in one memorable episode Yes Minister titled The Whisky Priest, Sir Humphrey explains to the honourable Jim Hacker that selling weapons abroad was something that the government didn’t look at too closely into and urged the minister to leave morality – questions on good or evil – to the Church of England.
But since we don’t live in a Yes Minister world, here’s a little wind to clear the fog. The mendacity or the lack of logic, comprehension, or basic math skills – from the land of Russell, Shakespeare, and Newton – is particularly galling, so here are some quick facts about India’s foreign aid policy and Great Britain’s “aid” to India.
The last time India made an explicit appeal for foreign aid was in 2001 after the Gujarat earthquake. By 2003, the government of India made it its policy, to no longer accept tied aid (aid with the proverbial strings attached). At the same time, New Delhi also wrote off loans for poorer nations, a signal to the world that the times were a-changin’.
There were various reasons for this as former ambassador Mohan Kumar explained in this succinct HT piece, the most important being the nefarious strings attached which would often morph into comments about India’s internal matters. India also took a call to accept bilateral trade from several nations including the United Kingdom.
In 2008, under PM Manmohan Singh the department of economics affair further formalised this policy. The paper made several observations which the good ambassador summed up for us:
1) India wasn't reliant on foreign aid for financing outlays.
2) The economy was strong enough.
3) The government wouldn't accept aid in areas where it had substantial control.
4) Bilateral assistance could be provided by countries to NGOs or UN agencies.
5) Because of debt servicing the idea was to reduce foreign aid.
6) There was a shift in sectoral focus from infra, social sectors to health, education.
7) Aid was skewed in favour of some states over others.
8) Most were loans instead of grants and there would be a preference for multilateral sources instead of bilateral sources.
These principles have guided India's foreign policy regarding aid and has been tested several times during Kerala floods in 2018 and more recently during Covid and there was absolutely no departure from the guidelines laid down by the previous regime. On the balance of things, during Covid-19, it was India’s export of vaccines that helped much of the world including Great Britain, as former Prime Minister Boris Johnson explained gushingly at last year’s Hindustan Times Summit.
Next, is the £2.3 billion figure that has been repeated ad nauseam on X, mostly by poor dregs clearly hoping to dredge upon a little pie from the moolah that Elon Musk is sharing. The figure is most probably from the UK aid spending watchdog ICAI and consists of the following: 441 million in bilateral aid, 129 million in development investment, 749 million through multilateral organisations and 1 billion in investments through British International Investment (BII).
The same report notes that the nature of aid is very different and serves as tool for UK foreign policy and diplomatic trade objectives with the goal to create a stronger bilateral relationship. In simpler terms, they are an attempt to get on New Delhi’s good side.
This can be further seen by the effort put in by various UK Prime Ministers, including Boris Johnson in the past and Rishi Sunak currently, to cobble together, as soon as possible, a free trade agreement with India and with good reason. In September last year, India surpassed Britain to become the fifth biggest economy.
To put it in simpler terms, it’s easy to understand the chagrin of some of the subjects of our former colonial overlords. It can’t be easy to live in a world where you go from waging wars to sell opium to seeing your former subjects surpass your wealth.
As Durga Das, the HT Editor (who would surely have a wry smile looking at the outbursts from several Britishers) when India won Independence wrote memorably in 1947 in a piece titled Journey’s end — beginning of another (which can be accessed in this special limited edition): “Coming from a class-ridden British society, the middle-class Englishman found fulfilment in playing the aristocrat in India, the proper middle-class man in playing royalty, and the aristocrat in building up his family prestige.”
Sadly, the middle-class Englishman will have to find their fantasies of being an aristocrat somewhere else. That gravy train ended in 1947 and 76 years later, by becoming the first nation to land on the south side of the moon, India has clearly shown that its fate and future has soared far beyond its former colonial overlords’ whims and fancies.
In fact, it’s even more remarkable considering the alacrity with which India has achieved such a momentous feat after being left effectively beggared by a 1000-year of subjugation (again borrowing the words of Das).
It's not nice to have the shoe on the other foot, but for us Indians, it’s fun to imagine the scowl on Churchill’s face if he could see the people, who he thought ought to die in famines because they bred like rabbits, reach the moon.
All the whining is a little more ironic because a month earlier, the first ever satellite mission from UK soil (operated by American Virgin Orbit company), which was billed as “major milestone for UK space” ended with the rocket dropping in the Atlantic Ocean. Maybe, when they are done celebrating, the smart chaps from ISRO could help out?
But I digress. Rudyard Kipling argued one must meet Triumph and Disaster and treat both imposters the same but since the literary skill of the average Britisher seems to have taken a dip over the years, I’d leave them with a more earth-like slogan that was particularly popular during World War II but to paraphrase it a bit, with a little French in the end: “Keep calm and________.”
The views expressed are the author's own.
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